Roger Estrada, R53 Sport boss and ex-Mitsubishi Ralliart chief engineer, is well known for his attention to detail and technical nouse. So the announcement that his firm will be distributing PYGA Industries in the UK is a match made in heaven.
PYGA is the brainchild of Morewood Bikes co-founder Patrick Morewood and Leatt co-founder Mark Hopkins, and while BikeRadar's technical editor James Huang has already taken a first ride on their much-hyped OneTen29 bike this is the first time we've seen one on British soil.
It's a purposeful looking machine, the raw finish of the 6069 T6 aluminium frame highlighting neat fishscale welds and unfussy tubing profile changes. As you'd expect given Morewood's previous designs, the bike is a single pivot machine, offering up 110mm of rear wheel travel matched to a 120mm or 130mm fork up front.
The floating shock is sandwiched between a neat, offset rocker link at the top and the extended chainstay at bottom, allowing for fine control of the shock rate. Meanwhile, widely spaced pivots should minimise any wagging from the back end, especially when combined with short 17.3in (440mm) chainstays and a 142x12mm rear thru-axle.
Neat details abound on the bike, from the guide on the chainstay that holds the gear cable out of the way of damage from the chainrings to the ISCG05 tabs on the chunky press-fit bottom bracket shell:
Sadly, the raw finish seen here is just for pre-production models, with customer bikes coming in a semi-metallic 'Acid Green', stocks of which are set to land at the start of March 2013.
The bike will cost £1,749 with a RockShox Monarch RT3 shock and frame sizes M-XL. But if a 29er is too much for you to handle then a 650b bike will be arriving at the same time, using a similar platform but 120mm of rear wheel travel and your pick of 130mm or 140mm up front, in sizes S-L.
Those bikes will also be joined by a 650b hardtail called the Zero650C. BikeRadar will have full details on that bike as soon as they become available. For more information see www.pygaindustries.com and www.r53sport.com.