With a frame that will clear a 3″ tire but a fork that will only clear a 2.8″, the Lauf Elja mountain bike chassis might be the wildest creation from the brand yet. Let’s take a closer look…

Lauf Elja Quick Hits

• Size Small through X-Large
• Two Chassis builds: XC (120 rear / 120 front) and Trail (120 rear /130 front)
• Three water bottle carrying capacity
• 29 x 3″ frame clearance, but only 29 x 2.8″ fork clearance
• Electronic shifting only

Geometry

The Elja is one of the wildest looking bikes on the market. Its tire clearance is plentiful and it uses two 30mm DUB bottom brackets, one for the cranks, and one for the main pivot. The Elja uses a Lauf Single Pivot design that incorporates flexy and thin carbon leaf springs for extra traction.

LSP Suspension

The brand states that the LSP offers the following:

Flat leverage ratio curve – Decades ago, multi-link suspension designs introduced the (awesome) possibility of ramping up their coil-spring suspension stiffness towards the end of suspension travel. Giving you responsive suspension that still didn’t bottom out all the time. However, it’s like nobody got the memo that modern air shocks have volume spacers to achieve exactly this. When studying leverage ratio curves of modern multi-link XC/Trail bikes, one finds that they are generally pretty flat, i.e. they are not utilizing their ability to provide a variable leverage ratio through their linkage system. Because, why would they? When the air-shock already does it.

Lack of lateral stiffness – The way single pivot rear suspension designs are generally executed, there is a lot of lateral flex. This is where LSP comes in with its:

• Bracing-Box. Firmly bracing the left and right swingarms together (crucially) behind the seat tube. Resulting in an order-of-magnitude laterally stiffer structure than if one would go the traditional route of bracing the sides together in front of the seat tube.
• Oversized main-pivot bearing. BSA/DUB bottom bracket main pivot. For maximized anchoring strength and stiffness.
• Maximized main pivot spacing. For a maximized bracing angle.
• Oversized shapes. Where appropriate for stiffness.

Other take-away points are the Elja is wireless-only. You cannot run a cable-actuated drivetrain on it. There’s no in-bike storage; Lauf believes it is sacrilegious to cut holes in carbon frames. But it features three-bottle carrying capacity and the lightest in-class frame weight.

The Elja is not what we were expecting from the brand but then again, Lauf always thinks outside the box.

Check out the Elja XC and Trail at Lauf.