Bikes from Swiss manufacturer BMC will very shortly be available in the UK through Raw Experience. It’s not a brand we were terribly familiar with. OK, we’d never heard of it. But it’s quite well known on the road scene as bike supplier to the Phonak team and the MTB range looks very promising.

As you might expect from the Swiss, the bikes are packed with interestingly-engineered bits and bobs. The “Crosslock Skeleton Design” is a particular BMC trademark, using a funky forged piece at the seat cluster with the top tube, seat tube and seat stays welded to it. The flagship Team Elite 01 hardtail uses a carbon fibre seat tube and wishbone stays to visually pleasing effect, while the aluminium main tubes are heavily manipulated – the down tube is so ovalised at the bottom bracket end that it’s just about as wide as the BB shell. You’re looking at £2,719 for the XTR-equipped bike, while the mostly XT Team Elite 02 is built around an all-aluminium frame and costs £1,429.

If you’re after full suspension, BMC can offer you a choice of two platforms. Both use a “Virtual Pivot System” suspension design, hanging the swingarm from a pair of linkages in the style of Santa Cruz’s VPP bikes. The Fourstroke series has 100mm of travel and predominantly XCish spec. Again, the top model – the Fourstroke 01 – uses carbon in the back end. Your £3,579 gets you DT Swiss wheels, Fox F100X fork, DT Swiss HVR shock and XTR throughout. If you’re on a tighter budget (and let’s be honest, most budgets are tighter than that), Fourstrokes start at £1,429.

Need more travel? The Golddigger has 125mm out back from a similar suspension design attached to a suitably stout front end. The two bikes in the range are the 02 (£1,859) and 01 (£2,499) – the frames and most of the parts are the same, with the extra pennies going into better suspension components and wheels.

BMC also does road and various flavours of hybrid bikes (including the preposterously flash Carborazor carbon-fibre “urban MTB”) as well as a smart-looking MTB tandem that’s just £1,929 with a rigid fork or £2,304 with a Marzocchi fork as seen here. All the bikes in the range have various upgrade options for brakes, wheels, shocks and so on, so if any specs aren’t quite to your liking they’re readily juggled.

We’ll have tests of some of these as soon as we can. In the meantime, have a look at www.bmc-racing.com for more details.