Ever since Niner upped the fork travel on their RKT9 RDO bike, they’ve been spec’ing the Fox 34. Yes, it was designed as an XC race bike with 90mm rear wheel travel and a 100mm fork. But dealers, because customers, wanted a “trail” fork on it, they (along with other brands offering similar full suspension cross country race bikes) began shipping bikes with 120mm forks. But that added weight to what was supposed to be a lightweight race bike. No bueno.
So, about a year ago, Niner spoke with Fox, got the color chips, and started work on this new colorway for their Niner RKT9 RDO. Now, you can get the complete bike in Fox’s gloss orange factory paint color.
Switching to the new Fox 34 Step-Cast 120mm fork dropped half a pound from the bike. We asked Niner to weigh one, so they threw a 5-Star build on the scale and it came in at 23.8lb (10.8kg, size medium, no pedals, tubeless with Stan’s sealant inside).
The paint scheme is available on all of their models, from the 1-Star build up to the 5-Star build, but only the 3/4/5-Star builds come with the Fox 34 SC Factory forks. The lower two models still come with Fox 34 Rhythm forks. Available for order now, expect the new bikes to ship in May as forks become available.