SPOT Brand Bikes- by Grannygear
Since we have a Ti Rocker SS from SPOT Brand bikes on test right now, we wandered by the SPOT Bikes booth at Demo days for a visit. We knew they had some new bikes to show, and show them they did. The Honey Badger is the latest effort from SPOT and will be flying the steel banner for the Colorado based company. Compared to the steel Rocker we reviewed last year, the Honey Badger has some real differences. The SpotOn tubing, a proprietary Japanese-made steel, allowed SPOT a great deal of control over the shapes of the different tubes including the Animal-Leg seatstays. According to SPOT, this gave them more vertical compliance…82% more seated and 15% standing. The Time-Trial cutaway seat tube allowed SPOT to shorten up the chainstays and the crenelated down tube gusset should relieve the heat related stress that a typical welded downtube gusset might create.
Of course, the Kobe sliding dropouts are carried over and allow for SS use and Gates Carbon Drive belt installation and the SPOT geometry with that 69.25* HT angle keeps things happy when the trail turns rough and fast. The Honey Badger “Takes what it wants”.
Another benefit of the new Honey Badger is a reduced cost compared to the older steel Rocker. The frame only is $899.00, the single speed with the Gates Carbon Drive CenterTrack is $2599.00 and the geared version with Shimano 2×10 SLX is $2699.00. I like it very much and I think steel SS fans will too.
Also shown was the new Cream Ti bike with many of the same creative touches as the steel Honey Badger. The Cream was still in development, so not as much firm details yet on that. Quite a beauty.
That Honey Badger looks pretty sweet! Any idea what range of fork travel it’s designed for (looks like 100mm on there?)?
That combo of (relatively) low price point, shorter chain stays, steel frame, tapered head tube, and gates drive makes it awfully attractive.
@Matt: Yes- I it is a 100mm travel design.
How much rear tire room does the Animal-Leg seatstays allow? On the Ti version, it looks like not very much…
What the heck is a crenelated down tube gusset? When I looked it up, it said something about a medieval buttress used to hold up fortress walls. A close-up would be appreciated.
The Honey Badger looks nicer, better, cheaper…always a good combination!
@Yogi…I have no shot from the back end view…sorry. And I did not take notice. If you look at the middle shot in the three panel of the Honey Badger, the HT shot, you can see some ‘wrinkles’ and a bit of a bulge in the DT at the HT junction.
Crenelated, apparently. Hard to take a pic of with that dull paint finish.
gg
I used to own a Canadian Spot 26er (amazing in every way) and I just rode my friend’s Rocker belt drive SS (wow–made me question why I shelled out for a custom Ti frame. It’s that good.) Love, love, love their bikes.
But…
(…and yes, I understand that my criticism here is trivial, so take it with a grain of salt…)
The names: The Cream? (Yuck. The name takes your mind places that I just don’t want to go. I mean, what do you say to your riding buddies, “hey, you just HAVE to try my new Cream?” Ick.)
And Honey Badger? Really? Is anyone going to remember that YouTube video 12 months from now? Double epic fail. ; )
LOVE the name.