XC/Marathon RSS

We’ve seen a few high-profile XC hardtails released in the past month. BMC twisted out the Twostroke, a modern yet measured approach to a category that is still relevant, but takes a back seat to full-suspension. On the other hand, Orbea dropped the Alma, a purist’s race machine that takes a spare-no-expense approach to making Read More

The BMC lineup has been shifting towards XC for the past few years. The longest-travel bike in their catalog (without a motor) is the 120-millimeter Speedfox. But the kind of XC they’re shifting towards is not the XC of 10 years ago. They are front and center on the bandwagon that’s pushing more aggressive geometry Read More

These are polarizing times. Seems like everybody’s either on one end of the spectrum or the other. I speak, of course, of hardtails. There are more and more aggressive, boundary-pushing rigs out there, and the ever-present XC hardtail holdouts. But the latter are usually aimed at the gram-counting racers that clearly are a bit too Read More

Joining the recent tradition of rolling out a staggered run of surprise new bike releases, Orbea has rounded out its new XC lineup with a totally redesigned Alma hardtail. Yep, a hardtail. With all the buzz about more aggressive full-suspension race bikes lately, it’s easy to forget that there still are plenty of die-hards who Read More

The Orbea Oiz already has two XC world championships in the bag. But that didn't stop Orbea from shaving more than a half a pound from the frame.