Spotted: A New High Pivot 6-Bar Intense Prototype DH Bike

Jeff Steber has shared some shots on social media of some off-season prototype testing at Windrock that reveal another new DH bike.

Whereas the previous prototype ridden by the Intense team this season had a high pivot, four-bar design, with a massive rocker link driving the shock and a recess in the downtube, this looks completely different. Gone is the downtube recess and the massive rocker link but looking at the chainline it appears that it will still feature an idler.

When we interviewed Jeff Steber about the other prototype earlier this year he did hint that he had another design in mind that could switch the four-bar design for something with a "more complicated six-bar design."



After seeing Jeff's post we reached out for more details and he sent us this: "This week we spent four days at Windrock bike park in Tennessee testing the new prototype with Intense Factory Racing (IFR) teammates Aaron Gwin and Dakotah Norton. This two-year development project started at the end of the 2021 World Cup season with extensive benchmark testing done and a decision to produce 2 prototypes for IFR and one would become the next generation Intense M279.

"The first prototype HP4 (high pivot 4 bar) was designed and built first as it was a simple design and would get us up and running quickly, the bike was raced and evolved through the 2022 race season with progressively improving results from IFR racers. The HP6 (High Pivot 6bar) prototype was designed and evolved behind the scenes with learnings from the HP4 incorporated. This project from day one has taken a learn it all approach vs a know it all approach and yes we learned quite a few things along the way.


"The test camp started with AG and DAK doing warm-up laps on the HP4 followed by first runs on 2 of the first HP6 bikes that I fabricated for back-to-back comparisons, suspension tuning including different link options to achieve different kinematic profiles. Our Ride Dynamics and Suspension engineer Devon Sullivan was doing laps on a full 29” wheeled version. Needless to say at the end of the test camp we retired the HP4, it served us well on this journey."



It sounds like the previous four-bar prototype will no longer be raced by the team with the focus switching to this new design. We don't have any more details on the full setup just yet, but we will most likely hear more as the off-season testing progresses and we get closer to the 2023 race season.