Raia

@eae903: As I piece it together Avona is a new company by one of the ARC8 Founders and a business partner (who I think did builds and distribution for ARC8 ), both which seem to no longer have ties to ARC8. The frame, to me, seems to be a slightly modified ARC8 Evolve/Essential, suggesting that the Avona Founder (the Ex-Arc8-Founder) owns some kind of IP there. When we (me and my s.o.) tried to buy framesets from ARC8 they were a total shitshow with strange things going on when trying to get a test ride (distri guy vanished, no infos for weeks) and them then delivering two frames in horrible condition: First one damaged by shipping the frame in an otherwise completely empty package (no stuff for padding at all) and beyond that also quality flaws, the second one again with quality flaws, including a partly missing headset bearing seat. They (well, the bike shop relaying messages for them) then told us that they don't wanna send another replacement, as they couldn't meet our "high quality demands". As if "undamaged" and "paint job competently done" were completely absurd demands...also our request of direct communication was declined by them. Take from that what you will. Maybe that's why these guys left, and maybe they want to do better and actually do some QA/QC and customer care. Or maybe I'm just being naive. If I were to buy one of their frames, I'd make personal contact first and talk to them about that experience and see how they react. Maybe we witnessed their falling out with Arc8 back then, kinda seems like it. I mean, if you part on friendly terms, do you launch a competing brand with pretty much the exact same frame? Don't think the frame is open mold, at least it hasn't popped up at the usual suspects.

@am1ybbob: Well, even the bike shop where we did the test ride was speechless. Also maybe worth mentioning, we were looking to buy two frames, not just one. The first frame had the rear triangle -stuck- so we had to forcibly pull it back after unboxing it. The flex stays had been overextended so they snapped back when pulling the triangle back out from how it had been stuck with an audible smack. There were deep ridges where the rear swing goes into the seattube just above the BB (you having the frame should be able to identify the area I'm talking about). There also were several runny drops of paint and other defects on the paint job. The second frame had the paint job you and the bike in the review have (only that it's blue on the essential). Again runny paint noses, the partly missing headset bearing seat (which could lead to structural, possibly deadly frame failure if the top tube snaps on a big landing) and (among others) those little dot-decals on the top tube where the colours meet - about a third of them were either completely missing from the pattern or only partly there. Also the downtube protector was glued on very crookedly and it looked very much like the frame had been returned by another customer before, but obviously that's just speculation. We had a look at Canyon's website out of curiousity - bikes with the same level of cosmetic defects were marked down 20-30% there, but obviously for the whole bike.Which sometimes came out as about as much as the whole Arc8 frame would have cost. The problem was never about the frame price though - we would gladly have paid 500 Euros more if that had gotten us a quality frame on the first try. We researched for months and had bought components for several thousands of euros - which were needed for the new frame standards - which we couldn't return since it took considerable time until we got the replacement frame. With the frames we got afterwards (built up two Mondraker Raze), we simply could have re-used all our existing parts. So about 6 grand unnecessary costs because they just couldn't/wouldn't deliver. The company then reacting with "Neh, we don't want to send you another frame." without any apology, any hint of understanding that they weren't exactly performing stellar was what got us most and left us really dumbfounded - as well as the bike shop guy who spent several hours on our test rides. And all this was after the BB disaster, where one would suspect that they would be motivated to show customers that they are highly dedicated to quality. This was the polar opposite. There were also other 'strange' things going on in the whole process, like having booked a test ride elsewhere before but the distribution guy simply "vanishing" a few days before he should have brought the test bikes and nobody knowing what was going on for weeks. Also, I think a few months prior, the option the have the frames custom painted disappeared (which we would have taken) which makes one wonder what was/is going on behind the scenes. Our prior bikes were from Stoll, an even smaller swiss bike company and the experience had been the polar opposite. Perfect appointment planning with the CEO for the test ride with him, a great collaborative process for the build, a clear timeline until delivery with continued communication until we finally drove down to Switzerland to fetch out bikes in (expectedly) mint condition. To this day we can't believe how a small company (ARC 8 ) can operate in such a way. Even more so in the age of social media. We could have had a youtube-channel with thousands of subscribers and the thing could have gone viral. In the end, it strikes us as massively arrogant and unprofessional. In the German mtb-forum there are several ppl happy with their bikes and I'm happy for them. Maybe they don't care about bad paint jobs or simply got lucky, I cannot say. What I can say: Out of the 14 bikes we bought in our lifetime, for us this was the worst experience by a landslide.

We tried to buy the big brother (the 130mm Essential) and the frames we were sent were what I'd call B-Stock at best. The first one was damaged during shipping because it was chucked into a big box without any padding whatsoever, with the back swing crashing into the frame and causing at the very least cosmetic (and since it's a very light bike) probably structural damage. Additionally, there were several paint defects. The replacement frame had about 15 to 20 degrees of the headset bearing seat interface missing (there simply was no carbon there) as well as several faults on the paint job and decals. As we really wanted the bike for it's low weight and geometry we would have accepted another replacement but the company replied that they don't have any stock that would satisfy our "high quality standards", implying that wanting to get an undamaged frame was a completely nutjob expectation on the side of the customer. So done with that company.

What is it with the 31.6 or even 34.9? My bikes always had 30.9 and I honestly can't see a single reason for the bigger sizes - it simply weighs more (not talking about the frame, but the dropper posts carry a significant weight penalty). Is there some advantage I just never heard about? Also, my 30.9 dropper works with the bigger sizes trough the addition of a very lightweight and cheap shim, why would anyone buy a bigger size and lock themselves in this way?