Having concentrated primarily on his road range recently, Storck Bicycles namesake Marcus Storck decided it was time to refocus on the mountain bike side of things for 2012 with all-new hardtails in both 26" and now 29" varieties plus revisions across the range.
We'll have to wait until Eurobike to get a closer look at what's to come from the rest of the range – Storck gave us quite the dish on some very enticing products in development but we're sworn to secrecy – so a preview of the new Rebel Nine will have to do for now.
Storck says the motivation for the Rebel Nine development came from his friend, Chris Sugai of Niner Bikes, who convinced the German that the format was no longer a trend and wasn't going away. As such, the Rebel Nine includes a good assortment of modern bells and whistles, including a tapered head tube, direct mount front derailleur, carbon dropouts, and post mount rear disc tabs tucked inside the rear triangle.
Claimed frame weight is 1,150g and if Sugai had any input at all on the geometry, we expect the Rebel Nine to handle pretty well, too. Retail price is set at €1,499 for the frame only with a complete Shimano Deore XT and Fox Racing Shox build to come in around €3,000.
Storck will carry over the same updates to its Rebel Six, too, and we expect the frame weight on that model to drop closer to 1,050g.
Storck's Fascenario 0.6 frameset
Storck also tells us that his ultralight Fascenario 0.6 road chassis is finally in production and shipping to dealers after the late addition of a seat stay bridge to quell some vibration issues under hard braking. What the slickly integrated carbon fiber mini V-brakes tucked inside the Stiletto fork and bulbous carbon fiber seat stays lack in adjustability (there's not provision for tuning pad height or tilt), they seem to more than make up in weight savings.
Total claimed weight for the frame, fork, headset, front and rear brakes, crankarms (without chainrings), bottom bracket, and seatpost clamp is an otherworldly 1,750g. Pricing is stratospheric as well, though, with a suggested retail cost of around €7,000/US$9,999.