Canada’s Devinci cycles has made their stance clear – bigger wheels are the future of MTB racing. At Crankworx Whistler Bikerumor checked out their new Wilson 29 DH bike, and today Devinci announces the 2019 Spartan 29.
The Spartan enduro bike hasn’t just grown to 29” wheels, it’s also moved to another new standard – Super Boost 157mm rear spacing. The 2019 complete bikes will come with carbon or aluminum frames and several different build kits to choose from. Devinci is also offering framesets in both carbon and aluminum.
The Spartan 29 features the Split Pivot suspension platform, which Devinci has favored for some time now. However, while re-designing the frame to fit the larger wheels Devinci also improved upon the Spartan 29’s suspension dynamics and increased its lateral stiffness. The new Spartan frames come in either full carbon or 6066 T-6 aluminum with carbon seatstays.
The 29” Spartans don’t sacrifice any rear travel versus the 27.5” models, offering 165mm of squish with 170mm forks up front. The rear shocks are all metric, trunnion mount types and the frames can accommodate coil shocks if desired.
The other significant change for 2019 is the Spartan 29’s Super Boost 157mm rear spacing. Devinci decided to go to 157mm because wider rear ends can accommodate wider tires and larger front chainrings while keeping the chainstays short. Recently Knolly gave us plenty of detail on the perceived advantages when they applied Trail 157 spacing to their Fugitive 29ers. Click over to that article for more info on why wider might be better, especially with bigger wheels.
Frame geometry is identical between the carbon and aluminum models, and the geo is adjustable between Hi and Lo settings. The full chart is below, but here’s the key numbers: Seat tube angles are quite steep at 76-76.5 degrees, steering angles are a slack 65-65.6 degrees, and the chainstays were kept short at 432-430mm. For reference, the reach on a size medium frame is 445 or 453mm depending on the geo setting.
As for other frame details, the Spartan 29 uses a threaded BB (carbon and alum frames), and can run up to a 38t front chainring. The rear triangles will accept up to 29×2.5” treads. The carbon frames include fully internal cable routing, but the aluminum models are mostly external save for Stealth dropper post compatibility. All frames come with a bash plate on the downtube and integrated chainstay protectors.
The Spartan 29 is dropper post compatible, but depending on your chosen post you’re limited on the aluminum frames to 100mm droppers on smalls, 125mm on mediums, and 150mm on large/XL frames. The carbon frames can accept 125mm posts on smalls, 150mm on mediums and 170mm’s on large and XL sizes.
2019 Devinci Spartan 29 Carbon bike specs
There are four build kits available for carbon frames, check the graphics below for complete specs and pricing. The carbon models come in Matte Tectonic Red (above) or Gloss Green (below).
2019 Devinci Spartan 29 Alloy bike specs
The aluminum Spartan 29’s will be offered in two build kits, and the frames come in Matte Black/Blue.
The Spartan 29 will also be sold as a frameset. The carbon framesets include a Rockshox Super Deluxe RC3 rear shock, an FSA headset, a seat clamp, and a Rockshox Reverb Stealth dropper seatpost. The carbon framesets will sell for $3,369 USD.
The aluminum framesets come with a Super Deluxe R rear shock, FSA headset, seat clamp and a TransX dropper post. MSRP is $2,169 USD.
