Liteville 301 MK14 Enduro Factory Machine - Review

Six frame-sizes are available from X-small through XX-large, and the wheel diameters begin with 26-inches on the XS, and also grow proportionately through 27.5 for the mid- to large-sized models, and 29-inch wheels for the XXL size. Liteville offers the 301 MK14 as a frameset, and two ready-to-ride models: The 140-millimeter travel All-Mountain Factory Machine and the 160-millimeter travel Enduro.Factory Machine. We review the 160-millimeter-travel Factory Enduro in this feature in size medium and with 27.5-inch wheels. With a capable build, our bike weighed in at only 12.7 kg (27.9 pounds). The base price for both models is 5,640 Euros, but maxed out with Syntace C33i wheels, SRAM Guide RSC brakes and Eagle X01 drivetrain upgrades, our test bike would run closer to 6,680 Euros.

Standard components for the Enduro Factory Machine build begins with RockShox suspension: a 160mm Pike RCT3 SA fork and a Deluxe RT3 trunnion shock. Surprisingly, the standard drivetrain is a Shimano XT two-by, and the brakes are also XT. From there, the component list may as well be written in German: Schwalbe tires, Syntace MX 35 aluminum wheels, A Syntace cockpit and the aforementioned Eightpins dropper post, topped by an SQlab saddle. You can choose between anodized black or a natural silver frame finish.

---

Construction and Features

Liteville takes aluminum frame construction to the next level. The 301's profile, with its four-bar Horst-Link rear suspension and top tube rocker, has been around for over a decade, but its designers are crazy about details, no matter how small, and each year the 301 is upgraded to reflect riding progression, extend the lifetime of the machine, or (the Holy Grail of German bike makers) nudge the bike's stiffness-to-weight one notch ahead of its competitors. Liteville is nerd, times the square root of the speed of light.

Liteville designs and rigorously tests their bikes in Germany and the frames are made at a high-end factory in Taiwan. The frame tubes are butted and profiled to maximize strength. Most of the welds are double-pass, a technique which has been proven to extend the fatigue life of the joints. Up front, the tapered head tube is fitted with a press-fit Syntace VarioSpin headset with zero angle. An optional headset can increase or decrease the head tube angle by 1.5 degrees. The standard head angle is 66 degrees.



Like most frames these days, the 301's brake hose, dropper seatpost and gear housings are internally routed. Liteville uses screw-on fittings to ensure that the control conduits feed in at proper angles, and to simplify installation, they included a hatch on the bottom side of the down tube to access the inside of the frame where they turn towards their final destinations. The swingarm is machined to guide the housings around the tire and, unless you look closely, you won't see a cable or hose until they emerge from the clevis pivots near the rear dropouts. Clean and elegant.

Liteville was the first brand to adopt the EightPins integrated dropper post, which allows the rider to customize both the upper and lower saddle heights to suit, and features a stiff, 33-millimeter stanchion diameter. Liteville has always been a proponent of oversized seatposts because they allow greater extension and lower stand-over heights with less flex. The 301's straight seat tube is set forwards 52 millimeters (similar to Knolly) to clear the rear tire at full compression, while a special setback seatpost head maintains the correct top tube/front-center distance and effective seat tube angle.



The thread-in bottom bracket is 92 millimeters wide and welded into a massive, hollow box-section. Proper chain-line and crank clearance is made possible by using boost-width hubs and then offsetting the swingarm an additional six-millimeters to the right. The "Evo6" asymmetric swingarm produces a zero-dished rear wheel with same-sized spokes and enhanced stiffness. The second benefit is that the chainring can be moved outwards to make plenty of room for 2.6-inch tires and still be perfectly aligned with the center of a 12-speed cassette.

Smaller details abound, (some carried over, some new). A spare break-away bolt for the X12 thread-in rear axle and derailleur hanger is stored in the left side of the swingarm. Our test bike also had the optional X-Tool Allen key, which snaps inside the hollow axle. To maximize mud clearance, there is no chain stay bridge - the chain stays are connected by a yoke below the pivot bearings, and should you desire a front derailleur, Liteville provides mounts for a Shimano side-swing type. Of course, you can mount a large sized water bottle on the down tube of all frame sizes. More tech details here.

Geometry and Sizing

---

---

Liteville dances to its own rhythm when it comes to some of the 301's frame numbers. Its 66-degree head angle is fairly in step with current all-mountain/enduro fashion. The medium-sized test bike's reach is 435 millimeters and the chainstays are clipped short at 427 millimeters. The steeply sloping top tube provides plenty of stand-over clearance, while the 33-millimeter Eightpins dropper allows up to 200 millimeters of drop (I set mine at 160mm for a 32"/81cm inseam). The stated seat tube angle, however, is on the conservative side at 73.5 degrees. With vanguard frame makers posting 77-degree seat angles, I expected the 301 to be at or over 74. Looking a the bike in profile, it appears to have a steeper angle and, because the seat tube is set forward over 50 millimeters, the chassis looks much shorter than it rides.

Suspension Design


The main improvements to the 301's suspension is a lower leverage rate, made possible by a longer-stroke, trunnion-mount shock. In this case, a Rock Shox Deluxe RT3. Liteville has not yet sent us a graph of the kinematics, but on the ground, the rear suspension feels planted like I'd expect from a coil shock in the mid-stroke, and progressive enough to mute the effects of a bottom-out event. I'd expect that from the 301's Horst-Link configuration, because I've ridden previous models. The linkage has an indicator to set sag at 30 percent, so it's easy to get it right - which initially feels too soft, but plays well once underway. Up front, Liteville chose a 160mm Pike RCT3 fork, which was well balanced with the shock out of the gate. Syntace hubs had matching over-sized "Torque Cap" axle flanges, which also may have played a positive role.

Test Bike Setup


Surprisingly, it did rain over the winter months while I was riding the 301, first to review the Eightpins dropper post, and in continuation, to see how the new Liteville stacked up against some of the enduro-style machinery I had been riding. After a month of hero dirt sprinkled with some mud and snow, the lion's share of riding was on dry, slippery dirt and the usual boulders and rock gardens.

Climbing

Technical climbs were this bike's happy place. Leave the shock wide open and as long as you keep the cranks turning, chances will be good that you'll top the grade. The chassis rocks back just enough to keep the rear wheel hooked up - which was helpful, because once the dirt dried out, the Schwalbe Hans Dampf rear tire (the new Addix rubber version) had nothing for San Diego's decomposed granite. Dropping the pressure to 22psi or lower provided enough grip, however, and kept me in the game, largely, because the 301's suspension tracked the ground so well under power.

At speed, on smoother, rolling terrain, I tended to leave the suspension wide open, ignoring that the suspension (back and front) was moving underfoot. When faced with a long grade, where I expected a steady cadence or a long, hard stint, I would always switch the shock to the "trail" position. The sensation was subtle, but my legs liked the crisp feeling on the pedals and the bike still tracked well enough to justify the crutch.

Compared to a good dw-link suspension, like a Pivot or an Ibis, you can feel more movement from the Liteville's tail end, but I found that when I was climbing up and over roots and rocks, the Liteville required less momentum to get the job done. Preston, who spends a lot of time out of the saddle, remarked that the 301 felt really good on the steeper pitches. Seated climbing is smooth and steady. Both of us came off of bikes with 75-degree seat angles, and both of us guessed that the seat tube angle was steeper than the 73.5 degrees listed.

Descending

The 301 is not a drama queen on the downs. If I overcooked a turn, the tail end would drift until I burned off enough speed or I ran off the trail. Either way, I never felt like I had a "moment." The chassis encourages you to stay centered and it feels natural to compress at the apex of quick turns or steep, punchy BMX-style ramps. The bike was like a chill pill on sketchy chutes where jumbled rocks revealed no promising line choice. I was burning down a familiar singletrack and hit a section where loggers had obliterated the trail. I banged over the ruts and log litter and that was it - the MK14 handles like it's longer and slacker than it actually is on the downs, but it climbs and accelerates way better.

Add the instant action of its Eightpins dropper and the 301 becomes king of the unknown. Instant up or down and anywhere in between eases the decision making process. There is so little resistance to the mechanical dropper that adjustments occur almost automatically. Fold in the Liteville's no-chatter rear braking and you'll most often be in control near the edge of control.

Is the 301 the enduro race bike it claims to be? I'm not the one to make that call. It's certainly capable in all of the realms, but if enduro at its highest expression approaches the intensity of DH, the 301 will likely fall a little short for some riders. Its rear suspension bottoms softly, but even at higher-than-recommended spring pressures, both Harold and I could run the shock out. No doubt that some tuning could firm up the 301's shock and fork to handle the punishment, but at that point it would be a rougher ride and a slack 29er with dual-ply tires and 150 millimeters of travel would probably outpace the 301 on an EWS stage.

What makes this bike great is how versatile it is and how intuitively it handles in technical situations. It kicks ass, but without the attitude. I can push it hard If I want, but I don't feel like I have to punch, shred and slash every meter of trail to squeeze a positive experience from this bike. Hopefully, I won't piss off a million people with this statement, but Liteville's Enduro Factory Machine may mark the look-back point where the fun began to dry up and enduro bikes went flashing past on an evolutionary race to nowhere.

---

How does it compare?

Liteville and Commencal are committed to aluminum, perhaps not for all of the same reasons, but mostly so. Commencal's Meta AM V4.2 Race Eagle has a similar build, the same 160 millimeters of travel and a similar mission statement. Its suspension is upgraded with a RockShox Lyrik RCT3 Solo Air, 170mm fork and a Super Deluxe RC3 shock.

Liteville's product is admittedly over the top, while Commencal's wares are more value-oriented. The MSRP of the V4.2 Race Eagle is almost two thousand dollars less than the 301 MK14's, and while it's doubtful that Commencal's key customers would spend 700 dollars a pound to reduce the Commencal's 31-pound heft to match the 28-pound Liteville, it's equally dubious that Liteville's target audience would jump at the suggestion that they save some cash and take on three pounds of ballast.

Both bikes are built well, both have innovative suspension systems and both rip the downs. The Commencal is the more capable of the two in all aspects when the downhills get nasty - except for braking, where the Meta V4 bounces around, and the 301 MK14 stays planted and calm. The Meta's advantage is not huge, but in a race situation where pedaling was an insignificant factor, the Meta V4.2 would steadily creep ahead. After three days of pedaling up transfer stages, however, the Liteville's advantage over the Commencal's less efficient pedaling could turn the tide.

The comparison here is not to bash Commencal or Liteville, it's to underscore how much refining it takes to take a good aluminum chassis like the Meta V4.2 to the point where its weight, stiffness and durability can truly rival frames made from carbon, or any other material for that matter. Liteville achieves this with relentless improvements that often challenge convention and they back their products with a ten-year warranty. There are only two, perhaps three bike makers willing to take aluminum to that level.

Technical Report

RockShox suspension: The engineers in Colorado Springs have breathed new life into their suspension. The Pike RCT3 fork and Deluxe RT3 shock were well matched and super smooth in the mid-stroke where most of the action happens.

Evo-six Asymmetric swingarm: Offsetting the swingarm to the right to correct the chain line and spoke angles makes so much more sense than enforcing another hub standard to accomplish only half the job. Cannondale's AI frames use the same technology. It's the simplest solution.

Syntace C33i rims: Have to say that I was surprised that Syntace would even consider a carbon rim, but they did, and it has all the features I want: a bead-locking groove to keep a flat tire on the rim, low flanges to let the tire flex in a natural arc, a stabilizing 33mm inner width, and a thinner profile engineered with enough give to keep the bike tracking in the chatter.

Scaled frame geometry: Not a huge fan of restricting wheel diameters across the frame-size spectrum, but I am a huge believer that chainstays, seat tube angles and elements of the geometry and suspension kinematics should be tuned to deliver similar performance and handling traits for riders of different height and stature. It's a difficult way to produce bikes, but Liteville's never been afraid of difficult.

Is this the bike for you?

Riders with skills who seek one bike that can handle everything from all day adventure epics to bike park flow trails should consider Liteville's 301 MK14 Enduro - especially types who geek out on technical innovation. If aluminum is your material of choice, this one sets a high bar. I own a 26-inch 301 and it rides like new, five years later. The possible downside of the new 301 is that most of the size options are based upon 27.5-inch wheels, which contradicts the present renaissance of aggressive 29ers.

Pinkbike's Take

---

---

Posted In:
Reviews and Tech Reviews Enduro Bikes Liteville Liteville 301