Aaron Gwin has posted a video today of himself testing a new downhill bike with just 8 weeks to go until racing kicks off in Portugal.
The bike looks to be a total redesign of the M29 the team was riding last season. Gwin has been testing out
mixed wheel combinations from World Champs onwards and we'd put our houses on this being a mullet bike too. This is more than just a few geometry tweaks and a new leverage ratio, though; the suspension layout has been modified, with a link that connects the seat stays to the top tube, and the shock positioned very low in the frame.
It looks like an aluminum frame, and it wouldn't be the first time Jeff Steber has been able to build a custom prototype bike for the team to meet the trends of the World Cup circuit. Most recently were the
aluminum M29s wheeled out at Fort William in 2017 for Jack Moir and Dean Lucas that he pieced together by hand in California before shipping it out to Scotland.
Gwin was tight-lipped on details of the bike in his caption, simply saying, "I gotta say, it was a good day," but we've reached out to him and he told us:
| It's basically just the next evolution of what we were working on at the end of last year. It's still based off the current M29 suspension platform, we just shaped the tubes a little different and the linkage is closer to the style of an M16 to save some weight. I am loving the bike and plan to race it in Portugal.—Aaron Gwin |
We've posted the best screenshots we could get below:
That’s a Buick
* this was a Buick add campaign. Not sure it changed anyone’s mind. But remember, Buick’s are sweet for cruising Kansas flatlands with no turns. They suck for corners. But go straight and slow real nice.
Also, if you search Shawn Palmer intense proto, He had a low shock mount proto at Fontana in 2015 or 16, well before we saw anything official from Santa Cruz. So really, Intense and SC have always been working off each other's bikes since the first Spider/Blur they came out with.
The Driver 8 is rad and beefy. Four bearings in the lower link. That anodized Sun Kissed Orange color looks crazy in the sun.
Tell them the intense is just the US made version instead of the Chinese made version
That’s my local trail, telonics, and someone like Gwin would double the slo mo section...well brendog did at least.
They make shit look super smooth but damn doubling that at speed is super gnarly
they actually placed a couple closed signs and ticketed several thought '19.
riders took down the signs obviously.
show some respect(to any illegal trail by not naming it) common sense
m.pinkbike.com/photo/17797711
Turner and a few other California company's have all gone carbon as well due to manufacturing in the area drying up.
www.pinkbike.com/news/aaron-gwins-race-bike-stolen-in-edinburgh.html
Sorry, meant the thieves swapped Gwin's bike for gummis and weed. Not insinuating the rider had this. At all!
“We made it to World Champs! ????????Starting practice on the new ride today. Had some meetings with the @intensecycles team after Andorra and decided to try a few tweaks on the #m29. @jeffsteber got this thing welded up and built in about a month. We got everything put together last week and I was able to ride it 3 days before we arrived here. So far I’m really liking it, excited to get it on this beast of track for practice later today and continue learning. Big thanks to my whole team for workin so hard to make this happen. Ya never know until ya try! ???????? @juanhall
–@aarongwin1”
In the life cycle of a pro downhill racer, he is in the decline phase.
I would love Gwin to win the world champs though. He deserves that win as part of his legacy.
Edited for typos
Also available to order at your local INTENSE dealer.