All-new Niner RLT 9 Steel takes adventure road bikes down a new path

Those prices are insane (outside the 105 I guess, even then its a production steel frame, not custom). And I agree TA on the rear and not front is dumb.

Anyway, I don’t care about price. My questions
1. Where are the rear rack mounts? Are the for/aft stabilizers run to a seatstay clamp? This seems like a weird overlook. Why save the few grams this would take on a steel version of an alloy bike.
2. Where are the front rack mounts? Why does nobody make a carbon fork with rack mounts. Its fully possible and even easy with CF.

I saw one of these at the Niner office last week. There is a threaded piece hidden inside the seat stay bridge. Not sure why they didnt use it for the photos. But its how one of the employees there had a rack mounted. Do people even use front racks anymore? Certainly not offroad I hope. Seems like frame bags are not only the best choice but the safest as well.

I have a new RLT9 frame that I picked up cheap as a shop pro-deal. It is Vietnamese made and is covered by some of the poorest quality paintwork I have ever seen on a bike shop level frame (you can feel the transitions between colors and see where the painter cut the masking with a razor knife as well as thin spots in the white portions of the frame). I cannot see paying $1500 for one in steel if they are built with the same shoddy attention to detail. The RLT9 fork is stiff in a way that is more reminiscent of aluminum than carbon. The geometry is that of an all-roads bike, not CX, and it does rip along pretty nicely on single track.

This new steel model needs to offer a thru-axle for the money and drop at least $200 from the MSRP. There is a good bit of competition in this market segment and SWOBO, All City, and Civilian offer similar bikes for less money. The magic of 853 Reynolds is lost when paired with that fork.

Looks like Niner responded to a few people asking why they stuck with a QR fork. From their Facebook:

We wanted to offer fender mounts on the fork, and our current thru axle fork (found on the BSB 9 RDO) is not fender compatible, so we used the existing RLT 9 fork which uses a QR. All of our steel bikes use a thru axle on the rear to resist twisting of the smaller diameter stays.

Hey guys, no one makes a generator front hub with a thru-axle… which is an important thing on a bike packing bike for running lights or charging things, IMO.

Sliding drops are a must for me, as well as the option to run belt if I so choose. Strikeout for me.

I’M ONLY HERE TO COMPLAIN

@Frippolini:

If two pounds makes a big difference then are you noticeably faster when your water bottles are empty? Two bottles is about two pounds of weight. I also didn’t say guys trained less in ’82. Guys in ’82 had more miles under their legs going into the Tour than guys do today. Keep in mind this was back when Tour contenders were still man enough to ride Roubaix! Also I was comparing the 2012 and 1982 Tours, not the 1980 edition. I chose those years because they were in fact very similar in length and overall difficulty.

Also, again, 2 pounds is a trivial number when you look at overall bike/rider weight. It’s literally well under 2%. You also seem totally ignore every other aspect of performance and just arbitrarily assume lighter is better. I once had a 15.5 pound bike (one of those Giant ONCE frames) that absolutely was slower than my steel or titanium road bikes. I know because I tracked them all over the same hilly loop several dozen times and the light bike always clocked the slowest times. The reason was simple: the steel bike was more comfortable and also handled better by having longer stays for better weight distribution. The less energy you use to combat road shock and vibration the more energy you can apply to going faster. Same reason why 25mm tires at 100psi are faster in the real world than the 18mm tires at 125psi that were common back in the day. There’s more to a bike than just weight (or any other number for that matter!) Arbitrarily saying lighter is always better is just plain stupid and the sign of someone with a pretty poor understanding of how bikes operate.

Sorry but at the end of the day the bike just doesn’t make that big of a difference. I guarantee you if I put you on two otherwise identical bikes you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in two pounds while riding. All the huge performance claims made by manufacturers almost never translate into actually results on the road. This is probably why most pros are incredibly indifferent to their bikes (and no, teams do not get an unlimited supply of free bikes!) I say this having been a race mechanic who has spent plenty of time around pros and their bikes.

@A-Town: “Hey guys, no one makes a generator front hub with a thru-axle… ”

I’d like to see an outfit like Schmidt take that on…

@frippolini, your armchair product development-fu is weak.

if you’re caring about frame weight on an adventurer-tourer, you’re doing something wrong.

I agree with the comments about TA front- sounds like Niner had the fork mounts in stock so they went with the easier option. The bit about the TA rear ‘better resisting twisting of the stays’ sounds like a marketing bullshit to me. I suppose you can upgrade the fork to an Enve or Whiskey in the future if you want TA front fork, but it’s a bit of a missed opportunity.

Regarding the weight of 3kg for the frameset- I totally agree this is quite high compared to other brands. The reason why is unfortunately because of the thru axle rear and tapered headtube all the customers are demanding- had this been regular 1 1/8 and QR rear, the weight could easily be 500g less. Is this progress, I’m not sure, but if you subscribe to the Tom Ritchey ‘stiffness’ point of view perhaps all this is unnecessary.

Sliding dropouts rear, keeps its options open and future proof. I could give a sh@# about front fork thru axle on a road/gravel bike. Pfffft. Whatever. Just give some rear options and front fork options, esp at these prices.

Pros:
1) Reynolds steel
2) Cool pain scheme
Cons:
1) PFBB30
2) Rear rack set up in most of those photos results in poor weight distribution = wheelie machine

@A-Town: Schmidt, SuperNova, and Shutter Precision (which makes the SuperNova hub) all make TA Sino hubs. I happen to have the Shutter Precision 15 TA with 9mm conversion.

@ A Town 15mm Dynamo hubs exist and are great. I have the SP and its every bit as good as the 9mm version on my wifes bike.

I will buy this bike with enthusiasm….once they put fender mounts on their TA fork and spec that instead. I love several QR bikes in my garage and don’t all of a sudden think they are useless because of the advent of TA. That said, no way will I buy a new one. Its antiquated for this type of bike in this age of cycling. Niner???

@dugal – it needs to have the TT and DT to have the 853 badge. Just like every other bike made of 853. The stuff is way to hard to make cs or ss out of unless they are just straight tubes. And the st wouldn’t benefit from being 853, it would just add a lot of cost.

Not a through axle fork, but the AR45 has rack mounts, more clearance, full True Temper kit and is made in the USofA for $100 less
http://cx.cxmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/zen-nahbs-2015-cxmagazine-ayee-img_1206-edit_1.jpg

Besides me who has a RLT9 in this comment section? I have had mine since they were delivered last spring and have put 5000 road/gravel/MTB miles it, including DK200, Anti Epic, 1500 mile bikepack, and putting roadie tires on it the El Tour de Tucson. I will be buying the steel frame.

My only problem with the bike is the wheels. My hub went out after 500 miles and if you replace the wheels you might as well get custom hand builts until the wheel manufactures catch up with the sizing as well as the price. Most people who post assume there is unlimited resources to replace or rebuild, this is not true. Last summer I had to replace the rear wheel because I bent the wheel hauling a BOB (rookie mistake, BOBs are a good tool in the tool kit). On the road it cost me 350.00 and a two day wait to get a 11 speed 32 hole 700c built. Now you can find them everywhere and cheaper.

Another issue is the PF30 BB, not a fan. However, after market Wheels MFG can make this right. Use a 30mm so you can use Sram and with a 30.00 adaptor Shimano cranks.

People who bitch about the paint, well get used to chips. Riding gravel and trails with knobbies means that rocks will go through any protector you put on the bike. That’s why if you go to Niner site you can get scratch and ding paint.

To close, it is a great bike and now is steel makes it even better.

@John – Or you could adjust your brakes so they dont make noises…I used QR and disc brakes for years on my MTB and never had an issue like you describe. But I also know how to adjust disc brakes and install a front wheel.