THIS BIKE WAS created with just one aim – to help Stevie Smith win the 2013 DH World Championships on the notoriously pedally track in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. It didn’t pay off for Smith – the ‘Canadian Chainsaw Massacre’ stacked it in the first corner – but his loss is our gain, because it’s now gone into production as the Devinci Spartan.
Designed to fill “the gap between freeride adventure
and the exploding world of enduro racing”, it combines 165mm (6.5in) of travel
with angles that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a downhill bike a couple
of years back, at an all-in weight that doesn’t rule out pedalling up hills as
well as bombing down them.
The frame pairs an aluminium mainframe and chainstays
with carbon seatstays, with the alloy portion handmade in Canada. The down tube
is asymmetric to keep weight down while providing extra strength on the
driveside, and the 92mm BB shell provides a big contact area for the welds
around the down tube/seat tube junction. Devinci offer a lifetime warranty for
the frame.
A reversible chip at the rear shock mount lets you
switch between ‘high’ and ‘low’ geometry settings. In the ‘low’ mode you get a
slack 65.8-degree head angle, low 337mm bottom bracket and long (1,182mm on the
large size) wheelbase. The ‘high’ mode steepens up the head angle by 0.6
degrees, raises the bottom bracket by 7mm and knocks 2mm off the chainstays.
Wheels are the de rigueur 650b, bump-eating is taken
care of by Dave Weagle’s Split Pivot suspension design – based around a
concentric rear axle pivot – and the frame comes with both ISCG-05 chain guide
tabs and a front derailleur mount, to suit all tastes. Routing is fully
external (except for a port in the seat tube for the RockShox Reverb Stealth
post), which may not look as clean but simplifies maintenance.
Just one build is available in the UK – the Spartan
XP, which comes with a RockShox Pike RC fork and Monarch Plus RC3 shock, 2x10
Shimano Deore (with SRAM S1000 cranks), Jalco rimmed and Formula hubbed wheels,
and Schwalbe Hans Dampf tyres. This thing’s ready for battle.
PRICE 4415$
