Banshee’s keeping their existing mountain bike lineup intact, but four of the short- and mid-travel full sussers get much refined frames that they say drop around 400g.
New, lighter tubes that are more heavily hydroformed saves most of that weight without losing any stiffness or durability. New dropouts with two positions still let you adjust the geometry, but that’s down from three positions. The upside is that the frames and dropouts have been tweaked to let you run Boost or non-Boost wheels, possible because the brake post mounts are on the dropouts. And on the 29er models, that means you can also run 27.5+ wheels and tires.
Above is the Phantom, which gets 105mm rear wheel travel, other models go up from there…
The Phantom’s top and downtubes show the shaping that’s been put on all four models shown here. The differences between the 2016 models and these 2017 editions are more dramatic on the Rune and Prime, but they all get updates.
Gone is the gusset connecting the down and top tubes, and the gusset on all of these bikes’ top tubes that connected to the seat tube is much sleeker.
Various dropouts let you run the various axle and wheel sizes, just make sure you’ve got a Boost chainring if you’re going that route in order to keep the chainline optimized (and clear of the tires).
The Prime has 135mm rear wheel travel and 29er wheels.
The Spitfire bounces through 150mm on 27.5″ wheels.
The Rune pushes that up to 160mm, also on 27.5″ wheels. Check it all out at BansheeBikes.com.
ORANGE
Orange is testing a new mid-longish travel trail bike called Strange. Two versions are being pounded through the trails, the Strange 135 (135mm travel rear/140mm travel fork) and the Strange 150 (150mm travel rear, 160mm fork).
The tubes are monocoque but with folded sheets that are then welded on the bottom as opposed to being formed into two halves like a Foes. Benefit is really good strength and they say it’s lighter than hydroformed tubing because they have more control over how much and what material ends up where.
The two bikes are very similar, using the same front triangle, but the rear swing arm is longer on 150, and the shock gets a longer stroke. Same eye to eye, just more travel. The rear needs the extra length to allow rear tire to come up and not hit the seat tube.
The bikes are in early prototype stage. No final pricing or specs are available. Even the geo might change, and they may or may not produce both.
Assuming they make it to production, you’ll have a wide range of colors to choose from.
