British company Burgtec have introduced an innovative new product that allows mountain bikers to change their effective head tube angle via adjustments to the rear shock mounts.
Burgtec’s new offset bush/hardware kits are aftermarket products that replace existing OE shock mounting hardware for the rear suspension. These bushes are not drilled in the centre like OE hardware - instead they are drilled at an offset. The offset of these bushes then alters the effective eye to eye length of the bike's shock absorber. This in turn alters the geometry of the bike.
With developments such as adjustable headset cups being implemented on many off the shelf builds, there is an ever growing interest for riders to adjust their own geometry.
In recent years downhill courses worldwide have been getting ever steeper and faster. To increase stability over steep terrain and at high speed manufacturers have been producing frames with extra slack geometry. A head angle of around 64 degrees is fairly typical of most downhill bikes on sale today. Many race bikes however are far slacker, for example Fabien Barel’s Mondraker Summum was even used with a chopper-like 59 degree head angle for certain tracks last year.
The Burgtec kit will allow between 1 and 1.5 degrees of adjustment to the bikes head angle depending on the size of the original hardware. The bushes can also be used "in the opposite way" say Burgtec in order to steepen angles, for a more agile and pedal friendly set-up. Burgtec have also extensively tested the kits in UCI World Cup rounds, including Marc Beaumont's 2010 win at Val di Sol.
All hardware is produced from titanium which is lighter than equivalent steel components. Burgtec claim it is almost three times as durable as alloy OE kit, too. Priced at £45 the first batch will include kits to fit the following bikes:
- Commencal 4X, Meta, Supreme 6, FR, Mini DH, Supreme DH all years
- GT Fury 10-11
- Lapierre 720/920 08-10
- Lapierre 720/920 11
- Orange Five, Patriot, Alpine 160, 222, 223 and 224
- Santa Cruz V10 05-10, VP Free all years, Blur LT 2, Heckler 07-09
- Santa Cruz V10 11 Carbon
- Scott Gambler 08-10
- Solid Mission 9 All years
- Transition TR250 and TR450 all years
- Yeti 303 06-08
Whilst if your bike isn’t listed above you can contact Burgtec direct and enquire about a custom kit.
