I’d like to try a sorted 29er, but it won’t be an Orange.
I’m glad they exist, and I’m pleased for those that like them, but they certainly aren’t for me. Give me a bit of extra maintenance for a significant increase in performance any day.

significant increase in performance

Back to back, I’m much faster on a single pivot Five or Alpine Five compared to a £7k Giant reign carbon race bike, or a £5k Specialised enduro 650b.

I don’t know what the increase in performance is.

I said something over on pinkbike, but once you get down to the analysis of the suspension, a simple single pivot can work incredibly well if you put the pivot in the right place and drive the shock from and anchor it to the right places.

Yes, some multi-pivot bikes do some good things with leverage ratio, anti-squat and anti-rise but lots don’t do anything better and many worse than a simple single-pivot.

The main issue with single pivots has been the challenge of keeping the back end stiff enough – but 1x and even Boost helps a lot with that. And we’re seeing a realisation that stiffer isn’t always better.

making the import costs much higher

One of the great redeeming features was “made in England” wasnt it?

Personally speak I’ve often thought an Orane would be the perfect bike for me, with my worrying traits it may be the only FS I could own that’d just sit in the shed dirty and I could get out again at weekends in leiu of my race bike. TGhe Segment then becam the defacto setup. I looked at the 2yo Segments being kncked out for £2300 on the Sale page – £2300 for a 2yo bike.

As mentioned before, my Anthem 29er bearings are gone and in these climes replacements from BETD are £55 plus whatever labour the LBS charges. Now with 120mm Reba and heavier “2nd” wheels it rides OK as a general trail bike. If it died I might look at a Segment, but until then…

As mentioned before, my Anthem 29er bearings are gone and in these climes replacements from BETD are £55 plus whatever labour the LBS charges.

Is it just me who doesn’t find bearings a big deal and certainly not likely to effect bike choice, the bearings on my old trance lasted five years of abuse in fact far longer than the oe rear shock. Mrs kilo has had various ibis for the last seven years ridden them all over the world is crap at cleaning them but never had a bearing seize yet, unlike one bb a dropper and one front brake.

If you like Orange bikes you’ll put in on your list of maybes. Looks and sounds phenomenal. If you don’t you go elsewhere. This is a launch edition model after all. Everything Hope, Fox, Renthal and dependable XT. There’ll be cheaper versions which will be bought and upgraded/replaced over time. There’ll be frame only’s built with donor parts. Each to their own. I love it and probably would pay the £5.5k if I was in the market. I’d rather spend on this than buy a Cruz for the same money with a far inferior build!

I ride a Segment RS which only has the original frame, forks and reverb left in it’s current build!!! I’m always tinkering with new bits/setup. Go figure…

Try it, like it, buy it, change it, enjoy it!!! In whatever form you desire. 😉

Cheers.

Strangely we have a lot of folk come in with a bike like Kilo’s wife’s Ibis claiming the bearings are fine, however when the bike is stripped, the bearings are shot!! And prob have been for some time, but of course the linkage is working great , NOT!!

So probable most multipivot bikes are working well below manufacturers claims, but most folk couldn’t tell anyway, so how they going to tell difference between a multi pivot, be it DW, VPP or an SP ?!!!!

I’d rather spend on this than buy a Cruz for the same money with a far inferior build!

https://www.stif.co.uk/bikebuilder/santa-cruz-bronson-cc-custom-bike/143/

Far inferior there, could even have a full XT + BOS Deville build for less than the Stage 5. It looks like a top bike, I’m just baffled by people trying to justify the £5.5k build is good value compared to anything else on the market. Totally blinded by the sticker on the side.

Those thinking the frame only will be around £1600 like the frames are today, I think you’ll be off by ~£200 when the new pricing comes out. Factor in a shock upgrade, so you get a decent shock and it does become expensive.

The Alpine6 with an X2 is £2170 so no reason to think this won’t be the same.

Kryton57 – Member

As mentioned before, my Anthem 29er bearings are gone and in these climes replacements from BETD are £55

I’d recommend not buying expensive, low quality bearings tbh, BETD’s bearing sets are only one step up from ebay no-names.

catvet – Member

Strangely we have a lot of folk come in with a bike like Kilo’s wife’s Ibis claiming the bearings are fine, however when the bike is stripped, the bearings are shot!! And prob have been for some time, but of course the linkage is working great , NOT!!

So probable most multipivot bikes are working well below manufacturers claims, but most folk couldn’t tell anyway, so how they going to tell difference between a multi pivot, be it DW, VPP or an SP ?!!!

They still perform differently even with tired bearings though, just not as well as they should. Bikes don’t suddenly all become the same after a little wear and tear. But tbh the same’s true of Orange, maybe more so people believe the “UK proof” hype and neglect them even more. I’ve never worked on an Orange that didn’t need new bearings.

Orange full build prices to me seem like they need to offer full builds but would rather sell frame only.

The Alpine 6 frame is £1750 with a RS Monarch Plus R shock so i’d expect the stage 6 frame to be in this region rather than the 4/5/segment price of £1650.

Those prices for the Orange frames is bang in line with Santa Cruz Aluminium frames, Bronson alu is £1699 on Stif.

They look like they’ll be fast. The folded metal doesn’t photograph well, all the recent Orange bikes have looked really good in real life.

So what if they have priced in some margin for the shops, there is nothing stopping anybody shopping around and doing their own build, or even maybe walking into the shop and talking to them about a deal.

So what if they have priced in some margin for the shops, there is nothing stopping anybody shopping around and doing their own build, or even maybe walking into the shop and talking to them about a deal.

No no no! We must have a race to the bottom so everyone can afford to buy new things all the time. Except when it affects our wages, then obviously it’s fair to charge more…

Strangely we have a lot of folk come in with a bike like Kilo’s wife’s Ibis claiming the bearings are fine, however when the bike is stripped, the bearings are shot!! And prob have been for some time, but of course the linkage is working great , NOT!!

Yeah, this is true, my old ibis would need a new set of bearings every 6 months, it would feel mostly fine when riding , but if you take the linkage apart and try and turn the bearings by hand a couple would be siezed and the rest very notchy. Once you put new bearings in the difference in ride was night and day.

That said , the number of bearings in a frame has no bearing (boom tish) on my choice of frame, I just buy what I like the look of.

I’m not in interested in these stages, but the new alpine 6 looks very appealing. Have never ridden single pivot, but I dont believe all the hype of it being somehow inferior to multi pivot designs. I think all sus design is a compromise in one way or another.

Would be very interested to have a go on an alpine 6.

Strange when the wife’s bikes have been in for regular services at a well respected mtb lbs they’ve not said the bearings are shot.
As I also mentioned when the bearings on my trance were shot it was no big thing getting them sorted

Different does not necessarily mean better of course, and I would agree all bikes with bearings need changing probably more than most realise for optimum performance, BUT Often a 4 bar is actually functioning as a Single pivot as the chainstay bearing( very commonly ) is solid, without the owner noticing at all.

Turner bikes went from Horst pivot to chainstay pivot, and even the great and loyal aficionados of the Great Dave Turner struggled to tell the difference, so prob most folk riding bikes haven’t a clue. Fork and shock set up on any suspension design, along with tyre pressure probabably make more difference to the “feel” than the linkage design per se.
One thing for sure riding with the 50 to 01 boys, they couldn’t give a rats arse about the bike suspension designs, they could ride a shopping trolley better than most of us could ride a fully tricked up FS bike of any denomination!!

catvet – Member

Different does not necessarily mean better of course, and I would agree all bikes with bearings need changing probably more than most realise for optimum performance, BUT Often a 4 bar is actually functioning as a Single pivot as the chainstay bearing( very commonly ) is solid, without the owner noticing at all.

No, that’s not what happens- if the chainstay pivot (or any of the pivots) on a 4 bar was solid it wouldn’t become a single pivot- the suspension couldn’t move at all.

It’s just that when you have it in the workstand the forces are far smaller.. But with the leverage of the frame and a dude on top of it, it moves

(try and compress your shock by hand- same thing)

I quite fancy one of these bikes and I can’t explain why…

I think Orange overprice their full build to sell frames in the same way Canyon overprice their frames to make their full builds look even better value.

I see from Northwinds post they’re still doing “saw you coming” upgrade pricing where they charge full rrp for the upgraded part and keep the original part you’ve effectively paid for.

And not a hater, I have a 2010 Alpine160 with coil CCDB (which cost me a grand brand new in 2011).

When I see a thread for a bike I’m not keen on I don’t bother looking at it.
Having tried the Stage 6 in the environment it was intended for I can confirm it makes perfect sense.
It’s a limited launch model and I’m sure the pro, rs and r models will follow soon.
Phil

I think Orange overprice their full build to sell frames in the same way Canyon overprice their frames to make their full builds look even better value.

There might be something in that, but if production really is limited I’d have thought they’d prefer to sell full builds – as they’d then make more money.

I suspect they kind of have two markets, with different sorts of riders buying the frames compared to the full builds.

Canyon are also a pretty big company with close to 600 employees

Just to clarify, my speculation was relating to Orange production & customers.

Canyon are a very different company, I agree.

I would love a frame only to replace my ageing 2008 five, although probably second hand with that price!

I much prefer the way a single pivot rides to the Horst/multi-link bikes.

As many have said, frame only will be comparable with similar on price. I wouldn’t spend 5.5k on a bike but those shocked by the price obviously don’t check high end bike prices often. You’ll be able to spend the same for less Hope and more Eagle if that’s what you want looking at the Alpine 6.

Must admit, with all the stories about stunning value on mail order bikes I had a look at them last year. Can’t say any blew my socks off for being particularly amazingly specced. Codeine looked better value than the Germans from what I remember and all had short cuts. Ended up with a current frame Segment with custom colour and 1×11 new for 2k so thought that was decent value for a bike based on a 1.6k frame.

Haters gonna hate though, which is up to them. I’ll leave them to insist I need nothing more than a HT or that their generic canyon/YT/OnOne will be worth a fraction of the bargain rrp when they come to sell.

Anyone riding a Stage 5 yet?

If you want made in the uk. You could buy two Shands for 5k…

Oh, are shand doing a big full suss 29er? For 2.5 grand?

ontor – Member
If you want made in the uk. You could buy two and a half thousand punnets of strawberries for 5k…

Any ideas on the frame weights of the stage 5/6? Much googling hasn’t revealed anything.

Don’t post very often but I have been reading through this thread as I am interested in the stage 5 . It seem like no one has mentioned oranges resale value which in my experience has always been high which gives you better value for money than most bike brands

Yep, agreed. I have had a 2006 5, 2009 5, 2014 5 29 and now a 2016 Segment. Each time split to sell and it’s not cost the earth to change due to resale value of the frame. Just don’t keep them too long.

Picked up Medium Stage 5 in local shop and they weighed it for me.
Just a smidge over 8 lbs, so not bad for a roughy tuffy bike frame. 😀

Picked up Medium Stage 5 in local shop and they weighed it for me.
Just a smidge over 8 lbs, so not bad for a roughy tuffy bike frame.

Monarch or X2 shock ?

@loftmonkey

Have a read of the new mag, they have a good review in.

blastit – Member
Picked up Medium Stage 5 in local shop and they weighed it for me.

Don’t say who it is or Orange will blacklist them… 😉
Also decimal points exits what came after the 8.__