I first seen Viral Bike’s new Wanderer Drop Bar Bike after I noticed it being pushed round at this yr’s Sea Otter Traditional. I used to be tremendous busy on the present (or spending an excessive amount of time within the Okay-Edge trailer) and, unhappy to say, didn’t get an opportunity to cease and test it out up shut. The bike was formally launched on the 18th of April and appears like a cool bike.
Let’s take a gander.
The Viral Bikes Wanderer
The event for the Wanderer began after they moved their HQ from Bend, Oregon, to Bentonville, Arkansas. The Wanderer is Viral’s drop bar-specific journey bike, “designed for the roughest roads and the longest of backcountry adventures”.
The body on the Wanderer is constructed round mountain bike requirements together with a full 100mm mountain bike suspension fork, and increase spacing. “As quickly as we had the Pinion SmartShift in our fingers, we knew that this is able to be the following bike to market,” says Viral’s founder Steve Domahidy.
The brand new Wanderer can be constructed particularly round Pinon’s electronically shifted gearbox, SmartShift. Together with that, TRP has added their Hywire which is a drop bar shifter/brake lever combo designed across the SmartShift.
The Hywire permits for a correct shifting expertise when utilizing a drop bar with the Pinion gearbox. “There have been a variety of workarounds to creating drop bars suitable with the Pinion gearbox, however they’ve all been fairly main compromises, till now,” Domahidy continues.
There doesn’t appear to be something to fret about in relation to battery life for the digital shifting. Pinion claims a full 10,000 shifts per cost.
Wanderer’s Distinctive Geometry
Pushing the boundaries of gravel and journey bike geometry, the Wanderer runs a 67.5 head tube angle and lengthy entrance heart. This pushes the wheelbase and attain out for extra stability whereas descending, whether or not loaded or not.
As well as, is “altering the sport” with size-specific geometry, concentrating on seat tube angle vs. size-specific chainstay lengths. “On the finish of the day, we’ve little management over the ultimate chainstay size of a motorbike. It’s what it’s once you stress the belt to a specified quantity, and you may change {that a} bit with belt lengths and equipment ratios, however now you’re compromising the ultimate drive ratio to perform a chainstay size. That’s not how we needed to go about it,” Domahidy says.
As a substitute, the Wanderer places bigger riders and smaller riders extra ahead on the bike with a steeper seat tube angle. This accomplishes the identical end result as longer chain stays.
Extra on this from Steve Domahidy:
“Shorter riders profit from a steeper seat tube angle because it helps enhance the entrance and heart geometry which helps preserve toe overlap in test. Taller riders profit from the identical steepening of the seat tube to maintain their heart of steadiness extra ahead and centered over the bike. As you elevate the seatpost for taller riders, this strikes their heart of gravity additional and additional again which unbalances the trip traits. As a result of we are able to’t actually successfully management the chainstay size, we determined to manage the middle of gravity by means of the seat tube angle“.
As you will have guessed, Steve spent a variety of time engaged on and refining the Wanderer’s geometry. He thinks the outcomes are “elegant”
One of the noticeable traits of the Wanderer body is the distinctive seat cluster space. The seat cluster de-couples the highest tube from the seat tube. Then a titanium spring plate is welded to the seat stays to help the rider. The approach affords 10-20 mm of flex to the seat tube. Thus, giving the rider further consolation and management when stuff will get dicey.
Wanderer’s Geometry Charts
* primarily based on a 100mm journey fork
** measurement within the shortest place
Body Specs and Retail
Retail: $4250 (frameset)
Retail: $9795 (full bike with RockShox SID SL Final) // $9295 (with Viral Carbon Enhance Fork)
- Viral Bikes triple butted titanium tubeset
- Full Mountain Bike functionality and clearance for a 29” x 2.4” tire
- Pinion C1.12i SmartShift gearbox delivers 600% gear vary
- Body equipment comes with Gates belt drive, entrance and rear cogs, cast cranks, TRP Hywire brake/shifter combo with 180mm rotors entrance and rear, battery, charger, wiring equipment, locking software, rear cassette spacer equipment, and first 6000-mile oil change
- Inflexible* or 100mm fork suitable
- 31.6mm seat publish, suitable with inside dropper publish routing.
- 148mm Enhance rear hub spacing
- IS41 higher/ IS52 decrease headset bearings
- 4.25 lbs. for medium body
Pre-orders can be found now on the hyperlink under. A 50% deposit is required. Pre-order body equipment clients will obtain the TRP Haywire brakes and shifters totally free along with with the ability to choose the colour they’d favor to anodize their body’s emblem and stripes.
