Typically if a bike company has a major product announcement, it will be reserved for an industry trade show like the upcoming 2011 Interbike in Las Vegas, but it appears that Moots of Steamboat Springs, Colorado has decided to let their ‘friends’ on Facebook have a sneak peek of what appears to be an exciting new design.
There are few details as of right now, but it appears that the new 2012 MX Divide is a complete redesign of their somewhat archaic current cross country bike, the Zirkel. The most significant difference with the new MX Divide is that Moots teamed up with the Sotto Group of Watsonville, California to design this new frame using a single pivot design and position the rear shock more inline with the travel of the rear triangle. Sotto Group is well known in the bicycle industry, plus they have the experience to design and test making them a perfect resource for this new design. Since the MX Divide is designed to be a cross country bike, the frame has 4-inches of rear travel and is designed to work with a 100mm (4-inch) suspension fork. The rear triangle uses a combination of titanium seat stays and aluminum chain stays with a carbon fiber swing link connecting the seat stays and rear Fox shock.
Along with the new frame design, the MX Divide features an inset 44mm oversized head tube and press fit BB30 bottom bracket which is becoming more standard on mountain bikes due to both items increasing the overall stiffness of a frame.
Another feature that will be appreciated by current Moots owners (such as this reporter) is the curved down tube. I had recently completed building a 2011 Mooto X YBB and personally had an issue with the adjusting knobs of the 2012 Fox F29 fork hitting the down tube. The new curved down tube alleviates this issue and will hopefully appear on other 2012 Moots frames.
This ground-up approach by Moots has produced what appears to be an exciting new bike that we hope to swing a leg over at Interbike to hit some trails. The 19-inch frame MX Divide shown in the photo reportedly weighs just 24.5 pounds which should make this one fast bike on the trails!