Hey everybody welcome back!
If you go to any mountain biking discussion forum you're gonna find at least a couple of topics
talking about this: cheap Asian manufacturers.
My box came from Singapore and no, this is not a set of wheels which is usually what people get,
this is a carbon frame, a full suspension carbon frame from an Asian manufacturer, why don't we check this out!
And I'm gonna start by saying kudos to Trifox, that's the manufacturer,
because they send me this frame for review with no strings attached.
They just send it to me so I can experience it like any one of you and just give you my honest opinion.
So let's get to it!
And the very first thing that I noticed was the weight, or the lack of weight of this frame and the hardware attached to it.
And as you can see it comes pretty well packed or wrapped I should say.
And if you thought about a Scott Spark when you saw this you are not alone,
this is actually a Trifox MFM100 it's what they call it,
manufactured in Asia a full suspension cross-country rig.
Cross-country bike that just like Scott Spark is gonna have the shock upside down installed here,
can be installed with a 100mm shock that's 165x40,
but if you install this with a 165x45 shock
you can build it up with 115mm of travel
so God forbid, you can build this one as a Downcountry rig?!
Shock mounting hardware is included and it's held in place by this spacer.
At the bottom you have room for a trunnion mount shock
and you also have these two bolts included in the package in case you are going for trunnion mount shock.
And this is a line for the remote if you install this as a cross country rig.
Torque value for these bolts or pivots is written right on them which is very convenient,
and they're fairly low, 12 Nm being only for this main rocker pivot.
The seatstay bolts are installed from the inside, 10Nm again
and I should have called them flex stays because that's the design of the swing arm of this bike
just like the new Stumpjumper or the new Transition Spur.
What that means is that you have one pivot point down here, second pivot point connecting to your rocker
but you don't have the third pivot right here and the seatstays have to flex by a few degrees
as the suspension moves up and down.
And talking about this little rocker, this is made out of aluminum, no fancy materials here,
and sometimes it's made out of one piece. In this case it's made out of two pieces,
one on each side connecting the shock to the rest of the swing arm.
Rear brake caliper is Post Mount, it's going to be installed here inside the rear triangle,
and the hose is going to come out on the inside, that's a pretty common design these days.
Frame is providing enough clearance for 29 x 2.35 tires
and this is how much space is left here next to the chainstays,
there's quite a bit more room around the tire up top here on the seatstays.
Boost 148 spacing in the rear, the thru axle is provided as well.
You also get a derailleur hanger that gets installed fairly easy, it doesn't come installed from the factory.
It is held in place by this tiny bolt and then it's gonna be secured in place with the thru axle.
On the drive side you're gonna see the routing for your derailleur cable,
it's coming out right on top of the chainstays which is something that I like because it works well with both Shimano and SRAM drivetrains.
Back here to the middle of the bike you can see that hose coming out of the chainstays
it is going to go underneath the bottom bracket and come back inside the down tube.
This is internal routing for all the hoses and cables for this bike
and also here you're gonna see the PF92 bottom bracket so it's press fit not threaded,
something that I've never had issues with, I don't know, what's your experience with PF92?
The seat tube, you already have a line coming up here for internally routed droppers,
this is a 34.9mm seat clamp which is not provided, 31.6mm diameter seat post.
However because of this main pivot over here you don't have a lot of room
to insert your dropper in the frame.
In fact this is the maximum I could insert this seatpost into my Medium frame, and that is less than 7 inches or about 17cm.
But keep in mind that every dropper has an actuator at the end of about 2cm,
so you pretty much have about 15 cm maximum insertion of your seatpost in this M frame.
And I passed by this extra opening here and it didn't mention it for you.
That is separate from the one for the shock remote and I think it is for Shimano DI2 installation.
That might be giving you an idea of when this frame was designed because
here at the bottom, this is not only downtube protection
but underneath here, if you use a 2.5mm hex/ Allen
you can slide this protection back and underneath you have a holder for DI2 battery I believe.
Otherwise you're gonna see the inside of the frame and it's not much to see over here.
But you can see the routing for the housing and the hoses going underneath the bottom bracket.
It's going to be interesting how this works because they are not affixed here at the entry or exit points in any way,
they're just going to be fixed here at the back in case of the brake hose,
and also up here at the top but I don't know yet if this is going to pinch the cable and hold it in place.
And talking about that yes, all these hoses or cables are routed internally through the frame
but there is no tube-in-tube here, so these are flapping around on the inside.
That's usually not the end of the world because Jagwire is giving us this Internal Housing Damper,
which is a tube that goes around the hoses and cables that you run through the frame
so you make this completely silent.
And talk about the downtube, there is no other protection here, highly recommend to install a film.
And you can see this matte black finish which is actually nicer than I thought,
with the shiny Trifox logo printed right here on the downtube.
The only paint imperfections that I noticed are here around that seatstay chip and that is consistent for both sides of the bike.
You have 2 ports on each side of the headtube which is something that I love because I can run my hoses whichever way I want,
you need a 2mm Allen or hex to remove that bolt,
and then you can lift up this port cover that is made out of aluminum I assume.
And talking about the headset, this is tapered and fairly short at 95mm for this Medium frame,
and it does take internal headsets so IS headsets,
you can see the top bearing sitting right in there, this is 42mm diameter,
the bottom bearing is 52mm diameter, I'm gonna put a link for a headset like this in the description of the video.
And not much else to see here on the drive side of the bike aside for clearance for your cranks.
And this chainstay is actually built fairly flat
so I would be surprised if the maximum you can install here is 34 teeth, that's what's specified on their site,
but if you look here this is fairly flat so I think you can install whatever chainring you want, probably even a 36 or a 38T.
And if you're looking for ISCG 05 tabs well, there's none to be had over here,
so there's no chain guard or bash guard that you can install on this frame.
Inside the front triangle you have the two bosses for a bottle mount,
by the look of it you can install a full-size bottle in here no problem.
The weight of this Medium frame is supposed to be 2250g, it is 2173g on my scale
but you'll have to add a seatpost clamp, you get to add the derailleur hanger and the axle,
and that brings it up to 2255g which is pretty much spec.
And don't worry about that cable cutter because I zeroed my scale with it.
So not bad at all for a full suspension frame, obviously you're gonna have to add the weight of the shock to this.
And I kept calling it cross country or down country bike, but what about geometry?
And if you look at the seat tube, this is a 74.7 degrees so it's not too too slack but not too steep either,
Head tube is at 68.5 degrees which is kind of modern for cross country, not the latest but not bad at all.
If you look at the chainstays, these are 438mm across the board for all four sizes,
again kind of standard for a bike that is supposed to be good at pedaling.
Top tube, important for pedaling position is at 600mm, my Yetis are around 604-605mm.
But if you look at the Reach here, this is 442mm which is the same with my new Yeti ARC,
so geometry is fairly modern and definitely look at sizing before you decide which one you need.
Buying the frame from their site gives you 3 years warranty
and you can pick the size obviously, and one of the few colors that they offer.
I really like the look of this stealth black though and I am planning to build this as a bit more of a Down country bike
with 115mm travel in the rear, and a 120mm fork.
Have you ever used cheap Chinese carbon frames?
I know a lot of people have tried hardtails but what about the full suspension?
Have you ever used Trifox carbon frames?
Let me know what you think in the comments below.
I hope you found this useful and as usual don't forget to like, subscribe, comment,
and until next time, hope to see you folks on the trails.
Cheers guys, cheers!