SEA OTTER CLASSIC 2010 – Rocky Mountain has revamped their Slayer lineup, with the new model replacing the Slayer SXC with a lighter, faster and stiffer model.
The new Slayer gets their Smooth Link suspension with 165mm rear wheel travel, modified Straight Up geometry and a plethora of modern day updates to make it a very capable freeride bike. Part of that capability comes from being designed to go up as well as down, and RM’s surrounding marketing materials made a very big point of how well this thing climbs. Their Straight Up geometry normally puts the seat angle about about 76º, but since the Slayer is definitely a gravity-oriented rig, they’ve relaxed that slightly to 75º. With sag, this puts it inline with standard seat tube angles so that you’re weight and position is properly angled for good climbing power and traction.
When the trail turns down, the 66.5º head angle keeps steering stable and predictable for bombing down steep and gnarly sections. More pics, specs and pricing after the break…
The front gets a tapered headtube and thru-axle fork, pretty standard nowadays on anything over 120mm travel it seems, and this bike’s already making good use of Easton’s new lightweight, all mountain Haven group for the bar and stem.
The cable housing is collected with a little velcro wrap that will come on production bikes, too. Not visible on the drive side is a “granny sandwich” between the frame and granny gear to keep the chain from dropping off. The front derailleur is an E-type that’s mounted to the bottom swingarm rather than the seat tube. This helps keep things in line throughout the travel. It also has ISCG mounts for Hammerschmidt.
The rear axle uses Shimano 142 spacing with replaceable dropouts so that it doesn’t thread into frame. This prevents the whole rear triangle from being damaged if you totally flop that drop. Cable guides run along the top tube for a drop seatpost.
Three models will be available, all using the same frame. The 30 will retail for about $2,900 and come in around 32 pounds, the 50 for $3,600 and the top-end 70 (black, top of rack) will be about $4,500 and weigh around 29lbs.
Click to enlarge for easier reading.
