Preview: Salsa Cycles’ 2016 Bikes
Adventure cycling may be a hot trend right now, but Salsa has long led the way in building bikes for going way out of bounds. We got a closer look at the brand’s intrepid new 2016 models on the showroom floor at Eurobike.
Pony Rustler
It seems like every mountain bike maker has a new model built around plus-size tires , and we’ve had a lot of fun on the 27.5+ and 29+ models we’ve tested. But most of the newest releases have been hardtails. The new Salsa Pony Rustler is one of the few new 27.5+, full-suspension trail bikes we’ve seen, and it shares the same frame as the company’s 29er Horsethief trail bike. The Pony Rustler (and the 2016 Horsethief) gets Boost 148 hub spacing, which offers the extra clearance needed to run the 3-inch-wide, 27.5-inch-diameter WTB Bridger tires, as well as extra stiffness in the rear end. It sports a 130mm fork and 120mm of Split Pivot rear wheel suspension. It’s available in two levels of carbon (with aluminum chainstays) and an aluminum version that starts at $3,500.
Warbird Carbon
Salsa’s Warbird model is a purebred gravel racer that was originally born as a titanium model. In February, the company released the bike in aluminum, and last month, it released the Warbird Carbon Rival 22. The 2016 Warbird features front and rear thru-axles, which provided the rear end stiffness that enabled the company to employ what it calls its “Class 5 Vibration Reduction System” (VRS): The seatstays are bent outward (it looks similar to a wishbone from the back) to soak up the bumps and chatter from riding off-road at speed. The SRAM Rival 22-equipped Warbird Carbon is available in black or white for $3,500, while the aluminum version is available with 105 for $2,499, or Tiagra for $1,999.
Cutthroat
The new Cutthroat 29er is an evolution of Salsa’s Fargo drop bar mountain bike, and was designed specifically to stand up to the demands of the 2,745-mile, self-supported Tour Divide mountain bike race from Banff, Alberta, to Antelope Wells, New Mexico. Salsa launched the bike at the 2015 Tour Divide, where it was raced to a second-place finish by Jay Petervary. The Cutthroat features shortened chainstays to give it a more nimble ride than the Fargo, yet one that’s still stable enough to be forgiving to a sleep-deprived racer on a multi-day vision quest. It maximizes front triangle space for cargo, and Salsa’s Woodchipper bars sport flared drops and more options for places to rest tired hands. The Firestarter carbon fork is the same as that on the Fargo, and the bike has mounts for Salsa Anything cages, which can hold round items like Nalgenes, rolls, or sleeping pads. The Cutthroat also features Class 5 VRS technology. It’s available as a frameset for $1,999, and goes up to $3,999 built with a SRAM Rival 1x11 drivetrain with a wide-range, 10-42 cassette.
Deadwood
If you’re at all interested in this 29+, drop bar mountain bike, you’re going to have to act fast: The new Deadwood is only going to be available at Salsa dealers in a very limited run. The steel frame sports a carbon fork and Salsa’s Alternator Dropouts, which allow you to run the bike in multiple configurations including geared, single-speed, and with thru-axles. The dropouts also allow you to adjust your wheelbase by up to 17.5mm, and tension the chain so that you can fashion it into an “emergency single-speed” should your derailleur meet its untimely end on the trail. The Deadwood, which rolls on 3-inch-wide tires, is built with a SRAM Rival 1x11 drivetrain for $2,600. It will be available—probably for a very short period of time—in October.
Marrakesh
Salsa says it has seen more orders for the new Marrakesh than any of its other models, proving that bike touring is only continuing to grow in popularity. The Marrakesh sports a burlier steel tubeset than the Salsa Vaya 2 , the company’s “light touring” model that won our Editors’ Choice award this past spring. “This is not a light bike,” says Mike Riemer, marketing manager at Salsa. “It has heavy, stiff tubing.” But for its intended use—long-distance bike touring—this is a good thing: The Marrakesh is designed to handle best when it’s fully loaded, and one look at those super-long chainstays lets you know that this bike was built for stability. It also comes with rear racks and a Brooks leather saddle. The Marrakesh is available in both flat and drop bar setups (the latter of which includes bar-end shifters). You can get a frame for $650, or the complete bike for $1,599 with a Shimano Deore drivetrain.
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