Eurobike: Orange and the big wheels

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The Eurobike Trio are still there and Chipps takes up the story.
OK, if we count the Demo Day as day 1, then today must be Day 2. Today we split up, with Jon heading off for video scoops (most of which will trickle out over the next few days) and Matt heading off to do mega ad deals and me wandering around a little aimlessly and then getting it together for some good aisle-stomping through Hall B1, B2, B3 and B4.

We started the day, though, with our traditional first visit to Orange Bikes. Must had been conjectured about what Orange was up to, with little leaks about a carbon bike, and perhaps a 29er, and a few peeks that we’d seen ourselves.

Spotted at the Charge stand was a healing Chris Akrigg, looking pretty cheerful about it all.

The main scoop was a pair of 29ers, a carbon road bike and a brace of hybrids…

The E8 aluminium hardtail has now become the E9 29er hardtail (can you see what they did there?) with super nice 3D headbadge and an hourglass head tube, short wishbone chainstays and a bright green paintjob. It obviously now takes big wheels, but small wheel racers shouldn’t be disheartened as the aluminium Elite still endures.

And now… those missing E9 pics. We’ve been having some Press-room internet issues…

 

Simply LOVELY head badge

 

The E9 in its fluoro glory

The carbon road bike, the Carb-O (ooh, Orange is full of puns these days) is a reasonably normal looking carbon fibre bike and fork with some neat pinstriping and curves where they should be. Internal cable routing keeps the neat look. The show bike had a pretty affordable 105 groupset on it. We’ll let you know what the price is once we get the proper once-through tomorrow.

There is, what appears to be, a 100mm travel, aluminium 29er Orange Five. It’s actually badged as a Strange, which is Orange’s prototype ‘Don’t hold us to this, we’re just trying it out’ label that it uses to try out different concepts. It’s bolted to the stand, so we’ve not been able to give it a go yet, but we’ll be nipping down the valley and knocking on Orange’s door soon for a play.

Word has it that the swingarm is only a few millimetres longer than the 26in version
Strange indeed...
That's a Rubber Queen 29er tyre

Keeping the balance for the 26in riders was Ben Cathro’s MTB Cut team bike on show in its lurid pink paint scheme.

It's very big and pink
Matt being mid-air refuelled by Jon

 

Cane Creeks Double Barrel Air shock is out finally, seen here on a top end spec Patriot.

 

This is the bike you get if you pull down and tick all the add-on menus on the Orange website. Nice, isn't it?

 

An Orange town bike? Well, why not?
Traditionalists will be pleased to see the P7 is still in the line.
Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 22 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

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