The Bird Aether 9A is a 130mm travel hooligan that will take a 200mm dropper

The Bird Aether 9A is designed to smash trail centres all day with an efficient 130mm travel platform and modern, but not aggressive, geometry.

Bird has made a name for themselves producing well thought out, well priced and great performing bikes with progressive geometry. The Aether 9A follows this tried and trusted formula but with a trail centre twist.

The Aether 9A, A for alloy, has been designed for tackling trail centres and built features in the woods rather than smashing down the face of a rocky wilderness trail. With this in mind, Bird based the 9A around a short travel suspension platform producing 130mm of travel for a nice balance of pop and pedalling efficiency. Offered in sizes Medium to XL, with a nice Medium Long option thrown into the mix, each size of 9A rolls on 29in wheels and runs a short 430mm rear end for maximum fun.

Each size is designed with a short and straight seat tube offering riders the maximum amount of standover available. The Medium size frame, for example, runs a 395mm seat tube yet it will happily accept a 200mm dropper post with full insertion. Both the Medium and Medium Long frames have been designed to run the Bird 200mm dropper and lots of thought and consideration has gone into the design and cable placement to ensure it all works. The Large and XL framesets offer more room and will run a 213mm Bike Yoke post with full insertion.

Speaking of the seat post, Bird wanted the Aether 9A to be a true trail centre ripper meaning that it isn’t just for pumping and hopping but also covering distance in a comfortable and efficient manner. The seat angle on the Aether 9A starts at 77.1 degrees on the medium frame and is adjusted slightly through the size range to 76.9 on the larger frames. The head angle is 65-degrees, based on a 29er 140mm fork, which ensures snappy handling and a shorter wheelbase.

Bird Aether 9A Geometry

Bird Aether 9A Pricing

Bird generally offers its range of bikes in a number of different build kits with options to upgrade or fine-tune your complete bike to get it just how you want it.

The Aether 9A is no different with build kits available with RockShox or Fox suspension, SRAM, Shimano or Hope and tons of great own brand and big-name parts options. Because of the huge variations in builds there aren’t any fixed prices, but Bird does say you could build an Aether 9A for less than £2500 which is impressive given the level of thought gone into this frame.

For more details of the Aether 9A head over to the Bird website.