They’ve been rumored among fans of the Canadian brand Devinci, and now we’ve got the first official look at their all-new carbon Atlas (above) and Dixon mountain bikes.
Both frames drop significant weight – The Dixon Carbon has a 1207g front triangle versus 1411g for the alloy one. The new carbon seatstays save another 145g (295 vs 440), for a frame weight total savings of 349g, or about 0.77lbs. The Atlas 29er went from 1396g for alloy down to 1109g for the carbon frame, saving 287g. It retains the alloy stays.
Both bikes keep the same pivot locations and geometry, so anyone stoked enough on this can upgrade their front triangle and ride off happy.
The frames are stiffer than their alloy counterparts, but it’s a tuned stiffness, putting it where it’s needed with different plies and layups so that ride feel isn’t sacrificed in the name of ultimate stiffness.
Devinci’s David Regnier-Bourque, marketing director, said some of the stiffer test mules would lose traction on the front because the fork wasn’t stiff enough to keep up. That sounds counterintuitive, but the key is finding the right balance so that the fork’s activity is translated properly to the rider and letting everything work in harmony.
Both frames have routing for a dropper post (or shock remote). Oh, and both come with their lifetime warranty.
The Atlas 29er is a 110mm bike that generally comes with a 100mm fork. This may sound unbalanced, but we’ve been testing the alloy Atlas and it’s an amazing bike that feels almost bottomless. And not unbalanced in the least.
Even so, they’ll also offer the Atlas Carbon RX with a 140mm fork for getting crazy. It’ll get slacker, but you can run an AngleSet if you want to fine tune it more than their swappable Intelligent Link system will allow (it offers a 0.6º change in head angle).
The size Large came in at 17lb 27lb 12oz. They’ll offer small, medium and large in the carbon frames, no XL.
The Dixon is a 135mm travel bike that comes with either a 150 or 160 millimeter fork depending on model. It gets a new version of their Intelligent Link system that changes BB height and head angle without affecting wheelbase.
With the alloy bikes, you have to flip chips on both the the inside and outside of the seatstays. On the carbon bike it’s just one chip on the inside.
The complete bike with Reverb seatpost came in at 29lb 11oz.
Another big change across the entire line is that all of their full suspension bikes (all use the Split Pivot design) change from Fox shocks to Rockshox Monarchs. David says the new CTD shocks provide damping that isn’t needed with the Split Pivot suspension, so they switched. You can still expect Fox forks up front on the higher end models.
Look for first ride reports soon!
