• Mountain Cycle Fury
• £775 (frame with X-Fusion shock); £1,050 (frame with 5th Element shock); anodised finish + £130
• Windwave
• 023 9252 1912

Plenty of companies claim to be full-suspension pioneers, frame construction innovators and the like. And to be fair, most of them have reasonable grounds. But few can make as strong a case as Mountain Cycle. The company was founded by Robert Reisinger in 1988 and by 1992 they’d released the legendary San Andreas – four inches of rear suspension, monococque frame, upside-down supsension forks, hydraulic discs at both ends. Nothing out of the ordinary today, but in ’92 the arrival of the San Andreas was like Martians touching down. It was so far ahead of its time that Mountain Cycle is still making it and it still looks futuristic.

As with so many small manufacturers, Mountain Cycle has had its ups and downs. It was bought out by big US framebuilder Kinesis a couple of years back, had a period of consolidation and is now back in full flow producing some old favourites and some all-new bikes. The Fury is one of the first of the new crop.

Frame

At first glance the Fury looks like the result of a raid on the Mountain Cycle parts bins. Take the front half of a Rumble hardtail, bosh a San Andreas swingarm on the back and you’re done. As is so often the way, though, appearances can be deceptive.

While the swingarm may look like the famous San Andreas unit, it’s actually a rather different shape. The Fury’s main pivot is considerably lower than its brother’s, nestling in the favoured single-pivot location just in front of the chainrings and just between middle and outer height-wise. Constructionally, though, the swingarm’s identical to the Andreas, with massive monococque sections welded to forged and machined dropouts, shock mounts and pivot bearing carriers. It’s a lovely bit of work.

Up front the Fury uses a hybrid tubing/monocoque main frame. In the middle you’ve got a regular downtube, while the top tube curves down to meet it at the bottom bracket. Right at the front is a mini-monococque section with the headtube welded to it, and on top there’s a monocoque seat tower. The front end of the shock nestles in the corner betwixt “seat tube” and seat tower, and there’s a stub tube atop the bottom bracket shell to accommodate the front mech.

The shock on the test bike was a 5th Element coil unit, the piggyback chamber on which somewhat limits the scope for dropping the seat. You can get it with a 5th Air for the same money which’ll help in that regard (and save a bit of weight) or if you’re on a budget you can save £275 by opting for an X-Fusion shock.

As well as the swingarm and monococque sections, the all-continuous cable routing is another MC trademark. We like it – you don’t get significantly more drag than having bits of exposed inner around the place, it keeps the gunk out and it neatly sidesteps all sorts of ghost-shifting issues that can plague full-suspension bikes.

Add the generous tyre clearance at the back (MC claim it’ll take a 2.7in tyre although we think they might have a particular 2.7in tyre in mind) to the mud-friendly cable routing and you’ve got a package that looks surprisingly UK-friendly for a US bike. Claimed frame weight for a Medium is 7.4lb. Oh, and there’s a choice of colour too – red or white powdercoat or the black anodised seen here for an extra £130. The bike as a whole has a pleasingly no-nonsense, ready for anything stance – we like it.

Components

UK importers Windwave supply Furys as frame and shock only, so what you hang off it is up to you. We’ll treat you to a very brief rundown of what Windwave chose to put on it, though, as it gives you an idea what this bike’s about.

The Fury’s designed for 4-5in travel forks, and came to us with a 120mm travel Marzocchi Marathon S plugged into the front. Wheels were Club Roost EXS hubs laced to FiR rims and shod with Nokian NBX 2.3in tyres. Brakes were Formula 4Racing with 160mm rotors at both ends. Chain, cassette, shifters and mechs were all Shimano XT and everything else was from the FSA stable, including carbon riser bars. Someone had cut the FSA seatpost down to about four inches so we had a rummage through the spares box and found a full-length Bontrager item that let us pedal without kneeing ourselves in the chin.

It all adds up to lightweight, trail-riding kind of gear which at first sight looks like a bit of a mismatch with what is, after all, quite a stout frame. But according to Mountain Cycle the Fury sits in the “all-mountain” arena with little nibbles into XC and freeride at either end.

Ride

In this age of linkages, pivots floating in space and elaborately manipulated axle paths, it’s actually rather refreshing to get back on a straightforward single-pivot bike. It’s a vaguely similar experience to going all the way back to a hardtail – you know that it’s not necessarily the most effective or efficient tool for the job, but it’s helluva fun.

Platform damping technology has breathed new life into single-pivot bikes. The 5th Element shock on the Fury keeps things impressively stable under power. Typical behaviour for a fairly high/forward pivot bike like this would be to jack up slightly on each pedal stroke and sink back otherwise, setting up a bit of an oscillation. But the 5th tames that tendency almost completely, essentially by impeding the extension in the first place. We ran not far off the minimum recommended pressure in the platform valve to get as much plushness as we could and it was still reassuringly steady up the hills.

With a single pivot you’re always going to hit a compromise somewhere, and the Fury makes a fairly standard compromise by going for optimum performance in the middle and big rings. The clever shock means that it pedals just fine in the granny, but you’re getting a significant amount of pedal feedback if it’s bumpy which can put you off your stride up steppy sections. It’s a tendency that you can learn to ride around, though. If you can manage to haul the middle ring around on bumpy climbs that helps a lot. Keep the power on and it’ll batter its way through most things. Also helping is a short back end – not having any pivots or gubbins behind the BB lets Mountain Cycle run a 16.5in rear, which would be short even on a hardtail. The downside is occasionally buzzing the front mech cage on the back tyre if you’ve got something as aggressively knobbly as the NBX.

Pointing the other way the Fury really starts to live up to its name and we quickly found ourselves wishing for a bigger brake up front. Running the big ring lends decent fluidity to the back end, and the combination of a fairly short, upright riding position, pedalling-friendly tall BB and impressive stiffness throughout the whole structure really encourages you to chuck the bike about. It’s totally predictable but agile at the same time and it loves to fly – we can’t jump for toffee but the Fury didn’t seem to care…

Positives: Stout, predictable and flighty at the same time, looks great, mud-friendly

Negatives: Limited scope for dropping the seat, no bottle mounts

The Fury’s billed as an “all-mountain” bike but it’s got a definite preference for the downward-sloping bits. That’s not to say it can’t climb, ‘cos it can. The rear suspension isn’t helping you out as much as some of the new-wave designs, but it’s certainly not working against you. And on the way back down it’s an absolute blast. So what we’ve got is a downhill-oriented all-rounder, and there’s nowt wrong with that. It’s just a shame that the seat mast arrangement limits its playtime potential and the lack of bottle bosses will be a limitation for some epic ride fans. These things can be fixed with a telescopic post and a hydration pack, but only you know if that’s a satisfactory solution. One thing’s for sure – the good old single pivot’s got plenty of life in it yet.

Performance: 4/5
Value: 4/5
Overall: 4/5