Mondraker introduced the new Foxy Carbon this summer, essentially claiming the 140mm travel, 27.5″ wheel mountain bike was a quiver of one. But, supposing you like larger wheels, the new Crafty 29er takes the concept up a notch with bigger diameter hoops.
It keeps their Zero suspension design, which floats the shock between two moving links. The rear triangle is one piece to keep it stiff. It also gets their Forward Geometry, putting a longer top tube behind a very short stem. Other than wheels and necessary frame sizing tweaks, the only functional change was a slight drop in rear wheel travel to 130mm. The front end keeps the longer 140mm fork. There’s even an XR version that gets a 150mm Pike.
Other bikes grow to 27.5″ from 26″, spec gets updated and a new fat bike makes an appearance below…
The Crafty’s retail prices range from €2,690 to €3,090 to €4,090 and are alloy only for now. If we had to guess, a carbon version will pop up for 2016. They’re looking at U.S. distribution, eyeing a fairly short timeline to make it happen.
The Podium 29er is in it’s third year and is their XC race hardtail.
This is the Foxy Carbon 27.5″.
For 2015, the top level Podium Pro SL gets carbon wheels and an RS1 fork and comes in at €5,890.
At the other end of the spectrum, their Summum DH bike makes the jump to 27.5″ wheels. It also gets a new top tube that follows the same shape and layout of their other bikes. The suspension kinematics were all revised for the larger wheels, keeping the same 200mm travel front and rear.
Fabien Barel won several World Cups with this bike over the years. All of their mountain bikes use a “Forward Geometry” that pairs a longer top tube with shorter stem. The concept was introduced in 2012 and has spread across the entire line, getting some stems as short at 10mm!
The Dune is their 160mm 27.5 bike and gets updated spec and graphics for 2015.
The Panzer fat bike gets it’s name from a WWII era tank and is the first fat bike we’ve seen with any sort of serious forward geometry. It uses the same extended top tube and 10mm stem as the others.
