Last year at Eurobike the German suspension engineers of Bionicon rolled out minor updates to their on-the-fly adjustable enduro bike. That revised pneumatically adjustable full suspension enduro mountain bike was a first preview of the new rEVO. Now that bike has another summer’s worth of even better updates, including everything from their new, smoother ClimbAir adjustable suspension system to a new fork, and even a lighter frameset with more tire clearance for plus-sized tires. We run down what all has been updated after the break…
Bionicon ClimbAir adjustable suspension
The heart of the new rEVO is of course still the adjustable suspension concept which had been called simply the Bionicon System, pneumatically linking the fork and rear shock. Push a button and it allows air to move from secondary air chambers in the fork to the shock, dramatically changing the geometry of the bike (on the order of 5° of head & seat angle change, while essentially keeping bottom bracket height unchanged) allowing it to climb more comfortably than an XC bike and still descend like a DH bike.
Bionicon has overhauled pneumatic system on the new bike, renaming it ClimbAir. While the basic function hasn’t changed, the secondary chamber on the rear shock gets a redesign for faster system response. The overhauled air cartridges now better allow the adjustable suspension to move independently with smoother operation overall.
The basic Horst-link suspension of the rEVO doesn’t change, carrying over the option to run either 160mm or 180mm of travel on the same frame, with different rocker links.
The bikes do get an all new single crown X-Fusion Metric air fork, though.
Tech updates
The aluminum frame itself gets some good updates as well, with a redesigned tapered headtube. Bionicon reshaped the rear end to improve tire clearance, taking it Plus-size to clear a 2.6″ rear tire. Thanks to a trimmed down seattube, all but the smallest size frame can now run a long 150mm dropper. Even with the wider rear & slightly longer toptubes, the new alloy frames all shed a few grams thanks to overall detail optimizations.
Going forward the rEVO simplifies Bionicon’s line-up, replacing all previous models. Now the bikes are all 27.5+, all Boost, and all swappable between the two travel lengths.
The alloy bikes use a tapered internal zero stack 44/55 headset, a 30.9mm seatpost, and a 73mm threaded bottom bracket. The rEVOs use 148×12 rear spacing, get ISCG 05 tabs, and feature 180mm post mount brakes. The frames use fully modular external cable routing for pretty much anything you can imagine (including front derailleurs), plus a seattube port for stealth dropper routing.
Specs & geometry
The Bionicon rEVO is now available in three versions, each with 160mm or 180mm of travel. You can even get one without the ClimbAir setup, although that really is the standout feature of the bike. Each bike gets 30mm internal rims & DT hubs, X-Fusion suspension, and descent-ready Maxxis rubber.
The bikes come in four frame sizes S-XL. And in three standard colors – black or blue anodized and raw brushed silver. The lightest rEVO 0 claims a weight of just 13.5kg (29.8lb) in either travel, and gets its own special paint jobs.
Bionicon is making moves to get the bikes sold more through local bike shops. They’ve already inked a distribution deal with a big German company who is working on getting the bikes into more shops around Europe and beyond. Until then, they’ll still be happy to take care of you from their Tegernsee HQ, at the base of the Alps.
