I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Empire Cycles. Doing things very differently from any other manufacturer takes a lot of balls and incurs a huge amount of risk. Personally I love the look of the bikes but they can be a bit marmite for some. The new MX6-EVO seems like a pretty cleverly designed bike – plenty of adjustment for wheel size, hub widths, ISCG mounts. Basically it’ll run on (almost) whatever you’ve got on your current frame, should you want to swap the components over. I reckon it looks awesome, a bit of that Honda RN01 look going on. The ride? Well.. we’ll try and get hold of one to see!
From Empire themselves:
“The MX6-EVO is a 150mm travel bike that likes – no, needs – gradients. It’s a proper mountain bike. Built for clambering up stuff and then carving its way back down the other side. The MX6-EVO can be run as either a 26” or a 27.5″ wheel bike. Use your existing 26” stuff. Move to 27.5″ if you want to later on. No problem. No hassle.”
“We supply different mounting hardware specifically for each wheel size. Mounting hardware that results in the same geometry for each wheel size. Our custom made adaptors for the head tube and the swing arm take into account the differences in each wheel size option. There’s no cut ’n’ shut bodging or fudging here. Properly thought out. Properly executed.
150mm travel at the back. 150mm forks up front gives a 66.5° head angle with a 73° seat angle. 135 or 142mm rear hub compatible. These numbers work for proper mountain biking.”
Frameset from £999 and full bikes from £2499.
More at www.empire-cycles.com
