We’ve been hammering our local jumps and freeride spots on the Flair slopestyle bike recently, and early impressions are good.
Built by German gravity bike maker Solid, the Flair comes in one size and is available in Starter, Comp and Pro builds. It’s also available as a frame plus rear shock option.
We chose the singlespeed version because we’re used to riding bikes of this type in hardtail form and were interested to see how full suspension and singlespeed would get on.
The biggest appeal of a bike of this type is that it is a no-nonsense, bombproof piece of kit and has fewer moving parts to mangle or snap off during a crash.
The full set of 2009 components were not available when our test bike was built up, but the production Flair Pro top-end model will feature a Marzocchi Roco Air R rear shock, Marzocchi 66 ATA 180-140mm forks, Avid Juicy 5 brakes and Sun MTX/Reverse wheelset.
The Flair Starter costs £1,249.99, Flair Comp £1,549.99 and Flair Pro £2,049.99.
Oh, and did we mention the oh-so-good raw/chromed finish? Look out for a full review soon.