Mountain Bike Rider — March 2018

30 mbr MARCH 2018

R

ocky Mountain’s Pipeline

enjoyed an illustrious inception,

as the dependable lieutenant

to the pioneering Froriders.

This trio of Canadian renegades

hurled their Pipelines off rock drops,

surfed them down scree slopes and

teetered them across treetop bridges,

launching the whole freeride movement

in the process.

Then the name disappeared from the

Rocky Mountain line-up for some time,

untilbeingresurrectedlastyearasa

140mm-travel Plus bike. But the new

model didn’t quite evoke the same spirit

as the original, with a frame that had

been borrowed and adapted from the

Instinct range, along with conservative

sizing and sticky suspension that ran on

bushings rather than bearings.

It’s this fi nal point that, in our view,

hamstrung almost the entire Rocky

Mountain range. Yes, it’s true that

bushings can be a better engineering

ROCKY MOUNTAIN

PIPELINE CARBON 50

A classic model gets a makeover that’s more

than skin deep but have the Canadians

overdone it on the adjustability front?

NEW BIKES

NEED TO

KNOW

O140mm-travel

Plus bike

OCompletely

reengineered

for 2018

OCarbon front

triangle

ONine different

geometry and

suspension

confi gurations

First rides

SWINGING A LEG OVER WHAT’S HOT THIS MONTH

140mm-travel Fox

Float DPS Evol shock

now glides on bearings