German bike maker Alutech has already had a couple of generations of their Sennes DH bike, but up until now it had maxed out with 27.5″ x 2.8″ tires. But the bike designers had been pushing for years to get more long travel bikes rolling on wagon wheels. Their 150mm travel 29er Tofane enduro bike was their last stepping stone and showed that 29″ wheel and tire options were finally up to the gravity task. Now we’ve seen other 29er DH concepts for many years, but can’t think of any other that have gone into production as a 29″-specific bike, and that’s what is in store here. Starting in under a week’s time Alutech will have the new 29er Sennes up on their website ready to order direct. Until then check out the details below the fold…
Details on the new 29er version of the Sennes are limited to the medium-sized bike, which will get a 204mm travel alloy frame just like its 27.5″ predecessor. The current bike comes in 5 sizes, so expect about the same out of the larger wheeled version.
Geometry wise the move to 29″ wheels comes with a 1.5° slacker headtube, out to 62° with the same 42mm of fork rake,and gets a longer toptube up to 458mm frame reach. It also gets more bottom bracket drop to 16mm to accommodate the higher position of the hubs off the ground. That still put the BB 11mm higher than 27.5″ bike. Chainstays look to be a bit longer (and are still adjustable) but line up near the longer position of the smaller wheeled bike at 445mm. Overall wheelbase grow for the same sized bike by almost 5cm to 1269mm for the size M.
There aren’t any real options for a 29er-specific downhill fork, but thanks to the giant rubber usually strapped around DH wheels, the 27.5″ Fox 40 that this bike is built up with offers respectable clearance at the arch with the 27mm internal e*thirteen TRS wheels and 2.35″ tires. Clearance at the fork crown is pretty tight when the 203mm fork is bottomed all the way out, but hopefully you don’t plan to spend large amounts of time that far down in the travel, so the fork should work fine.
Other than updated geometry of the 29er bike, the frame looks to mostly share the same Horst-link 4-bar suspension, construction, and detailing as the second generation 27.5″ bike. The front end of the main triangle does look to get stretched out a bit, and maybe the headtube shrunk a little bit as well to accommodate the slightly higher front end of the bigger wheel.
Total bike weight as shown here is said to be 14.6kg/32.2lb with a pretty high-end build. Pricing hasn’t been officially released, but expect to see frame & fork right around 3000€.
