Ellsworth was showing a basically production-level prototype Evolve Carbon 29er full suspension bike. While they haven’t hyped it publicly, it’s available now in Medium with either 100mm or 120mm travel by changing the rear end and shock.
Tony Ellsworth said the frame uses special internal tooling to get a full 300psi compaction even in the subtle and not so subtle angles and tube shaping (detail pics below). It’s a pretty good looking frame in person and it, along with the alloy 650B Epiphany they had on hand, showed a few frame changes that’ll carry over to more models in the future.
The Evolve Carbon keeps alloy chainstays because Tony Ellsworth says their new ones are as light or lighter than what he could do with carbon and are super stiff. A bonded in alloy BB30 bottom bracket sleeve maintains tight tolerances. Retail is $3,000 for the frame, and they’ll have three trim levels available next year. Frame weight is right around 2kg (claimed) with shock. Medium frames are in production now, Small and Large will run soon. Available in October.
There’s a lot of shaping, recesses and ridges throughout the front triangle to increase stiffness.
Epiphany 650B is in production now, look for frames in October. It’s 140mm rear designed for a 150mm fork. Comes stock with the carbon shock stay and 12×142 rear axle.
The new alloy chainstays on these bikes are now asymmetric and use a wider bearing placement at the front end. Tubes are tapered, too, to keep ’em lighter. On the right are the new chainstays, which shows the wider spacing. On current alloy frames, a wider pivot axle and spacer spreads them out from the seat tube. On the Evolve Carbon, the tube is simply wider to sit flush with the chainstay.
Another view.
Complete bikes start at $5,395 with X9, frameset with shock is $2,995.
Ellsworth makes wheels, too, and says they’re working with Stan’s NoTubes to license their tubeless bead hook design for 2013. We’ve liked how wide and lightweight their rims are when we’ve ridden them, but they’re so wide they do make it a bit more challenging to set up tubeless (they make a Stan’s kit specific to their current rims, but we haven’t tried it). They may add a 650B wheelset to the line, too.
