The Radavist

Trek just teased this steel (and carbon) full suspension “PipeDream” prototype on its Instagram, designed by Trek employee and industrial designer Kyle Neuser and built in-house by Trek’s prototype lab. Inspired no doubt by the work and growing popularity of steel full suspension bikes from the likes of REEB, Cotic, Starling, Chromag, and more, Kyle was lured to experiment with the natural damping of steel with the geometry of the Trek Top Fuel.

This steel frame uses a carbon swingarm from a Top Fuel and rocker link, exposed cable routing, and bolt-on aluminum shock mounts. The PipeDream is finished with a paint scheme inspired by Trek’s steel bikes from the ‘80s and ‘90s. If Trek were to pony up and make a production run of these bikes, would it ignite a race for more metal full-suspension bikes? Hey, Specialized, you won’t! Let’s see it!

Read what our staff thinks of steel full suspensions below in our Related Archives!

Starling Cycles‘ singlespeed 90 mm travel full suspension bike just got a makeover. The Beady Little Eye V3 now comes with all of the V3 features found on the Murmur, Twist and Swoop frames. It’s a real one-of-a-kind and is Joe from Starling’s favorite bike of all time…

The Apogee One, which we featured in our MADE coverage last year, is now open for pre-order. The kit includes the front triangle, rear swingarm, Free-Float Module, and shock. The Free-Float Module is a unique aluminum assemblage that contains the frame’s kinematics and shock while freeing up the front triangle for lots of framebag space and keeping the center of gravity low. These bikes are made in the Pacific Northwest.

The Apogee One Founders Edition is a run of 25 and retails for $3,995. See more at Apogee One.

John and Josh love their Mumurs and others here at The Radavist have lauded Starling’s steel single pivots. To help get ya rollin’ on bikes, the UK framebuilders just announced complete bikes. To commemorate these slick builds, Triscombe local Toby Downs takes the Mega Twist on a proper flogging. Check out more info below!

The mad lads at Starling Cycles in the UK just announced an all-new short travel Murmur cleverly dubbed the Mini Murmur. This new chassis is a 120mm rear-travel Trail/XC/Down Country/do-whatever bike that’s really fun and fast. Let’s check it out.

John here. You can buy the FlareMAX I reviewed from Cotic if you ride a C5. The price is more than reasonable for a made in the UK chassis with XT. Both Cy and myself feel it’s better that it stays in the States now, as shipping it back to the UK doesn’t make sense and is expensive.

If you’re interested, contact me at The Rad Bazaar listing and I’ll connect you to Cotic. I’ll include the Wolf Tooth B-Rad but am keeping the bottle cage! I cleaned it up real nice and it’s boxed and ready to roll.

I really really love this bike, and if money wasn’t so tight right now, I’d buy it.

Germany-based Sour Bicycles announced its two new steel full-suspension bikes today, the Double Choc trail and Cowboy Cookie downcountry. Petor walked us through the Double Choc last month, but let’s check out the bikes below in production detail and spec…

Cotic’s steel full-suspension bikes are something else, and next week, John will tell you why with his FlareMAX review, the little sibling to the RocketMAX. Let’s focus on this RocketMAX and its new color, Golfie Green. This stunner of a paint job is now available to order on RocketMAXs and joins Copper Orange in the color choices for the RocketMAX. These frames are made in the UK, in Scotland by the talented lads at Five Land Bikes, with every single Cotic bike built to order at our Chesterfield HQ. For sale as either frame only (from £2199 inc UK VAT) or a complete bike (from £3299 inc UK VAT) built to the spec of your choice; Your Bike Built for You, sold directly to customers worldwide. All the details on the RocketMAX can be found at Cotic.

The number of builders and small companies offering steel full suspension bikes over the past few years has multiplied exponentially. John recently connected with UNpaved Cycles, a small company, over Instagram and asked them to share their Vertigo and new Victor frames. The following information is sparse but what we’ve see from UNpaved has our Pavlovian response kicking in. Let’s check out what UNpaved has been up to!

Our Radar Roundup compiles products and videos from the ‘net in an easy-to-digest format. Read on below for today’s findings…