Lapierre XR is the name of the new race file from France: the manufacturer has given the bike 100 millimetres of travel at the front and rear, the wheels are 29 inches, the head tube is tapered, the cables are routed internally and the rear wheel axle in 12-millimetre standard is responsible for stiffness at the rear end.

The carbon frame of the new XR is said to weigh around 1800 grams. The rear triangle of the racing full-suspension is fully powered: three models of each of the six variants are equipped with the electronic damping system from Fox or Rock Shox.

The engineers have fine-tuned the geometry of the Zesty, the all-mountain bike with 140 millimetres of travel at the rear. The steering angle has moved from 67 to 66.5 in the direction of smoothness, while a lower bottom bracket is intended to further increase the downhill potential.

The French have also worked on the head tube of the Spicy enduro machine and tweaked the geometry for a racy downhill ride. The downhill model - simply called DH - can take on even bigger bumps in the 2013 season: with 220 instead of the previous 200 millimetres of rear suspension travel, the revised gravity bike will develop a lot of downhill momentum.

As Christophe Prior, Managing Director of Primussports and Swiss distributor for Lapierre, announces, numerous models (specifically: XR 529, 729 and Team, Zesty 314, 414, 514, 714, and 914, Spicy 516 and 916) benefit from the new electronic damping system "e:i shock". This means that the electronically controlled damping on the rear triangle is not only used on race-oriented mountain bikes, but the French are also bringing electronics to the all-mountain and enduro sector.

According to Primussports, the new models can be expected in December 2012. The distributor estimates the price increase from the classic shock to the electronic system to be between CHF 500 and CHF 700.

www.cycles-lapierre.fr
www.primussports.com