The American Eagle Flow, an XC full-suspension follow-up to their Atlanta hardtail is finally ready. Back at the start of the year we heard solid rumors that the carbon full-suspension XC bike, raced by the Bart Brentjens MTB team had been racing as early as last fall’s World Championships was “coming soon“. Originally slated for springtime availability, the team has been racing production bikes on the World Cup this season. And now consumers are set to get a taste of the new bike as well…
Updated with geometry figures!
American Eagle Flow 100mm carbon XC mountain bike
This bike was certainly no secret, having been openly raced on the world stage. But now it is finally here, and the bike gets a name – the Flow.
Every cross-country racer could use a little extra flow in their ride, right?
By the way, do you see that two-part seatpost clamp that actually clamps the 34.9mm seattube in the lower half, and clamps directly onto the 31.6mm seatpost itself on the upper half? That is a nice little detail for preventing seatposts from slipping without using too much force, and could be a great solution to keep a dropper post sliding smoothly!
Tech details
The new Flow shares a similar mixed mid & high modulus carbon construction like its hardtail stable mate, with a claimed bare frame weight of 1840-1870g.
Anyone who has been following the bikes of the XC World Cup is likely to notice some strong design similarities with the Scott Spark RC (currently our most-featured pro XC bike, in large part to its winning ways and being raced by the two current elite World Champions.)
The overall front triangle profile of the new 100mm travel Flow is quite similar to the Spark, but gets a more round tube shaping, and more sculpted joints. The Flow does also feature an offset downtube to clear the fork crown, a 1.5″ tapered headtube with internal headset, and a modular cable port on both sides of the headtube to route shift & brake lines, as well as a stealth dropper post & rear shock remotes.
The rear end of the Flow is more distinct, with a looped chainstay to seatstay connection that hangs the Boost 148 axle on a carbon plate extension below the stays. This dropped chainstay design (on both ends) seems to allow the engineered flex in the one-piece swingarm to more mimic a true four-bar suspension design rather than what its actual single pivot layout would suggest. It also provides more room on the non-driveside to tuck the standard post mount brake caliper onto the chainstay.
The Flow is a high single pivot design, optimized for 34-36T chainrings. The frame is configured to be 1x only, with no provision to mount a front derailleur (or a chainguide for that matter), and gets a PF92 bottom bracket.
The Flow uses a short two-piece forged alloy rocker link (that looks very similar to the Spark’s carbon rocker) to drive the inverted shock, while the frame is designed to accommodate a trunnion mount at the lower shock mount. A large cable port in the pocket under the shock allows for direct cable routing into the frame for a remote lockout.
The frame also includes an extra cable port in the top of the downtube, just in front of the lower shock mount, as an alternate routing port to control a different rear shock, or to route Fox Live Valve wiring.
Flow Geometry
The Flow will be offered in three four stock frame sizes (S, M & L, and potentially yes an XL later). Geometry hasn’t been made public yet (we’ll add it here when it is made available). We’ve got geo now, and it is still an XC race oriented bike with a super steep seattube, but not as steep a headtube as expected. This isn’t intended to be another ultra long, low & slack XC trail-inspired bike, but an XC race-focused rocket. That said, it does benefit from a more modern 68.5° head angle, and about 2cm longer reach than the hardtail.
Flow pricing & availability
American Eagle tells us that the new Flow mountain bike will go on sale globally this week in their typical frame-only options. Including the DT Swiss shock and lockout a frameset will retail for 3200€. The carbon frame alone, without a rear shock will be available for 3000€ (making that DT shock a steal! That also makes the frame-only just 300€ more than their hardtail.)
No complete bikes are expected in the immediate future (although completes are in the pipeline), so for now it will be up to you to spec out your own XC race bike.
