Niner Bikes has been a long time supporter of IMBA, creating special edition bikes and including a one-year membership with the purchase of any new bike.
The latest effort also happens to be Niner’s first full suspension IMBA special edition with a yellow on black Jet 9 RDO. And this particular one has a full XX1 group donated by SRAM and built with Niner’s cockpit parts. It’s at Sea Otter Classic, and anyone that joins or renews their IMBA membership onsite is entered into a raffle to win the bike! The drawing is this weekend, and after that eight more IMBA frames will be auctioned online to raise money for the trail advocacy group.
More pics of the bike plus some sneak peeks at new components coming from Niner after the break…
Not everything here is new, but we picked out the bits we hadn’t seen before:
The new Niner Trail stem will come in 50mm and 70mm lengths. It’s forged alloy with custom shaping to match the tube shaping on their bikes, particularly the new Rip 9 alloy. Available now, will be online soon.
The Lowtop handlebars get a mustache style bent shape with reversible 1″ rise or drop. It’s really designed for shorter riders to help them get a lower, race ready position.
They bend forward first, then sweep back at a 17º angle. Rise is 25mm, and they run out to 720mm wide with cut marks down to 660mm. May availability.
Setback RDO Post gets 20mm offset and will come in all three diameters and 400mm length. Niner’s RDO seatposts use an “unstiff” design to allow a bit of flex, making them a very comfortable seatpost.
The new RIP 9 alloy bike uses a heavily air-formed shape. The process allows more complex tube shaping and better control over wall thickness. Above, this let them use a single-piece seat tube with a squared off shape and “bubble” to hold the bearing section for the rocker arm.
Compare that to the black frame in the background with a welded on pivot location.
The top and downtubes had more angles and tighter edges, all of which improves stiffness.
Nifty dual hose/cable guides on the top tube.
The real trick piece is the key’s pivot bolt that also serves as one of the mounts for the ISCG 05 guide. The ends of the red piece are cut to slide into a shaped (keyed) hole in the frame. This keeps the red bolt from spinning.
