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Transition Smuggler Carbon sneaks 29er mountain bike over the border

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The folks at Transition are totally down with the 29er, and with 120mm or rear wheel travel paired to 140mm forks, their Smuggler makes for fun bike for technical trail riding. To quote Transition “let the Internet trolls rejoice”, because they’ve now unleashed a new carbon Smuggler.

Transition Smuggler Carbon 29er trail mountain bike

Several years in the making, the carbon Smuggler is a direct evolution of the trail bike that has become the in-house favorite bike over at Transition. Balancing 120/140mm of travel, they see the bike as the best balance of efficient suspension that can serve as your everyday trail bike, but under deft hands can take on gnarly terrain as well.

The newest version of the Smuggler gets full carbon construction, including front & rear triangles, plus a carbon rocker. The suspension design is the same grin-inducing Giddy Up 2.0H of their other bikes.

It also gets the same Speed Balanced Geometry of the alloy Smuggler, which basically means long, low & slack so it is agile at slow speeds with good traction on the front wheel, yet still stable at speed for thrashing descents.

Tech details

The frame features a Boost spaced rear end, metric shock sizing, and sealed Enduro Max bearings throughout its Horst link 4-bar design. It even fits a full size water bottle inside the main triangle.

The carbon bike gets new internal shift routing for the 1x specific frame with new anti-rattle cable clamps, stealth dropper routing, and molds in rubber downtube & chainstay protectors. Routing for the post mount 180mm rear brake stays outside to keep setup easy, and the frame sticks with a standard threaded bottom bracket.

Frame weight with the Fox Float DPS shock is claimed at 2.95kg/6.5lb with all of the hardware. And it’ll clear up to a 29 x 2.3″ tire.

Availability

The new Smuggler Carbon is slated for Spring 2018 availability, in either bone grey (white) and gunsmoke blue. It will be sold as a $3000 frameset, a $5000 complete bike with a SRAM GX build, and a premium $6000 complete bike with an X01 groupset.

TransitionBikes.com

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tyler durden
6 years ago

siick. perfect trail bike. wonder why no trunnion mount shock?

Sam
Sam
6 years ago
Reply to  tyler durden

Pretty sure the Sentinel is trunnion at least.

Flatbiller
Flatbiller
6 years ago

When Specialized owned the patent: “Horst Link is old and tired, DW is so much better.”

Now that the patent has expired: “What a great design. Let’s use it. DW sucks.”

Josh G
Josh G
6 years ago
Reply to  Flatbiller

Transition never used DW link. But it is telling how many companies adopted Horst link once IP clear.

Mark_Landsaat
6 years ago

Love the bikes you guys have been doing lately. Stuff looks really slick!

frickin doooood
6 years ago

Transition never used DW, and DW brands still use DW.

I have the alloy and it rides great, can ride really tough stuff on it, nearly same angles as my Bronson but goes faster. Love to shed a few pounds off and still use the GX kit.

ascarlarkinyar
6 years ago

1999 called and said they want their frame design back……

dontcoast
6 years ago
Reply to  ascarlarkinyar

….yes, just like all those 29er’s with 66d head angles and long reach and steep seat tubes from 1999. wuttt?

oh, you talkin’ paint? don’t you wanna party like it’s 1999?

Eric E. Strava
Eric E. Strava
6 years ago

love the geometry, but has too many swoopy lines connecting those well-considered points

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