Spring seems to have finally arrived and is here to stay, we’ve been taking advantage of the good, dry weather by racking up miles on the test bikes. Next up to hit the trails are these three; a Salsa Journeyman, a Rockrider MT100 and a Ragley Piglet. Along with them, we’ll be taking a light innertube from Tubolito and a young ripper on their Rockrider.

Salsa Cycles Journeyman Apex 1

The latest affordable gravel bike to hit the off-road.cc test deck is this, Salsa Journeyman Apex 1 in a rather stunning pink. This is the 650B wheeled version of the adventure bike, with 2.1″ tyres, a 1x drivetrain, a carbon fork and all the rack mounts you could ask for. It’s ready to roll, the only thing left to ask is – can our test rider pull off that colour? The full first look is here. 

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Salsa Journeyman Apex 1 First Look-1 (Image Credit: Rachael Gurney)

 

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Salsa Journeyman Apex 1 First Look-7 (Image Credit: Rachael Gurney)

 

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Salsa Journeyman Apex 1 First Look-15 (Image Credit: Rachael Gurney)

Tubolito Tubo-MTB 29 inner tube

Weighing just 85g (for a 29er tube), Tubolito reckons you’ll save 100g per tyre over using conventional tubes. We are tubeless fans here at off-road.cc but we’ll take the weight saving in our pack in an instant. These tubes are said to be two times stronger than conventional tubes and two thirds lighter, they don’t appear that stretchy though and we are keen to see exactly how they inflate. 

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2019-04-30 cool things tubolito-1 (Image Credit: Farrelly Atkinson)

Ragley Piglet

After a short hiatus, Ragley are back with new bikes in 2019. The new Piglet frame has been given a dose of boost spacing, the reach has grown, the headangle has been slackened and the seat angle steepened. It’s aimed firmly at the trail rider and we will have a first look at it up on the site later this week. Frames are priced at £550 and full builds start at £1,750. 

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2019-04-30 cool things ragley piglet-1 (Image Credit: Farrelly Atkinson)

 

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2019-04-30 cool things ragley piglet-2 (Image Credit: Farrelly Atkinson)

Rockrider AM 100 HT 

Brand new from Decathlon is this Rockrider AM 100 hardtail and it looks like a large step forward in the mountain bike design language for Decathlon. The bike sports a 66 degree head angle, 430mm chainstays and a 448mm reach on this size large bike. The rest of the stats are a mystery to us at this time, we need to get the tape measure out and set to work before writing a full first look on this bike. 

The bike is just under a grand and comes complete with a dropper, 27.5 x 2.6″ tyres, a Rockshox Sector Debonair fork (130mm), SRAM NX 11 spd and Tektro 2-pistons hydraulic brakes. 

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2019-04-30 cool things b'twin-1 (Image Credit: Farrelly Atkinson)

 

B’Twin Rockrider 700 24″

The B’Twin Rockrider range from Decathlon is pretty large and we’ve also got this 24″ kids bike, the Rockrider 700 in for test, in fact, the review will be up very soon! This one is a penny under £300 and comes with a suspension fork, disc brakes and 24 gears. It’s a bit of a mish-mash of branded parts, no doubt to keep that price in line. Find out how it got on under our test rider later this week. 

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BTwin Rockrider 700 (Image Credit: Farrelly Atkinson)

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