Transition Tour

2018 Tech and First Ride

Words by Drew Rohde // Photos by Samson Hatae

Bellingham, Washington is famous for quite a few reasons, but we’d wager one of the most well known things about this Pacific Northwest jewel is Transition Bikes. On our way home from Crankworx Whistler we decided to stop and check out the crew’s new mothership and ride some of the PNW’s best known trails.

Transition recently made some waves when they announced their new Speed Balanced Geometry (SBG) concept. The concept addressed the offset and trail of contemporary frames and forks. A topic highly discussed and written about in the 1970’s chopper scene, when motorcycles with six-foot long forks and 45-degree head tube angles were cruising the highways ridden by acid-crazed bikers. Slightly more relevant to our modern SBG conversation, except maybe for the acid part, Transition realized that frame design and tube geometry could only take us so far in the complete handling package that mountain bikers demand. Transition must have taken a page out of the Chopper Builder’s Handbook because their SBG concept includes two important aspects to bike handling performance that are often overlooked each year as new bikes come out.

Offset and trail are two key factors in a bike’s handling, and aside from a few brand’s tinkerings, it hasn’t been addressed much. Offset is the distance between the steering axis, (straight line through the center of your steerer tube to the ground), and your front axle. These numbers vary by wheelsize, but 29ers typically have 46- or 51mm of offset. A 27.5 bike normally comes with a 42- or 44mm offset fork and a 26-inch bike runs 37- or 40mm of offset.

Trail is the distance from the center of the tire’s contact patch to where the steering axis meets the ground. Much like the head tube angle, trail changes can make a bike more stable at speed or twitchy in its handling characteristics. Depending on the desired performance of a bike, (think XC racer versus a DH sled) designers will try to find the optimal head tube angle for a well balanced ride. By adding trail and offset into the equation, engineers will be able to further tune and alter ride characteristics.

This is the very shortened version of just two aspects of SBG and how offset and trail can affect the way a bike rides. Transition believed that just changing fork offset alone wouldn’t be enough, much like they didn’t believe just lengthening the reach and slackening the head tube angle would create the best performing bike. Much like your grandmother’s chocolate chip cookies, the final product is the perfect blending of several ingredients, and Transition has narrowed the geometry batter to five key ingredients: A longer reach, slacker seat tube angle, reduced fork offset, shorter stems and steeper seat tube angles. By blending all these ingredients together, Transition hope to give riders a more balanced and stable feeling at high speeds, while also avoiding the dreaded low speed front tire flop and sluggishness that long, slack bikes tend to suffer from.