Hello!

Looking at a Rallon and only finding Matt Wragg’s review on the interwebs….

Any other opinions out there? Fox or BOS shocks? Know of any demo bikes hiding in the United Kingdom?

Cheers

I’ve been coveting one of these for a while.. the guy from BasqueMTB on here has had one on test and appears to love it (according to their FB feed)!

I’m keen to know quite how well it climbs..

My LBS in San Sebastián has a couple of demo bikes he’s keen to get customers to try. If you fancy a holiday 😉
I keep meaning to give it a go but I’m scared I’ll like it…

The guy from BasqueMTB here 🙂

I’ve been riding one the last six weeks. I like it a lot and have done about 70km vertical and around 1300km on it so feel like I have got pretty intimate with it. Couple of niggles with the BOS stuff, a lever fell off the shock and I can’t get an answer from them about replacing it. I rode the fox version too and liked that. The bike is just great, it’s fast and long and low. Took a bit of getting used to how low it is, even have a broken toe to show for it, but it adds so much to the handling of the bike I wouldn’t change it. I’m running in the lowest setting still, even with a toe hanging off 🙂

Climbing. It’s good. Chances are I do more pedaling than most so I find that most bikes go up hills when I want them to! The Rallon is stable and has great traction. You need to lockout switch on the bos shock mainly to keep it sat up or it is too slack for climbing steeps. It is just a baw hair over 30lbs so good weight. I know most bike manufacturers say their bikes are that weight but we have scales hanging in the trailer and let’s just say the Rallon is lighter than most!

Does that answer any questions? Happy to answer more. I get free test bikes but am pretty honest! The last Rallon I didn’t like and gave back. The Occam 29er I love.

Cheers Doug, thats what I was interested in! Thankyou for the quick response. That is most of my questions answered and glad you’ve confirmed its character. I’m tempted to stay away from the BOS as I’m not fond of kit that doesn’t work when I want to go riding.

Any bearing replacement faff at all? My last full suspension bike had an unfortuntate shock bushing replacement schedule, I’m hoping things have improved since.

I’d love to go to San Sebastián for a test ride, its a bit out of the way but I can see the incentives! Cheers for the info.

I’ve got a 2013 Rallon, so probably not massively relevant. I got it in a sale from global bikes.

It is lush. For the money it’s light, fast and plush. I love it. It’s well made, frame is a thing of beauty. Makes me happy when I ride it.

Top of the Preselis on Saturday.

No issues with bearings for me and I´ve probably racked up a year´s worth of descending for most people over the last few weeks! The bearings look fairly easy to change but like I say they are still perfect.

I have one and I love it. Only had it for 3 weeks but it puts a smile on my face everytime!
My old bike was a Cannondale Prophet and I notice no difference between climbing on that and the Rallon (using strava comparisons). I have done a big day out in the hills and it got up the steep landy tracks fine.
I do notice the extra length on the tight techy climbs but you get used to it.
I have it in the higher setting at the moment because I found the low setting too low for the local trails. The front end wandered around too much when climbing in the low setting.
Going to the Alps this summer though and it will get put in the low setting then.

I had a shot of a Demo one for a week before I bought mine. Contact your local dealer and they should be able to sort you out.

Cheers for the feedback folks… The Orbea website seems “optimistic” about local dealers in Bristol but I’ll do some homework here.

Looks like a great bike and the prices seem good value. It’s just a shame they’ve made it look so ‘euro’ 🙂
The raw prototypes look great.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clmTy0epXyc[/video]

Hey Neil, just a quick update for you. I was happy to be riding the BOS and Fox bikes back to back this week, on some pretty varied terrain. I could try and describe it to the Nth detail but basically they were both good. Maybe the BOS was a bit nicer, it was definitely faster, but the Fox was great and maybe a bit smoother on the small bumpy chatter. Fox CTD worked great, good difference between the settings and felt about right to me. The BOS “lockout” lever has fallen off my shock and they aren´t replying to mails so it was nice to have a “climb mode” on the Fox shock 🙂

Alex, Euro bike in looking Euro shocker eh 😉 The bike has nice lines I think, paint job is OK in the flesh. That´s based on only having a black´n´white one!

Alex, Euro bike in looking Euro shocker eh

I know, but they didn’t have to go all ’80s foreign exchange student’ on us 🙂

I’m sitting waiting bouncing off the walls waiting for mine!!!!!
I did only order it a week ago.
I rode Cultsdaves demo X-team when he had it. Really liked it even though it was a little big for me.

I’ve ordered it with BOS kirk rear and fox forks, wanted the deviles but couldnt bring myself to pay £460 to upgrade from the fox floats

Great pic 🙂

It really does look like a properly setup am bike. I live in the same area as Doug and I ride with locals from here, two of them have just bought this bike.

I may have to test it out…

I got another Rallon yesterday and have been out on it pretty much non-stop since. Thought those of you watching this thread might like to see it. I have had a few versions and sizes while I waited for the one I wanted to become available so I guess not many people have ridden as many variations as I have!

Full specification is:
Orbea Rallon Frame in FLURO (and I mean FLURO) yellow. Medium size.
Mavic Enduro wheels and tyres
BOS Kirk and Deville bouncers
Shifting done by shimano XTR
Raceface Next SL double + bash crankset
Formula T1 brakes
Reverb Stealth
Raceface SiXC 760mm bars
Raceface Atlas 50mm stem

It weighs in at 30lbs more or less dead. I have ridden all the specs and all the sizes now! This is the one I will be riding all season and I’m delighted. It’s worth getting the sizing right, the S was cool for me to ride but it’s only when I got on the M that I really felt perfect. Strangely enough it feels more different to 26 when I tested the slightly larger size. Weird but true! I’ll do a full review for my website at sometime in the future but am always happy to answer any questions.

I saw that D&D Cycles have a demo one. People who come out here can always try mine.

Just out of interest then.. what height are you Doug?

I’m 5’10” more or less.

I’m tempted to stay away from the BOS as I’m not fond of kit that doesn’t work when I want to go riding.

In my experience, BOS damping is far better than Fox. Reliability seems to be on par with the competition. The problem comes when you are unfortunate to have something break, It can be hard to get hold of BOS spares.

Nice!

Good job you didn’t have that day-glo monstrosity for this picture (which is absolutely brilliant BTW – took me ages to work out the perspective)…

Thanks a lot chapaping! I’m going there next week and thought about restaging it with the new bike 🙂 yeeeeeeelloooooow!

Mine!

Don’t see yours cultdave… Unless it is waaay more stealthy than mine!

Finally got mine, it’s just been out in the Basque country too

Sweet ride.

Hopefully see it in action in the lakes soon.

Thread resurrection time! I´m getting loads of people mailing me with questions about the Rallon, which is cool because I can sign them up for my mailing list 🙂 (joking!). It prompted me to put down some thoughts on my website, maybe people who are following this thread are interested in what I found. I´m also happy to answer any questions, I´ve been riding one Rallon or another for the whole season.
Orbea Rallon V4 Review: basqueMTB

Doug thank u so much . This is what I have been meaning to ask you and cultdave ( you both have one ) for the past week !
I had the the boss demo bike and loved it . As you said in your review I to have come to the the same view on my 1st ride ( also the lever was missing so was unable to try it in the climb mode )
Only thing I was not sure was on the long term use of bike / shock !

So I have have chosen to go with the kirk rear and pikes up front on the base model ( bike shop very helpful )
Only problem I have is the colour? Demo was the black & white one but unable to to view the fluro in the flesh ! But from your pics it looks real nice 😆

So thanks very much for posting this tonight

I will get it ordered

Pikes up front and kirk in the Rear works for me!!!! Swapped out most of the running gear off my old bike. I changed the wheels too as i was pretty sure the mavic 819’s are made of cheese.

The Geax tyres are S##TE. Nice easy rolling but really thin alot of granite near us mine are in the bin already with massive tears.

No worries, glad it was of some use! The Fluro is by far my favorite color. Might be worth posing where you had the demo because people are always asking me where they can demo one. D&D cycles have one too I think.

Nice! It looks great with the Pikes.

Thanks Doug. I was one of those asking questions. Great write up.

Cheers Normal Man! I’m always happy answering questions about any of my bikes. Let me know if you don’t like my spam newsletters 😉

It is fine by me Doug. (I’m the one who recently got back from Portugal BTW)

I got the demo bike from there obrea rep ( midlands area and bike shop is sherwood pines )
He is a top bloke and very helpful and knows his stuff .

I also will swop a few parts around from new as it seems the best way of doing it .
Liked the black&white with yellow wheels but seems a bit under coloured with the black rims ( to me )

Feckinlovebbq how long you had one and where abouts are you ? Does the pikes feel balanced with the kirk ?

I’m up in Aberdeen. I’ve had it since July. Done a couple of long days in the hills but mostly local trails. No issues so far other than the tyres. I work 2 weeks on 2 weeks off though so if your looking for long term reliability there are alot of people on here that have used theirs more than me.
Pikes with kirk is a really nice set up (but then in the tradition of single track forum, that is the set up that I have there for it must be the best solution).

Thanks FLB was it on time after you ordered it (around 3/4weeks aim told )

Mine was about two weeks after i was told it would be arrive.

Was it one you driving your yellow Rallon around on the roof of your black Audi in the North West yesterday afternoon?

Saw one while go by while out for a road ride close to home.