There's clearly something in the water at Intense Cycles, with Jeff Steber unleashing a third new bike for 2009. After the Tracer VP and Spider 2, this is the new Uzzi.

It's designed as an all-mountain/freeride bike, but there's a little more to that description than meets the eye. The Uzzi will have air or coil shock options, with two travel settings - 6.5-7in with an air shock or 7-7.5in with the coil unit. Half an inch doesn't sound like a lot, but the VPP system is quite sensitive to shock setup and we'd expect the difference in feel between the two settings to be more marked than the fairly small difference in travel might suggest.

In common with Intense's other new bikes, the Uzzi is constructed from proprietary Easton EA6X tubing and the back end swings on angular contact bearings with grease fittings. Features unique to the Uzzi include ISCG05 mounts (ready for Truvativ's HammerSchmidt planetary transmission) and new G3 adjustable dropouts that affect wheelbase, bottom bracket height and head angle.

The full bike pictured is an all-mountain build at a claimed 31lb all-up. Intense has also put together an emburlened freeride build with the coil shock option and stouter parts at 36lb, which seems to cover the likely range.

More at www.intensecycles.com.