We build bikes for adventures.

The first mountain bikes were simple bikes doing something cyclists had always done: taking a bicycle off the beaten path, over rough trails and through places where roads didn't exist. Just because they were there.

No suspension. No dropper posts. Just a capable bicycle, a good set of tires and the willingness to get off and walk when the trail demanded it.

Those early machines were often called ATBs - All-Terrain Bicycles - before the name Mountain Bike stuck and became synonymous with the kind of riding that fuelled the industry: racing and performance.

Modern mountain bikes have evolved for good reason. They are highly capable machines, designed around riding faster, hitting harder and handling increasingly demanding terrain. Suspension, dropper posts, aggressive geometry and increasingly robust frames allow riders to tackle bigger impacts and higher loads than those early ATBs ever could.

But that's not the bike we wanted to build.

a different kind of mountain bike

Our bikes are designed around a different idea of off-road travel: going a long way over rough terrain, under your own power, carrying everything you need for an independent journey of a few hours to a few weeks.  Enjoying a slower kind of adventure (or micro-adventure).

They are absolutely off-road bikes - wide tires and rims, powerful brakes, wide-range drivetrain - because rough terrain demands capable equipment.

But we don't design around racing, jumps, significant drops or high-speed technical riding. The easy path is to overbuild for every possible use case: Add gussets and oversized tubes to handle 60cm drops and 140kg loads, and yes, the bike survives more. But it also becomes heavier, stiffer and less alive under you. In our experience, most overbuilt adventure bikes just aren't that enjoyable to ride unloaded, and without suspension to compensate, that matters.

We didn't want to add weight, stiffness or complexity to chase a level of performance that isn't central to multi-day adventure riding with a bikepacking load.

The distinction is not simply road versus off-road. It's how you ride.

Our Studio Edition frames and forks are independently tested and certified by EFBE Prüf- und Testzentrum in Germany to DIN EN ISO 4210-6:2023-05, Condition 2, for a system weight of up to 120kg.  This covers rough trails, forest tracks, Alpine paths, loose surfaces and multi-day adventures, ridden at a controlled pace with a rider and gear.

They are not designed for aggressive cross-country racing, jumps, significant drops or repeated high-impact riding.

And that's a deliberate choice, not an apology.

go far, not fast

When you're traveling with a loaded bike over hundreds or thousands of potentially remote kilometres, the equation changes. The objective isn't to win every descent. It's to get to the other end.

We've seen riders on long-distance journeys push just a little too hard on a descent and turn months of preparation into a broken bike, an injury or an early trip home. The stakes are different:  you've invested months of training, planning and money to pursue a dream and finishing matters more than cleaning any single section of trail.

A rigid bike encourages a different and deliberate way of riding. Without suspension and a dropper post to make every descent faster and every obstacle easier, the terrain speaks more clearly through the bike. You pick your line, you moderate your speed. You choose your moments and sometimes you ride, sometimes you walk.

And sometimes the fastest way forward is to slow down.

We think that's a good thing.

the wilderness canoe

We think of it a little like a traditional cedar-canvas canoe.

A cedar-canvas canoe isn't designed to be bounced down a rocky river like a modern plastic boat built to shrug off impacts. You treat it differently because the purpose is different: to travel quietly and efficiently through wild country, day after day. You pick your way through eddies and sneak routes, and sometimes you line or portage.  You work with the river. You don't try to dominate it.

Our philosophy is much the same. Our bikes aren't built to survive every possible way of riding a mountain bike. They're built to take you a long way through potenially remote places, under your own power, with everything you need for the journey.

what makes it capable

Rigid geometry, done properly, is not a compromise - it's a choice that opens up a different set of possibilities.

Because we're not designing around a suspension fork with variable geometry as it compresses, we can optimize every dimension specifically for off-road riding: shorter reach and taller front end for a more upright position that's easier on wrists, hands and lower back over long days.  A slacker seat tube angle shifts your weight rearward, keeps the saddle out of the way on steep standing climbs, and makes it easier to loft the front wheel over obstacles or more your weight back on descents.   A lower bottom bracket and carefully balanced mechanical trail, combined with a slacker head angle and a higher-offset fork give us  a longer front-center for greater stability and resistance to going over the bars, while retaining the personality and agility we want at low speeds.

The frame itself is part of the suspension system. A lively chromoly steel frame, a 27.2mm setback seatpost with natural flex, wide tires at low pressure and a carefully tuned bi-plane fork all work together to absorb trail chatter without the weight or complexity of suspension pivots. The frame and fork are designed and tested as an integral system, not two components that happen to fit together.

Slider dropouts for singlespeed, geared or Rohloff. Clearance for 29x3.0. All the braze-ons you need. A 1-1/8" headset - once considered "oversized" - for reduced water ingress with a straight steerer tube, and a more classic and proportionate look.

Strong enough. Capable enough. Nothing more.