Transition Bikes has completely redesigned its Covert all-mountain bike, with the clean-looking result you see here. It's described as a "6in travel quiver-killing bike capable of more aggressive riding" - that's half an inch more travel than the old Covert but at the same frame weight (6.7lb without shock, so a little over 7 with an RP23) and "significantly stronger".
The new gently-curving tubeset increases the weld area at the shock mounts, pivots and headtube. There's a new one-piece rocker link, new dropouts and new chainstay/seatstay yokes. Other features include the internal chainstay cable routing and tapered headtube.
According to Transition, the Covert's shock rate curve is "slightly progressive" - it's very close to linear, relying on the natural ramp at the end of the air shock's stroke to take up the big hits without bottoming. Geometry is very similar to the old Covert but tweaked to work with a 160mm single crown fork.
"When we released the Covert we were really going for a lightweight all mountain-only frame, but soon found our customers putting larger forks on the bikes and pushing the limits of the design. Most of these customers are people that can only have one bike but love to pedal singletrack and also hit more aggressive freeride trails. They needed a bike that could handle both," says Kevin Menard, co-owner of Transition.
Kyle Young, also co-owner of Transition (pretty much everyone at Transition is co-owner) elaborates: "Geometry and fit is everything in a bike and that is why we didn't change the geo and sizing too much on the Covert. We really felt like we hit some perfect numbers on the Covert and our customers loved it. On the redesign we made sure to maintain that magic fit and feel that we loved about the bike."
Transition sells frames to the UK direct from its Washington State base. The Covert's retail price is $1,559 with a Fox RP23 shock, to which UK import duty and VAT needs to be added. Shipping s free, though. Some back-of-an-envelope scribbling suggests that you're looking at an entirely reasonable £1,200 all in. Frames should be available in June - find out more at www.transitionbikes.com.
