An eagle-eyed anonymous reader sent in several great spy shots of a prototype BH XC mountain bike from the weekend’s SuperPrestigio MTB race in Ancín-Antzin in the north of Spain. The linkage and shock of the unreleased full-suspension are hidden beneath a BH-labeled neoprene cover for this early-season racing outing. But we can make out some interesting details revealing an all-new single-pivot suspension design hidden away…
BH Lynx Race EVO2 next-gen XC mountain bike prototype
The prototype BH XC bike in question was raced by Jofre Cullel Estape of the BH Coloma team to a 2nd place finish – just 2 seconds off the win – in Sunday’s Elite C1 SuperPrestigio XCO race.
BH already describe their top-tier 100mm Lynx Race Evo as “developed jointly with the BH Coloma team“. So no big surprise to see them working together again. And it’s been just over 3 years since we last saw a major update to the Lynx Race platform. Even though it saw a more iterative update last summer.
But it seems likely we’ll be seeing more of this new model this racing season.
OK, so what do we know?
At this stage, concrete details from BH are non-existent, so we are going on what we can see.
This is still a lightweight XC race bike. Built up with a Fox 34 Factory StepCast fork and a fast-rolling Chaoyang Phantom Dry + Speed tire combo on Duke carbon wheels. It looks like we’re talking about 120mm of fork travel here, much like we see on many other modern XC race bikes these days. That’s a step up from the current Lynx which only gets 120mm for the Longer Travel trail builds.
The headtube, downtube, main pivot, and 1-piece chainstay swingarm still look a lot like the existing Lynx Race. It is still a high single-pivot suspension design with the SplitPivot concentric around the rear axle to isolate pedaling & braking forces. And it still gets the integrated cable routing through the headset. Compatible with mechanical or electronic shifting, mechanical dropper, and mechanical remote shock lockout.
Now, what’s new?
The most obvious change is that there is no longer a link on the seattube driving the shock. I presume there’s still a short link tucked up inside that mysterious cover, most likely hanging down from the toptube. But it’s gonna have to be pretty small, when we figure that shock, link & toptube all fit inside that neoprene sock.
A side benefit, this BH XC prototype bike should have more space inside the front triangle for a bigger 2nd water bottle. That second bottle was already a major long-distance marathon-racing benefit of the current Lynx Race. Even better bottle room now.
One interesting point here – in the racing photos – it looks like BH completely removed the seatstay bridge. At least any bridge behind the seattube. Perhaps the stays rejoin in front of the seattube to maintain rear-end stiffness.
We’ll have to wait and see.
Lastly, the new bike’s toptube forms a straighter line sloping towards the rear wheel. Dropping the seat cluster means there’s likely room for longer dropper posts.
And there’s the return of a conventional seatpost clamp, not the aero wedge-style on the current Lynx Race. Jofre Cullel’s bike has a lot of seatpost showing – racing with a BikeYoke Divine SL post.
BH Lynx Race XC prototype timeline?
We’ve asked BH for a timeline as to when we should expect to see this prototype XC bike make its debut. Or to confirm whether it will keep the Lynx Race name? But unsurprisingly, we’ve received a pretty standard “No Comment” reply.
Clearly, it’s still in testing stages. And BH went out of their way to make sure not much is being revelaed of this development prototype. Perhaps they are still dialing in the perfect linkages? But we know that finished carbon frames suggest finished carbon molds. It can’t be too far from being complete.
If nothing else, I plan to get a closer look when the UCI MTB World Cup makes its European racing debut in May. Hopefully uncovered.
