Orange Blood

WTF? Where did that come from? Why did noone tell me about “Orange in quite nice bike shocker”?
Anyone ridden one and care to make a comparison with the Nomad/Tracer/Nicolai that it’s presumably pitched against given the rather scary price for a single pivot? Does it go up hills any better that the 5 (I really struggled with it)? Is it as much fun going down as it looks? So many questions! WHY WASN’T I TOLD?

It does look nice, but don’t think i’d get one just because of the price! I’d guess there is much better out there!

i thought they weren’t single pivot

Linkage driven single pivot.

I really want one. On paper its my perfect bike.

seems to have a rear axle pivot

still a daft amount of money.

found on site

We love single-pivot simplicity at Orange, and the Blood is essentially a single pivot with a twist. Without getting too technical, the Blood’s ROCKR-Link is a way of achieving a highly durable 2.5:1 leverage ratio while carefully controlling the shock’s progression to optimise how the frame and shock work together. In practice this means a bike you can pedal, but one with a highly active and fast-reacting back end that delivers a super-supple initial stroke and a mid to end stroke which never shoots through its travel – perfect for those big hits. When it comes to actual rear wheel travel, it’s a triumph of quality over quantity. Ride one – you’ll see what we mean.

yeah. I’m really excited about this bike and it’s on my shortlist for this years new bike purchase. First I want to see one in the flesh, and I want to ride one…

I thought about it but got one of these when they where clearing out the demo stock. The Pariah looks like good value. I think from looking at the Canadian sie that the angles have changed for 2009 so that the head angle is now the same as the Blood.

The blood looks good but it is very expensive for a bike that you would want to ride hard*.

* I must stress that my own riding would be better characterised by the term wuss.

Between BB pivot and drop out, there’s no other pivot. So it’s a linkage driven single pivot.

Tell you what though, from that diagram, it could be just about any other bike of it’s type in the world….. Nothing new is it?

I think the new thing is that its only got 127mm travel at the back but works best with 160mm forks.

You’re missing the point.

It looks nice.

I think the new thing is that its only got 127mm travel at the back but works best with 160mm forks.

127mm is “short” now is it?

Would that be a bit like a Hemlock, then?

Between BB pivot and drop out, there’s no other pivot. So it’s a linkage driven single pivot.

aha, thanks PP.

as a committed HT rider, the subtleties of suspension design have passed me by..

Looks like the Transition Bottlerocket, headangle etc. is about the same too…
Bottlerocket was my last bike, good bike had Totems on it, did a year of whistler and North Shore riding on it in Canada with no problems…

I’ve had a very quick go and the bike feels really good. I know someone who’s riding one as his regular trail bike in Europe, and he swears by it. I’ve heard it climbs well but the relaxed head angle, sturdy front end and sweet suspension mean it’s great downhill. I know a couple of other folk who’ve tried one and raved about it. This is definitely an exciting new bike from Orange, and if you see the frame close up, you’ll see the detail and where the money’s gone. Plus, it is a single pivot and should be as reliable as other Oranges. I can’t fault my ’08 Patriot, but I’m waiting to demo one of these properly asap.

brant 127 isnt exactly short travel 80 is short but for a bike that takes 160mm forks then having a 127mm rear is pretty short. I for one hope we see more bikes like this that can take a beating but have less travel. I dont need a 6″ travel FS bike for most of my riding but there arnt that many bikes as tough with less travel now they are starting to filter through.

Hold on,

“Does it go up hills any better that the 5 (I really struggled with it)?”

How on earth did you manage to struggle when pedalling a 5 up hill? If so, won’t the Blood be equally difficult?

Seriously, can someone explain the advantage of running significantly less travel at the rear than the front please? For the life of me I can’t see the point (HTs excepted..!)
🙂

whats wrong with teh alpine 5?

with teh better shock technlogy do they need to go linkage?

its so overpriced for what it is.

orange fancy themselves as a boutique brand. they should stick to ‘handmade from girders’ and be less elitist i recon.

For that price you’d think Orange could afford to pay spesh for a Horst licence 😕

poddy – My mini DH bike (V.Slack and low) is set up with 115mm rear 140 front – the front can plow DH bike style and the rear will follow anyway, same as a hardtail. less rear travel is easier to flick around, pick up, change direction etc. should pedal better too. short travel rear sus is great for grip but harsh on big hits/rough fast DH sections, biggest downside is that when riding purely DH your feet hurt long before your arms do.

traditionally DH bikes have had more rear travel than front, it’s only now that 8″ forks are the norm they are evening out f&r.

How on earth did you manage to struggle when pedalling a 5 up hill? If so, won’t the Blood be equally difficult?

I demoed one and granted, it may have been because the shock wasn’t set up properly for me, but I found it wallowed about a bit and was a real effort on climbs. I ended up with a Meta 5 which climbs really well, so I was wondering whether the addition of the extra linkage would make the suspension a bit less liable to compress under pedalling and a bit less reliant on shock technology to overcome some of the inefficiencies in their original single pivot design.

And yes, it does look a bit pricey.

Its the same principle as a LT HT but with rear travel it also means (as far as I can tell) that the BB can be lower and they can build the frame lighter as it doesnt have to cope with the extra travel.

I had a brief play on a proto last year. Uphill it was a bit hard work (short TT, inline post, high/slack front end, 50mm stem. abit of layback and some U-turn forks might have made it a little mor friendly.

DH, fookin awesome. Low BB and slack headangle so it carved really nicely. The rear suspension is very progressive – supersupple on the little stuff, but should ramp up for really big hits.

Must admit to being tempted, but Orange’s warranty rep puts me off, and I’d want to do a full day test ride on some big rocky hills to find out how it really climbed. Would be an awesome play bike though.

I should also say – apprently the frame is about 2lb lighter than a BottleRocket (to which it is VERY similar)

More travel on the front than back makes good sense to me, for the reasons GW covers. Why on earth would you want a Horst thingy though – Orange’s pivots are legendary, and by all accounts the Blood’s way plush enough as it is.

Orange dont make great bikes anymore.. Only good bikes..

Old patriots and the vit-ti frames..GREAT BIKES..

That may just be my opinion.

It may look good, but like all Oranges the frame will crack!

GW – Fairy Nuff, seems like a reasonable explanation, thanks!
🙂

Opt1cal – Brycey hasn’t snapped his has he? He’s broken most of the other bits off it, though.

wl – so it’d remain a little more active when on the rear brake (and if done well, pedal better).

Orange frames break, Fox forks break – that’s about the onyl thing I haven’t broken on mine yet…

Maybe the expensive failure is due!! 😉

All bikes should have more front travel than rear*

*just opinion/taste, no facts to back it up at all

kelvin – I take it you haven’t ridden a bike with 8″+ rear travel then?

for me, 7″ of fork travel is the point where amount of suspension travel actually becomes detrimental to the handling of a DH bike. (I have 2 8″ travel DH bikes and run 7″ 888s on one and 8″ Boxxers on the other – but set-up stiffer)

I think cycleworks surrey are taking one to their demo day in a few weeks.

Personally, I’d swap the allegedly slightly more active rear end for a way more reliable, stiff, slop-free one. The single pivots are really ‘communicative’, and once you’re used to them they’re mint on technical descents where it’s great to feel what the back end is doing. I reckon a bike’s overall handling is way more significant than slight variations in suspension action under braking, and Orange handling and geometry always seems spot on to me. Still, each to their own, I guess.

I haven’t ridden any vehicle with 8″+ rear travel.

What are you on about? “comunicative” = noisey, aye? or harsh?
A horst link can be built to be just as stiff as the Blood’s rear end and since it’d have exactly the same No of pivots, how would the Blood be more reliable?
You can “feel” what the back end of any bike is doing infact you can “feel” what the back end isn’t doing on a single pivot design like the Blood when on the back brake over rougher stuff when compared to a decent horst pivot back end. some folk seem to like that, I don’t.
So you’re a fan of Orange? good for you (less choice is sometimes a good thing 😉 but I fail to see how all Orange handling and geometry can be spot on for you when they produce so many different bikes with wildly differing geometry and even pivot placement. 😕

Going back to the original question, I doubt it will go up hill any better than a 5. Probably worse due to the lower pivot and slacker angles (although I’m not sure why you had trouble with the 5 – it goes uphill great in my opinion).

As for single pivots vs other suspension designs, yes they have some limitations, but so do all other designs. Which one’s best seems to depend on which one you have….
Anyway, the differences due to axle path of different designs are minimal compared to the differences that can be made by changing shock characteristics, so maybe people should worry about that first.

Just the handling of the Oranges I’ve ridden seems spot on – Patriots, SubZeros, Five, Alpine 160 and a quick go on a Blood. Can’t speak for the other models, though I suspect they’re all good at what they’re supposed to do. Everyone has their own preference in terms of how a bike feels – all I know is that in terms of regular privateer riders I know and have ridden with, those on Oranges often seem to ride very tricky lines fast and smoothly, even on super-long descents in the Lakes, Alps and Canada (I’m not including myself here – I’m a steady-away kind of rider). Plus, their bikes don’t seem to cause them anything like the maintenance grief that more complicated designs often do for their riders over time. Only going on my experience, but that includes a season guiding, for what it’s worth.

I’ve tried a couple of Oranges and haven’t been keen on the feel of them. Maybe I fall between sizes or the geometry just doesn’t suit me, but I’m always willing to give it another go.