Ellsworth

Ellsworth makes much of its made-in-the-US heritage and anodised finishes, which makes its latest offering something of a departure. The Glimpse shares the suspension layout, geometry and travel (5in) of Ellsworth’s Epiphany, but the frame is made “overseas”, is painted and will only be available as a complete bike. Whether it’ll come to the UK we don’t know – the model pictured (with Fox forks and mostly Shimano SLX bits) will probably come in around the $3,000 in the US.

Ellsworth has also launched two new versions of its Ride cruiser. The top on is a kind of urban/commuter bike, with flat bars and a carbon fork. The bottom one is, as you probably don’t really need to be told, a tandem. One of them is clearly rather more practical than the other…

Marzocchi

2009 is something of a consolidation year for Marzocchi, but that’s not to say that there’s nothing new. As well as the Corsa XC fork, the new 44 occupies a bit of an all-mountain niche with 100-140mm of travel and an optional 15mm axle. There’s also an RC3 version of the AM/FR 55, offering adjustable rebound and separate high- and low-speed compression damping. The Roco rear shock has sprouted a restyled lockout lever and the air version is available with a carbon fibre air can – the weight saving is in the single digits, but it looks pretty cool…

Foes

Most eyecatching bike on the Foes stand was the all-white RS-7, a bit of kit that may be of interest to UK DH racers. It’s designed as a short travel (although 7in is still quite healthy), lightweight DH bike for shorter, gnadgerier courses, which describes most of what the UK has to offer. As with all Foes bikes, the RS-7 is a single-pivot design using the Foes-exclusive Curnutt shock and a 2:1 leverage ratio – that’s a shock stroke of 3.5in on this bike, the shock on the 10in travel DHS Mono is as long as your arm… A swing-link adds lateral stiffness, and the RS-7 also packs a remote shock reservoir and a floating brake arm.

All-new for 2009 is the Prolite. Foes already had a short-travel XC bike, the XCT4, but the Prolite is more focussed on XC racing. A fat Curnutt air shock delivers 3.5in of travel (with that 2:1 ratio again), and a monococque shock mount/head tube gusset should keep everything in line up front. It’s definitely a bike with a purposeful look to it…