• Planet X Armadillo
• £399 (frame only)
• Planet X
• 07967 673709

Planet X has a reputation for bikes that lie a little outside the mainstream. The new “freeride hardtail” Armadillo is an evolution of the earlier Compo, a crazed short/steep/tall device that was one of those bikes that was superb on the right sort of trails under the right sort of rider but a bit of a handful elsewhere. In some ways the Armadillo’s a step back from the quite radical Compo, but it goes further in others…

Frame

The first thing to catch your eye about the Armadillo is the tubing. Actually, it doesn’t so much catch your eye as grab both your eyeballs and fling them across the room – this bike has what we’re going to charitably call ‘presence’ but what some people would probably call ‘ugliness’. The ‘Industrial’ tubeset is certainly well-named. The top and down tubes resemble the hulls of nuclear submarines with their interesting bulges, and Planet X clearly thought that there weren’t enough welds on the frame and so included some fake ones along the bulges – the tubes are actually hydroformed 6061-T6 aluminium.

It’s certainly distinctive, and the sizable weld area available at the front of the tubes lets Planet X get away without any additional gussets between them and the massive barrel-shaped head tube. Moving aft, the seat cluster features a pierced top tube and forward-facing clamping slot, while the back end has rectangular section stays welded to a big forged yoke at the BB end and massive 12mm thick dropouts at the, er, dropout end. The left hand one features a disc mount that you’d have to try very hard to break…

The Armadillo’s Northern heritage is clear in the various clart-friendly details. That chainstay yoke gives enormous mud clearance and the cable runs are all designed for full-length housing from shifter to mech. All this beefiness doesn’t come light, of course – claimed weights are between 4.75 and 4.9lb for the 16 and 19in versions.
Geometry is fairly conventional with a couple of significant exceptions. 70/73 angles with a 100mm Fox Vanilla fork are par for the course, while top tubes are pushed out a bit (24in on the 19in model) and the stays pulled in (16.6in). You also get a giraffe-like bottom bracket – it’s listed as “0in drop” which means it’s exactly level with the hubs, which equates to something around 13in off the ground depending on tyre choice.

It’s all very well put together, and available in a choice of colours and graphic treatments (this is Black Logo). It’s not by any stretch of the imagination pretty and we’re not big fans of the fake welds, but it undeniably means business… The test bike’s a 19in, you can also get 16 and 17.5in versions.

Components

There’s little mileage in discussing components, as the Armadillo comes as a frame only. But it’s always informative to see what suppliers choose to build frames up with, so for the record the test Armadillo featured Fox Vanilla 100 forks, Truvativ cranks (with two rings and a bashguard), SRAM transmission, Clarks six-pot discs, Conti Vert Pro tyres and Planet X finishing kit (including a seatpost with laser-engraved height markings that all read “twelfty”…). It’s all solid stuff and we didn’t have any grounds for complaint, except for the Gripshift units that we just don’t get on with.

Ride

Climbing aboard the Armadillo for the first time is likely to induce vertigo. You end up really rather high up thanks to the tall bottom bracket. If you like to be able to touch the floor while sat in the saddle this isn’t a bike for you. The upside is that, especially when combined with a twin-ring/bashguard setup, rocks and logs and stuff just sort of disappear under the bike with a miminum of fuss. In fact, rocks are what this bike’s good at. The stout, long frame gives the Armadillo arrow-like stability. Forget what’s under the wheels, just decide where you want to go, point it that way and pedal…

You’d expect a frame this beefy to be uncomfortable, but the Armadillo confounds expectations. Big tyres obviously help, but the ‘dillo takes a regular-sized 27.2mm seatpost with plenty of it sticking out which introduces a degree of arse-saving flex. We rode it for seven hours straight and had no cause to complain.

Set up with a short stem, the Armadillo’ll change direction with fair haste if you want it to, but it’s happiest when you take advantage of it’s stability and let it find its own way down the hillside. You can set up early for turns confident that if you encounter anything a bit ugly on the way through the bike’ll just keep going regardless.

It’s good up hills, too. You’ll feel a bit held back by the bulk, but there’s no issues with traction and you can settle in to the long cockpit and just spin your way up. And there’s plenty of stiffness in the back end should you feel the need for a quick sprint…

Verdict
We found ourselves trying to think of reasons to drop some marks on the Armadillo, but everything has a reason. Well, most things – the looks are certainly an acquired taste but looks aren’t function and after all, you can’t see it when you’re riding it. Similarly, on the one hand it could drop some weight but on the other hand it’d lose some of that unstoppability. As per usual, it’s horses for courses – this isn’t a bike for everyone, but if you’re after a point-and-shoot, do-it-all bike and you can get your head around the looks, it’s great…

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