![]() Obviously this is what I think is the best amount of progression for how we wanted the Pinner to ride. Well, its as linear as I could get it…you wouldn’t be able to feel the slight wobble at the beginning and end of the travel, especially with an air shock. This allows us to optimise both the geometry of the bike and the leverage ratio, rather than having to compromise on one or the other. The leverage ratio is linear progressive 3.15 – 2.45. We use a linkage to actuate the shock because it lets us tinker with the leverage ratio separately from the main swingarm. It has a single pivot with linkage actuated shock. We caught up with him to get our heads round the intricacies of the suspension, as well as the challenges and tweaks required to go from 26 to 275. ![]() Our man in the field Tom, “Tam” Hamilton is the designer behind the Pinner, as well as being the guy who writes “The Science” articles for our bike tests. It feels slightly odd at first, but is well worth it, just don’t try any seated descending! This seems to counterbalance the short stem you really should be running on this sort of bike and stop the front end lifting on steeper climbs. This steep angle moves you forward a bit and does put you on the bars when climbing a bit. What that allows you to do is run a nice low standover height and then launch the saddle up to stratospheric heights without putting yourself too far over the back of the bike. The geometry of the bike is pretty cunning, on the 275 wheeled bike the head angle is 65.5 which is nice and slack for trail attacking, but the seat angle comes in at 75.5 degrees, steeper than you would find on most bikes of this genre. Personally we’d have specc’d the ISCG05 and run a little taco to keep chainrings safe, that said we’ve not bashed it yet! You also get a rather neat integrated seat-clamp as standard. The bike I’ve been riding has the standard geometry for the 275 wheel size, dropper post routing and no chain guide mounts as the builds that mags have been testing on have all been runnning wide-narrows and no guides. The rear axle is 142x12mm and also features a replaceable mech hanger. In terms of features, as BTR will make your bike to order, the choice is yours, but essentially you can do pretty much anything! ISCG/05 chain guide mounts, routing for droppers and the option to tweak the geometry. Look a little closer and the attention to detail is fantastic, the intricate bits of folding and gussetting are testament to the love that goes into these bikes. The tubes can be skinny thanks to the properties of steel, so while you might not have the sleek lines of hydroformed aluminium or carbon fibre you do have superb strength and that un-matchable springiness that comes with it. The skinny tubes scream “steel” – lucky really as the bike is made out of lovely steel. Indeed, the styling of the bike with a burly linkage and a Cane Creek double barrel remind me a bit of a DH bike. I must admit to being a bit surprised when I found out the Pinner was a 140mm as it’s aesthetic lends itself to a longer travel. 140mm is pretty standard at the shorter end of “Enduro” travel bikes, and a few of our favourite all day bikes feature that length of travel. The Pinner is billed as a “go anywhere trail destroyer”, the idea being that it is strong enough to handle the abuse of uplifts, ride all day up and down hill, or even ride a trail centre or two. ![]() Since their early days they have grown their range and moved into a workshop at the legendary Bicycle Academy in Frome where they split their time between designing and making their own range and coaching for TBA. There they designed and made DH specific hardtails and turned a few heads with their down to earth approach to bike design. We’ve spent a couple of weeks riding BTR’s Pinner, a 140mm steel trail bike designed to sew up the “one bike” solution.īTR started as two guys in a shed, Burf is a South African born son of a bike shop owner and Tam is a Scot from beyond Fort William brought together by fate in the South East of England.
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