The UCI World Cup DHI is underway in Lenzerheide this weekend, bringing with it new bikes, suspension, wheelsets, tires and extra. Certainly, a number of frames will make their World Cup debut this Saturday, with prototypes from Deviate, Mondraker, Intense, Pivot and Dice all being primed to shine at their respective pits.
Right here’s what we’ve seen to this point.
New DH Tech at UCI Lenzerheide World Cup
Deviate Cycles has produced a 190mm journey variation on the Claymore, particularly for Lachlan Blair who will pilot the bike this weekend. Whereas the model’s enduro bike runs 165mm of rear wheel journey, this downhill rig boasts a brand new hyperlink to spice up journey by 25mm.
The entrance triangle and swingarm aren’t equivalent to these seen on the Claymore, although we’re informed they used parts of the Claymore molds to provide them, solely with extra carbon across the BB area to extend power at this key location.
For the second, the model has no plan to carry a DH bike to market, however we’re informed if the demand arises, it’s one thing they might think about.
Danny Hart‘s prototype Dice 215 is working a large floating brake arm for the primary time. The brand new excessive pivot design was raced by the workforce final season with out such a contraption. It’s designed to isolate rear wheel braking forces from the motion of the rear suspension. The bike’s BB cluster s overbuilt to make sure it might probably take care of the added stresses from braking. Arising, we’ve an entire Professional Bike Examine with Danny himself.
Certainly, Danny’s bike is dwelling to what seems to be an all-new downhill tire from Schwalbe. Alas, the new patch has been sharpied-out. After all, it should run the Addix Tremendous Mushy rubber compound as revealed by the purple stripe; aside from that, you’ll be able to infer what need from the tread sample.
Loic Bruni‘s prototype Specialised Demo is seemingly unchanged to that we noticed in Fort William final month. If something, the quilt is ever so barely extra revealing this time; we are able to see what seems to be a big most important pivot positioned instantly behind the chainring.
Given the shear measurement of the chainstay on this space, there needs to be one other hyperlink pivoting about it decrease all the way down to drive the rear shock. Is it potential that Specialised is hiding a brand new linkage design that enables for a majority rearward axle path? I suppose, we’ve to attend till they’re able to uncover this yet another absolutely.
Whereas Finn Isles’ iteration of this prototype bore a material to cover its linkage and shock space, Loic’s has this relatively extra robust-looking 3D printed shell. We infer that the 2 riders are working completely different shock varieties – coil versus air – and that certainly one of these covers permits for extra airflow, which is in fact crucial for cooling functions.
As ever, Loic is working a distant on his handlebar that probably permits for digital lockout of the Ohlins suspension. Appropriate me if I’m mistaken, however I feel that is the primary time we’ve seen greater than two buttons on this location, suggesting Loic could have entry to a 3rd set of predetermined damper settings on-the-fly.
Over on the SRAM tech tent, we noticed a bunch of forks ready their flip for a service. There on the left is probably going a brand new RockShox Boxxer, the stanchion measurement of which actually appears to have grown from the 35mm rocked by the manufacturing fork. We now have seen a variety of race groups working the brand new downhill fork this weekend, together with Trek Manufacturing facility Racing.
Smack bang in the course of the above “Needed” lineup is what seems to be a brand new single-crown fork from RockShox. The closely machined crown offers it away. If certainly that’s the fork at full extension, we hypothesize this may very well be a light-weight model of the RockShox Pike path fork.
BYB has created a smaller, lighter telemetry system particularly for the Madison Saracen race workforce. Matt Walker’s mechanic, Ewan Collier, confirmed us how the system is fitted to their prototype Saracen Myst; right here, it’s neatly tucked away behind the quantity board. Cables run internally by the body to the shock.
Large Manufacturing facility Off-Street’s Remi Meier-Smith will probably be piloting the recently-released 2023 Large Glory this weekend. Sadly, Luke Meier-Smith has damaged his collarbone and gained’t be racing this weekend.
Intense has introduced an all-new prototype to Lenzerheide; this one is to be raced by Joe Breeden. By way of its linkage design, it’s radically completely different to Intense Manufacturing facility Racing’s bike of 2022. Whereas that bike bore a four-bar structure, this one will get a six-link design. Aaron Gwin’s mechanic, John Corridor, tells us that, as in comparison with the earlier model, the brand new structure permits the engineers to cut back the variety of compromises made across the general kinematic.
The brand new bike has two development settings as decided by the decrease shock mount place on the driving hyperlink. Joe Breeden runs the bike within the progressive setting with a coil shock. Dakotah Norton additionally runs a coil shock, however with the linkage configured within the extra linear setting.
We’re informed the brand new Intense will make it to manufacturing by 2024. It’s extremely prone to retain the 6-link structure raced right here in Lenzerheide, however will see some barely completely different tube shapes. John Corridor additionally tells us that the manufacturing bike will retain the two-position shock mount to permit clients the liberty to fettle as per their choice. The bike additionally has a 56/56mm head tube to permit loads of adjustment in each attain and head angle.
Sadly, Joe’s and Dakotah’s workforce mate, Aaron Gwin, broke his arm/elbow in a crash yesterday, and can due to this fact not be racing this weekend – see his assertion on Instagram.
Over on the Santa Cruz Syndicate pit, Greg Minnaar‘s mechanic was working away on the eighth iteration of the V10 Downhill Bike. Particulars on this one are extraordinarily skinny on the bottom. in different Syndicate workforce information, Nina Hoffmann didn’t full her Qualification run at the moment after injuring her knee in a crash. It’s unclear whether or not or not she’s going to line up for semi-finals tomorrow. Fingers crossed she will probably be OK to race!
After all, we didn’t overlook to swing by the Pivot and Mondraker pits, each of which had all-new prototype frames in wildly differing states of undress. Extra on the Mondraker right here, and extra on the lugged carbon Pivot right here.
