Spotted (Again): GT's Part Downhill, Part Enduro Bike
Back in April of this year, a new bike from GT broke cover under some of their riders. The bike, seemingly capable of running anything from Fox 36 to a 40, was an interesting proposition. It was definitely a new frame, but working out where it would sit in GT's range is something else entirely. The bike seems to sit somewhere between the Force and the Fury, and could even be a relaunch of the Sanction platform. This week it looks as if that same bike, which has a carbon front triangle and aluminum swingarm, is being ridden under Noga Korem and Wyn Masters at the NotARace IXS Test Cup Sessions.
GT are not the first to go down this boundary blending route. It's an ever more common trend to not only see enduro bikes being rated for downhill forks but also team riders taking advantage of that with bike park or downhill setups. There are notable examples such as the Rocky Mountain Slayer. In a world of crossover athletes, short seat tubes and long dropper posts it makes a degree of sense for bike companies to be moving in this direction, and that's not to even mention potential cost savings. However, the purists may well be concerned about the lessening numbers of brands making full downhill bikes.
The current GT Fury.
Due to the addition of an idler, it's easy to distinguish it from any of GT's current enduro or trail offerings. When set up with a downhill fork at a passing glance is shares many similarities with the Fury. However, if you look at the profile and tubing of the frame it's easy to see that it's a different bike. You can see the most obvious differences around the top tube, as well as the seat tube junction and rocker. It also has a notably different rear end that also looks to include some form of length adjustment.
The idler is now completely external of the frame, as opposed to the Fury where it is housed within the swingarm.
Wyn Masters looked to be running a full 29" setup. Noga Korem, who was seen lapping her Fox 36 equipped prototype before swapping on the current Fury partway through the day, could quite possibly be running a mixed wheel setup, a setup exploited by GT riders in the past.
The finishing touches.
All Photos by Ben Hoffmann and Seb Gruber
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I hate your asshattery right now more than anything in the annals of mountain biking.
To a DH bike? You don't deserve the awesomeness that is a pure DH bike.
"Why can't my Supercross bike come with handles to portage it and a spare pair of racing slicks for Supermoto days?"
Long travel deep seat tube. Dh performance and height adjustable seat post are not mutually exclusive, it’s just that the jackasses designing bikes have their priorities wrong
There’s water at the bottom of the hill dork.
Making space for water bottle in frame severely limits possible frame and linkage shapes. It is in some cases a huge thing to work around.
Then again almost nobody lives close enough to a lift for a DH bike to make sense. And that's the real reason we're talking about water bottles and dropper posts here.
Water bottle... Kinda? I have a small Fidlock bottle with the uni base strapped to the seat tube mast
You could always just put a strap on water bottle cage on your bike; under downtube, over top tube, maybe even in frame.
I get hot quite easily, but don’t mind a sleek hydration pack riding downhill. If it’s hot enough to require water having 2-3 liters is better than a half liter. I also have pump, multi tool, maybe a tube, something to strap my full face knee pads and gloves to and most importantly a sort of back protector for tuck and rolls if Necessary.
A Single regular water bottle is a pretty minuscule amount of water, and according to some top level athletes you can do 1.5 Maybe 2 hr of exertion without a performance decrease without water, so why bother Uneccisarily strapping 2 lbs of water to a bike you paid $3k to have be 2lbs lighter.
I find water bottles ejected from bikes all the time trail side.
Stewie Griffin : What are you talking about? I'm just saying En'dHuro.
And that’s coming off every generation V10 up to 2019 (which are also close to perfect).