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EB16: Orange shows prototype trail bike; Banshee refines, lightens mountain bikes

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2017 Banshee phantom mountain bikes

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…

2017 Banshee phantom mountain bikes

2017 Banshee phantom mountain bikes

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.

2017 Banshee phantom mountain bikes

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.

2017 Banshee phantom mountain bikes

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).

2017 Banshee mountain bikes

The Prime has 135mm rear wheel travel and 29er wheels.

2017 Banshee mountain bikes

The Spitfire bounces through 150mm on 27.5″ wheels.

2017 Banshee mountain bikes

The Rune pushes that up to 160mm, also on 27.5″ wheels. Check it all out at BansheeBikes.com.

ORANGE

Prototype-Orange-Strange-135-aluminum-trail-mountain-bike04

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).

Prototype-Orange-Strange-135-aluminum-trail-mountain-bike01

Prototype-Orange-Strange-135-aluminum-trail-mountain-bike03

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.

Prototype-Orange-Strange-135-aluminum-trail-mountain-bike06

Prototype-Orange-Strange-135-aluminum-trail-mountain-bike05

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.

Prototype-Orange-Strange-135-aluminum-trail-mountain-bike08

Prototype-Orange-Strange-150-aluminum-trail-mountain-bike09

Prototype-Orange-Strange-150-aluminum-trail-mountain-bike11

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.

Orange-cycles-paint-color-options01

Assuming they make it to production, you’ll have a wide range of colors to choose from.

OrangeBikes.co.uk

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Carlos
Carlos
8 years ago

“Strange” isn’t the model name, it’s the sub-brand (for want of a better word!) that Orange uses for prototyping and pre-launch models.

Matt
Matt
8 years ago

“they may or may not produce both”

excellent!

bearCol
bearCol
8 years ago

Banshee was smart to offer the drop system they do. They’ve been doing it for quite a while now. I assumed they would only do that until all the standards settled down but that time may never come? The Rune loosing a pound puts it top of my new frame list! Spitty rocking 150mm and a diet is in the mix too. Seems there’s little separation between those models now?

keithbanshee
8 years ago

There must have been a slight missunderstanding with the spitfire… it’s sticking at 140mm travel for MY17.

contrarian
contrarian
8 years ago

Hoping to see the frame weights in size large for the new Banshees. I’ve always wanted a Phantom but was turned off by the 7.5lbs+ frame weight. Felt like the Phantom was a trail bike with AM/Enduro frame weight. Sub 7lbs would be fantastic. Many folks are running 29+ on the Phantom with 650b dropouts, now if only Banshee offered shorter dropouts that shortened the chainstays on the Phantom and Prime into the low 430’s when running 275×2.8 in those frames.

Willis24
8 years ago

Really hoping Orange offers the 135 and I wouldn’t change a thing!

stiingya
7 years ago

Posting this cause I would like to save someone else the experience I’ve had.

If you visit another popular mountainbike website and are a Banshee fan you might have seen this.

2017 Banshee Spitfire frames are now arriving at Dirt Merchant Bicycles!

That was posted almost a month ago. I inquired immediately, first thing is I wanted to know is when I’d get the frame. Below is what I was told.

The first batch of frames will start shipping to customers Feb 13th….I can get a frame reserved with a $500 deposit. (Note it doesn’t say a non refundable deposit.)

I replied that, “if I could get it shipped to me on the 13th I’m in”. They took my deposit, and was told they’d get back to me with an update next week.

Lets just skip to the end, there were no updates unless I messaged to find out what’s going on except for one. The one where they ask me to give them the remainder of the purchase price so I could get the frame 3-4 days earlier.

I reply, 3-4 days earlier than when? (because I’ve gotten no firm answers at this point) And I specifically point out that I just read of some guys experience where he waited a really long time for a Banshee frame and I was getting frustrated with the whole thing.

Again, no answer to the “when” question. I’m told I’ll get it shipped directly to me and it will be three days earlier. I’m not happy, the communication has been a bunch of crap IMO. But I say that’s fine thinking it will be any day now. (he had in a recent response to one of my inquires said “any day now”.)

THEN, I realize it’s the 13th… There they are asking me for more money to get my bike 3-4 day’s earlier like they are doing me a favor when the frame is already late per our agreement… WTS…?

But, I tell myself to chill, I look at the pictures of the new bikes! (some dude has a large black 2017 built up and posted on here and it’s the most bad ass looking bike EVER!) And for the next four days I make sure to check my messages and my Paypal multiple times during the day to look to see if there is an update. Then Thursday night I decide I’m done. I e-mail that I want to cancel, I’m fed up with the lack of communication, and I’m not happy that the 500.00 magically appears to be non refundable… (I’m sure there was fine print someplace when I sent the money, still…) NOTE< paying an invoice through paypal leaves you with no recourse. Better to say no to that and call them up with your credit card info. Because if I gave this information to my bank I think they'd reverse the payment in a heartbeat…

Only AFTER that message saying I want to cancel do I get a decent update on the shipping situation and a forwarded e-mail from Banshee USA saying what's going on. I'm told that it may not be, "acceptable, but this is the industry norm". (This isn't my normal experience, and "if" this really is what a shop thinks is the industry norm than I guess they have no reason to complain about loosing out to online retailers)

But at this point I'm pissed off with the whole thing. I don't want to deal with a shop that's not up front. What happens if I get a lemon/bent or damage in shipping, etc, what happens if the Spitty cracking issue hasn't been solved or the new bearings end up creating a new issue, etc. There hasn't even been a real test of a 2017 Banshee yet…? I don't want to be dealing with this shop for a warranty situation after all of this… there's no way I'm going to feel like I'm going to get fair treatment now? (nor obviously after posting this!)

So I reply that I still want to cancel. I point out that their shop is the one that advertised frames "arriving now" back in January. It's not Banshee's fault they are misrepresenting their stock levels. Or that they are not up front about the shipping situation or the actual terms of the deal.

So then I get a message last night that does have clear specific information. Bout time.

BUT they will not cancel my order. OK, I was kinda expecting they weren't going to based on the last message.. MOST IMPORTANTLY to this whole story is that then the guy points out to me that he has other interested customers in the frame. But that he's not letting me out of the deal because it's, "not that late". (and if their would have been good information all along than I could see their point)

SO, it's not that he couldn't sell it to someone else, give me my money back and all of us could be happy and go on with our lives. But NO, HE'S GOING TO KEEP MY 500 BUCKS OUT OF SPITE…?

So I could have just admitted defeat, kept my mouth shut paid the rest of the money and hoped for the best. But for one, it's a bunch of BS. And two they need to get called out on how they are marketing these frames. It's one thing if they are upfront that the timetable is just a guess. That the 500 dollars is non refundable. (If the first thing that happened is they said they couldn't be sure of the 13th and about the "no refunds" before taking my money I'd have nothing to complain about here other than their lack of communication/answering specifics.)

But had they been upfront, I'd have most likely NOT put in my order. WHICH is probably the honest reason why they are not up with information…?

anyway, buyer beware. If you still want to buy from that shop than good luck! I hope your experience is better…

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