Danny Hart has managed to escape the snow of Britain and headed down to San Remo on Italy's Ligurian coast for some testing with his
new Cube team. Alongside dialling in his pressures and dials on his new ride, we reckon he could be testing a totally new wheel set up on his Two15 HPC downhill bike.
When
Cube released the updated Two15 last October, it came in two different guises - a full 29er with a carbon front end called the HPC (High Performance Composite) and a full 27.5er with a full aluminium frame called the HPA (High Performance Aluminium). Noticeably absent was a mullet version of the bike. A lot of downhill bikes released last year, including the
Specialized Demo,
Mondraker Summum and
Canyon Sender, came with a mullet option but not for Cube.
Danny himself first raced
a mullet set up at Maribor in 2019 while racing for the Madison Saracen team. He said at the time, "I just felt a little more comfortable on it - the bike's a little bit more agile, and I can get it in and out of the corners better. I'm not the tallest rider, so it seems to work well."
So, what's actually new with Danny's Cube? The carbon front triangle is probably from the HPC model and the carbon link was previously shared by both models so that just leaves the swingarm. We can't tell exactly from the photo posted but we suspect the rear triangle of the bike has been changed to suit the mullet set up on what was already a fairly low slung DH bike with a BB height of 343mm. Whether Cube has made a totally new rear end for the bike or simply swapped in the 15mm shorter HPA chainstays is not clear but there's no doubt something has been done to correct for the change in the geometry.
Although they share the same carbon link, the aluminum swingarm of the 29er (left) and 27.5" (right) Two15 is different.
The Cube downhill bike also comes with some in-built geometry adjustment thanks to headset cups that give +/-0.5° of slackness in the head tube. We wouldn't be surprised if the team have taken this further in testing with offest bushings or something similar to ensure the angles of the two bikes are as similar as possible.
It's not yet clear if Danny will take this set up forward to the race tracks or if it will ever be offered to customers either. We've reached out to Cube and Danny for more info and will update the article if we hear more.
Everyone : "Let's do this because pros are!"
*pro riding crossed valve*
Everyone : "Naaah..."
Safety first I get it.
Can someone explain me what is wrong with the valve ?
Because they can't move the valve hole
Hmmm, nope no correlation to me #bringback26
Or don’t, because I’m interested in your views on the bikes, regardless of who is currently paying you to be awesome.