Looks like Ritchey’s expanding their steel mountain bike collection with the new Timberwolf. It’s not the first time it’s been spotted, and we’ve pieced together a few details from comments here and there. Word is it’s designed for a 140mm fork, which means it must get a tapered headtube…and from the looks of these pics, it’s a beauty of one, too!
Other early information includes a 67º head angle / 71.5º seat angle, 180mm rear rotor post mounts, 30.9 seat post and QR/12×142 convertible dropouts. The pic above shows it on the trail with 27.5×2.35 tires, so it’s got clearance and it’s 650B. This pic and the next popped up on their Facebook Page over the past couple days, but then an anonymous tipster spotted it headed out for a ride, giving us a much closer look at the bike…
Note the very smoothly curved headtube, among the prettiest we’ve ever seen. It was introduced with the updated P650b and P29er shown at Eurobike.
Tube shapes are similar to the P29, with a slightly curved downtube to improve tire clearance under full fork compression.
Since it’s a prototype, we’re not sure if the top-and-bottom cable routing along the top tube will make it through to production. Either way, good to see they’re making accommodations for front and rear derailleurs, rear brake and a dropper seatpost.
Getting dual dropouts is a good move, particularly for a bike aimed at the bigger hit crowd since most wheels made to take that abuse are coming with thru axle setups outta the box. If we had to guess, this thing could pop up in final form at NAHBS in February. More as we get it!
