Video: The Latest Tech from the Fort William World Cup | The New Foxxer? – Pinkbike

We’re at Fort William for the first round of the downhill World Cup. With a long off-season behind us, there are a slew of new bikes and tech. Most notable is the Martin Maes’ non-ebike ebike, the Rockshox Foxxer and a tweaked rear end on the Commencal Supreme of Amaury Pierron.
It isn’t Kashima, but it’s pretty close. I don’t necessarily understand the thinking behind speccing a gold Boxxer. Apart from the hype of today and possibly putting some noses out of joint at Fox it doesn’t seem to make much sense. The casual fan will think it’s just a 40.
Cube have had a “nearly ready” production bike for what feels like a long time. This one must be pretty close now, and certainly looks it. If you ask Cube they will indeed confirm they’ll tell you the same thing they told me two years ago. The brake-arm reduces anti-rise from around 100% to around 18%. The riders feel that with the suspension being quite sensitive through its stroke, they can find when braking hard as they set up for turns, they run out of travel for repeated hits. Reducing the anti-rise is a way around this.
The imitation game continues. Kenda is the latest company to come aboard the Assegai style tyre. The NS team were tight-lipped on details but said they’re still experimenting with casings.
This svelte chainstay looks so thin it could almost be a flex pivot. However, concealed behind the cranks looks to be another way to adjust stiffness. The Supreme already has one flex-adjust on the stay, and it’s interesting to see Commencal try to offer another option. I’ve heard of people running it without the bridge at all for ultimate compliance, however, clearly Amaury is looking more specifically about how and when the bike flexes, more than just an increased amount of flex, and could even be trying to isolate it further away from the shock to stop any binding that can inhibit performance. The stay itself looks to be steel.