2012 Tomac – Type X 29er, Disc Brake Trace CX Cyclocross Bike & Primer 200 Downhill Rig

Tomac has made the move to cyclocross. In doing so, they’ve kinda sorta committed to disc brakes, too, by offering the Trace CX with both cantilever and disc brake mounts. Shown at Roc d’Azur with only a front canti installed, the frame is 6069 aluminum and includes the fork.

Frameset weight is 1360g all in and will retail for €650. More pics of that, plus the now-official Primer 200 DH bike and a new full carbon hardtail 29er after the break…

UPDATE! We ran into Joel Smith, Tomac Bikes owner, at the airport and got the full details. The Trace CX is concept only at the moment. It’s 135 rear spacing, the fork is full carbon and he’s evaluating demand. Their minimum run is 500 units, so if you’re interested, leave a comment or email them from their website.

Notice postmount disc brake tabs alongside standard cantilever bosses on both the frame and fork. There’s also a pannier mount (we’re guessing) on the fork leg and fender mounts on the frame, giving the bike a more utilitarian, year-round purpose. Word is the rear triangle is quite rigid. Fork is tapered 1.125″ to 1.5″.

One of the challenges of offering both types of brakes during this year of transition as we like to call it around the Bikerumor offices is making the cable runs clean for both types. Tomac’s Trace CX does this with style via toptube mounted stops that’ll hold a full length housing for the rear canti or hydraulic hose for the brakes…when the time comes. And it’s coming sooner than you may think.

The Type X 29 is a full carbon hardtail 29er mountain bike that, unfortunately, we missed when it was shown as a prototype at Sea Otter. Now, it’s out in the wild in final form. The frame is a hi-mod 3K carbon with UD finish, claimed weight is 1000g.

The headtube is tapered with an inset upper cup and external lower. The geometry is designed around an 80mm to 100mm suspension fork.

The top tube flattens out as it moves back and gets really wide, surrounding the chainstays and moving into some flat-ish, thin-ish seatstays. The extended seat tube exacerbates exaggerates how low the standover is and should help keep things pretty stiff laterally.

Despite a massively wide downtube that runs all the way out to the edges, it uses a standard external cup bottom bracket.

Inset postmount disc brake tabs are rather blocky looking and should keep the caliper tightly in place for solid braking power. Check the 3K weave on the insides of the full carbon dropouts.

The Primer was also shown as a prototype at Sea Otter, then one was stolen from Tomac Bikes’ Joel Smith, and now it’s here in final form. Granted, it’s a pretty straightforward, single pivot/single linkage design – and that’s the beauty of it. The Primer 200 is designed to be a budget friendly, race-ready downhill mountain bike that’s lustworthy and attainable. It’s also meant to be easily serviceable with all pivot hardware readily accessible.

The head angle is a World Cup worthy 63º and bottom bracket height is 13.6″. US retail will be just $1,599 with rear shock. Frame/shock combined weight is about 10.5lbs (claimed), meaning you can build it up reasonably light. The headtube is a straight 1.5″, so you can fine tune the handling with one of the various new angle-adjust headsets out (here and here, for example) and it has ISCGo5 tabs built right in. The leverage ratio and wheel path are very similar to the old Magnum 204 that John Tomac raced back in the day.

Tomac Bikes wanted to put out a top quality performer that any downhiller could reasonably afford. By giving them a 6069 alloy frame with Fox DHX shock, we’d say they’ve succeeded.