"The new RFX is the perfect blend of all-mountain pedalling ability and adrenalin-rushing freeride tendencies," says the card stuck to the chainstay of Turner's latest offering. It should perhaps more correctly say "will be", for the RFX currently exists only in prototype form. It'll be pretty this same shape, though, just more nicely finished and with various details tweaked and refined.
The fundamentals will remain the same, though. Travel is 170mm (6.7in) from the DW-Link back end and 2.5in stroke shock. In an interesting bit of packaging, the shock is mounted slightly off to the left within the frame, giving a bit more room to fit the lower linkage and front derailleur in behind the chainrings.
Frame weight is somewhat up in the air at the moment, but Turner is promising complete bikes specced for trail riding at 30lb. With 170mm of travel, tapered head tube, 140x12mm rear through-axle and ISCG mounts, though, it's clearly not afraid of taking on some pretty hefty stuff.
Dedicated gravity pilots will want to be looking at the latest Turner DHR - 210mm (8.4in) travel from a horizontally coil-shocked variant of the DW-Link system, 4.3kg (9.5lb) frame weight, ready to race.
At the other end of the spectrum is the ever-popular 100mm travel Turner Flux. This is largely unchanged for 2010 (which is a good thing, as the 2009 bike was pretty splendid) although this sparkly white is a new, and rather lovely, colour option. Turner is now doing complete bike builds on all of its frames - this is the Flux Pro, with XTR transmission, Formula R1 brakes, Industry 9 wheels and 23lb all-up weight.
More at www.turnerbikes.com.
