Olympia F1-X hides a shock inside new carbon XC MTB body

Posted on December 2, 2022 by Cory Benson

This wild new light-weight Olympia F1-X cross-country mountain bike hides about 3/4 of its rear shock inside the bottom of its seat tube, shielded from the climate & components. Functionally not all that completely different from the Italian bikemaker’s earlier full-suspension XC race bike, this all-new carbon F1-X is actually a head-turner…

Olympia F1-X semi-integrated XC bike

Simply after we thought Daring & Scott had cornered the market of mountain bikes with hidden rear shocks, Olympia drops in on a totally revamped F1-X. The brand new Olympia mountain bike isn’t fairly as coated up, but it surely appears a few of the identical advantages are nonetheless there, in a body that’s lighter and extra technically succesful than ever.

What’s Really New?

The physique of the shock and its crucial wiper seal now sits protected down contained in the body, whereas a further rubber seal the place the slider protrudes from the seattube. The F1-X retains full setup & upkeep usability, accessing the shock by way of a detachable cowl on the base of the seattube, simply in entrance of the rear wheel.

The general single-pivot, flex-stay suspension design is successfully unchanged, with a brief carbon rocker hyperlink driving the upside-down shock that’s been relocated partially into the bottom of the seattube. By shifting the shock down and again contained in the precise body, Olympia is ready to place the decrease shock mount concentric with the principle pivot on the identical metal axle, for improved stiffness & decrease weight.

It additionally shifts the principle pivot barely decrease & again, simply ahead of the underside bracket for smoother, extra environment friendly rear wheel journey.

This new extra compact suspension format additionally permits for shorter 430mm chainstays on the 2 smaller bikes, however 435mm stays for taller riders.

Holding the distinctive toptube pierced by a tunnel to spice up front-end rigidity, the brand new bike additionally jumps as much as a full 1.5″ FSA headset prime & backside that enables for inner cable routing with none exterior cable ports.

An additional of the hi-mod carbon mountain bike’s full redesign is lighter weight once more, dropping 100g of the earlier F1-X to return in round 1500g.

Extra Succesful Geometry

After all, the semi-integrated rear shock is essentially the most hanging change, however Olympia has additionally tweaked the short-travel XC bike to be extra succesful than ever for extra technical XC & marathon races. The bike bumps up its fork journey 10mm to 110mm whereas managing to decrease body Stack top by a couple of millimeters with shorter headtubes.

On prime of longer journey, the brand new F1-X additionally will get a level and a half slacker 67.5° head angle, a steeper seat angle on the smaller frames, and retains the identical longer Reaches it obtained within the bike’s 2020 trail-inspired replace.

The bike is now spec’d with 35mm stanchion SID forks that may be internally adjusted to 120mm of journey for even slacker, extra steady dealing with to sort out more durable racecourses.

Olympia F1-X – Choices & availability

Olympia’s all-new 29er F1-X is technically a MY23 bike they usually haven’t but launched both ultimate pricing or an official estimate on actual availability – suppose: early spring 2023.

However we do know not less than there will likely be two full bike builds – a mechanical F1-X Group 1S construct with Shimano XT groupset or the digital F1-X Race GXS AXS setup  – each with FSA parts & all0y Miche wheels, or an improve to Ursus carbon.

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