We caught up with Jolanda Neff at the Nove Mesto World Cup where she was racing a then protoype of Kross’ new Earth full-suspension XC mountain bike. Now with the XCO World Championships looming in Lenzerheide this weekend, Kross have officially pulled back the curtain on the new bike as Neff attempts a repeat win to claim another year in the rainbow striped jersey.
2019 Kross Earth TE 100mm carbon XC race mountain bike
We’ve had a thorough look at the new Kross Earth – from an exclusive Bikerumor Sneak Peek during its early days as a 3D printed prototype to its first World Cup podiums sporting the new XTR M9100 groupset.
But now that Kross has officially unveiled the upcoming 2019 XC race bike, we have a few more concrete details.
2019 Kross Earth Tech Details
At the core of the 100mm travel carbon bike is a single pivot suspension design with a pivot-less, one-piece rear triangle, and optimized for a low leverage ratio rear shock.
Kross calls this ESPS – Efficient Single Pivot Suspension – a design that they engineered in-house to efficiently balance anti-squat & pedal kickback thanks to the high pivot placement aligned with the single chainring and the small carbon rocker driven shock.
It is also interesting to note that Neff’s new bike that she will race at Worlds has chopped of the high mount front derailleur tab (vs. her Nove Mesto bike), suggesting that the production model is likely to be 1x specific. That makes sense with ESPS clearly optimized for the most efficient performance with the single 36T ring that Neff races. But it also drops the ability to use the Ceteec HDM chainguide that she previously had mounted to her race bike.
Kross claims a weight of 1850g / 4.08lb for the Team Edition carbon frameset in Neff’s size Small.
As we’ve seen before the 29er race bike features a 1.5″ tapered headtube, Boost 12x148mm rear thru-axle spacing, internal cable routing, including for a dropper post and shock lockout (or Sideswing front derailleur still?), trunnion shock mount, a flat mount rear disc brake.
2019 Models & Availability
The new Kross Earth is slated for availability in early 2019 to coincide with the start of cross-country racing season. What we now know is that it will be available in four complete bike models – most likely topped by a team edition replica like Neff is racing this weekend dubbed the 2019 Kross Earth TE. Coming down from that made-in-Poland top-level carbon bike, the remaining three bikes will include both carbon and aluminum framesets that all feature the ESPS design and share the same carbon rocker link.
