The fact that Dutch bike maker American Eagle are working on a carbon full-suspension XC mountain bike to outfit their pro race team is no surprise. When they debuted the brand with the Atlanta hardtail, there was already talk of a full-suspension bike. But now it seems that new XC racer is just around the corner…
American Eagle full-suspension carbon XC bike prototype
While the Brentjens MTB Racing Team were still competing on their Atlanta carbon hardtails when we caught up with them in the middle of last season, by the time the last World Cups & World Championships rolled around several riders could be spotted on the new bikes. Originally rumored to make it to market in late 2018, the bikes were clearly ready for the team in that timeframe, just not for the rest of us.
American Eagle isn’t exactly hiding the new bike. They are all painted in bright team orange, and you can find photos of it on just about every social media page of their riders – even on the Brentjens Team pages. Details of course remain thin since the bike hasn’t been officially released, but we can garner a lot of details from looking at the race-ready prototypes pre-production bikes…
Many might notice a strikingly similar profile to the Scott Spark (especially since that bike also has a similar orange team edition paint job.) The as yet unnamed American Eagle bike does share a similar single pivot suspension design, relying on frame flex in the carbon seatstays, and a short linkage driven inverted shock.
These prototypes do depart with a few key differences…
The American Eagle features a loop back rear end, and seatstays that grow boxy & deeper as the appraoch the rocker link. The rear rocker pivot on the stays is also eccentric, possibly offering the ability to modify geometry/suspension curves with a flip chip.
The American Eagle frames do include internal routing for their 1x drivetrain, rear brake, a hidden remote lockout for the rear shock, a dropper seatpost in some builds, and what appears to still be a cable exit port for a Sideswing front derailleur. The bikes all get DT RWS thru-axles to go with DT Swiss suspension, and use a post mount rear brake inside the rear triangle.
No concrete date has been set for the new bike reveal (we expect it very soon, now that the team websites are down for an overhaul.) But American Eagle has said that they are now targeting March 2019 availability for the new bike.
