- This is the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, California.
I'm gonna hunt out some new mountain bike tech.
(upbeat music)
We're at X Fusion Shox, and is this ultimate adventure bike.
You've got a shovel mounted to the front,
I'm not sure what that is.
Got a chainsaw on the back.
It's an e-bike.
Get you out into the wilderness,
and chop some trees down.
So we're over at 9er Bikes,
and this is their Rip 9 RDO Long Travel 29er,
it's 150 mill on the back, 160 up front,
29 inch wheels obviously.
Also fits 27.5 plus.
And this is the Colorado edition,
so it's got this Push shock on the back,
both of these companies are Colorado based.
So we've seen quite a few gravel bikes
here at the Sea Otter Classic.
And this is the 9er RLT 9 RDO.
RLT stands for Road Less Travelled,
so it's a full carbon frame,
got the mount on the fork to fit a rack
for any sort of bike packing you want to do.
They've actually removed this brace
from the seat stage to make this bike more compliant
on those gravel roads.
It's currently got 35 mill tyres on,
but fits up to 40 mill.
There are a lot of gravel road in Colorado
where 9er are based, and this is a bit of an experimental
bike, this is full suspension mountain bike
fitted with really thin tyres and drop bars.
What do we think?
(upbeat music)
Look at this lovely retro bike from 1992,
this is a specialised M2.
Obviously 26 inch wheels, cantilever brakes,
seven speed set, three speed up front.
Look at the stand on it.
Thumb shifters, very cool, classic bike that.
Specialised red, with the gold FSR.
Original suspension fork.
But now, take a look at this brand new,
specialised Epic Hard Tail,
with those retro design as well.
That same colours, gold fork up front, red frame.
29 inch race bike.
So what are the main differences
with a new cross country race bike?
Well, actually, it looks a lot bigger.
Slightly shorter stand on there,
I've seen carbon fibre, you've got disc brakes,
it's now one by 12 gears.
(upbeat music)
Oh.
(ripping)
I'll take that.
Check out Gill Kintiner's Red Bull battle helmet
in those Red Bull colours,
but also loads of really cool artwork on there
that Gill has actually designed herself.
So this is Kogel, and they specialise in ceramic bearings.
They make bottom brackets
for every single different size.
Jockey wheels that spin forever.
And this is their very first eagle jockey wheel,
so that big 14 tooth.
They also make the first ever sealed ceramic bearing
for off road use.
So this is the brand new Merin Wolfridge trial bike.
It's 160 mill travel, 29 inch wheels,
the really interesting thing about this bike
is it's nailed react suspension system.
It's got a cross link and a slider,
look at that.
I've let the air out the shocks
to show you how that moves and how it works.
So most suspension systems on mountain bikes
are actually designed around motorcycle technology,
the difference with this, it's designed
around a mountain bike from the ground up.
And it lets you run 40% less dampy in that shock,
which gives you really good small bump compliance,
so that real wheel sticks on the floor,
but also really good pedalling efficiency.
(upbeat music)
Vita have a full range of fat bike tyres.
You got this massive five inch white tyre there,
down the range to this big slick tyre.
Probably be quite for Blake on the dirt jumps, that.
Spot Bikes are based out of Golden, Colorado,
and they've been around since 1999
making single speed and belt driven bikes.
But last year, they made their first
full suspension mountain bike.
And this is their brand new Mayhem.
29 inch wheels, 130 mill travel bike.
So this system's got two links,
much like the VPP or DW link,
where obviously you've got this composite leaf spring
in there, and that takes away that bearing
that's in a susceptible place for mud and water,
and it's also really stiff.
This is the Alchemy Arctos full suspension bike,
just look at it, it's absolute amazing, that.
Carbon fibre weaving there,
gold, and it's using this Sine proprietary
suspension system, designed by the same guy
who designed the VPP and the Switch System on the Yeti.
So this Sine almost acts like a sine weight,
in the suspension schematics,
so it's regressive to the sag point,
and then progressive afterwards.
Over the Kona stand they've got couple
of really cool pro bikes.
Still covered in dirt from the events.
This is Aggie's bike from Rampage last year.
Really small frame, suit operator.
Look at the size of that front tyre, 2.8 inches.
And this Connor Feron's bike from last year world champs,
still covered in dirt, again.
It's got this really cool sort speckled
Aussie coloured paint job, yellow and green.
It's got a Long Lift chainsaw sticker on there.
Very cool.
Adventure bikes are really popular
here at Sea Otter, and this is the Kona Remote.
You've got all the usual racks
to carry all your stuff, it's a hard tail,
27.5 plus.
Another rack for your chainsaw,
it's getting pretty popular as well.
But this is an e-bike.
And I think this is actually,
to me it seems like a really great use for an e-bike.
It's just for getting out there into the middle of nowhere.
You can carry 15 litres of beer on this one.
Sounds like a good adventure.
Intense have some very cool custom bikes on their stand.
I recognise this one from 1995, Sean Palmer.
Black and red.
Some of his snowboard sponsor stickers on there.
John Tomak, that was stickered up as a Giant,
it's actually rode for Giant,
but Road Intense stick it up as well.
Lee Donovan from '98,
and this is Dean Lucas' from last year, 2016.
Now this is a first,
the Canyon stand at Sea Otter.
They're actually launching the US
in August, September this year.
And they've got a load of cool pro limited bikes
on their stand.
This is the Joe Barnes Spectral,
a 140 mill travel bike.
Got a Justin Leof Strive here,
the 160 mill travel enduro bike.
The Sender, we'll Troy Brosnan on one of these this year,
also seen one of these adapted
to be ridden by Martin Ashton himself.
We've got the Luxe CF ridden at the Cape Epic
by Jeremiah Bishop,
and we've Albon LaCarter's Hartel Dineff.
That's it for the first tech video from Sea Otter,
but your eyes peeled to the channel.
We're puttin' out a tech video every day
this weekend from Seat Otter.
So I'm gonna scour the pits for more cool stuff.
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