What the heck is SBG?!

As one of our hometown bike manufacturers, Transition gets a lot of well deserved love here in Bellingham, WA. Their original Carbon Patrol was the 2016 Pinkbike Bike of the Year, and Transition has not been resting on their laurels since then. For their 2018 year model bikes, they introduced a re-vamped line that features what Transition calls Speed Balanced Geometry, or SBG. This is an approach to bike design that combines a number of different elements and components, and results in noticeably different ride characteristics.

We get a lot of questions about these changes - a longer front center than was the norm, a 35-40mm stem, effective seat-tube angles ranging from 75 to 78.4 degrees, and a new generation of reduced offset forks - and how they alter these bike's behavior.

That is a lot of variables, and although you can start to examine how each one might affect different a bike’s handling, when looked at cumulatively, it all starts to get pretty convoluted. So instead, we figured we’d just visit our neighbors at Transition Bike Co. and get the word straight from the horse’s mouth. So let’s take a look, and see what Sam Burkhardt, Transition’s Product Manager, and Lars Sternberg, the man who did all the tinkering behind Speed Balanced Geometry, have to say about SBG and their new brand new Carbon Patrol.

Filming and editing: Doug Jambor @sport_doug
Additional footage: Skye Schillhammer @skyeride
Rider: Kelend Hawks @kelendh
Produced by Fanatik @fanatikbikeco
Music: Acid Crusher, by Earthless