August 22, 2005

Review: Scott Scale Ltd

Singletrack Magazine

Nowadays there seems to be plenty of hype surrounding bikes designed to go downhill as fast as possible. Here is something that swims against that tide: a bike designed to go as fast as possible nearly everywhere you point it. The Scott Scale Ltd is all about being the lightest and the fastest no matter what the cost. If this bike were a car it would be a McLaren F1.

The Scott Scale Ltd is refreshing in its unashamed dedication to riding fast cross country. This is not really that surprising; Scott has always been great believers in XC racing. They design a lot of their bikes with the race course in mind, have a great presence at all the major race venues and do an awful lot of R&D at these events too (so they can design bikes with the race course in mind even better!).

The accompanying literature and website make great play of Scott’s partnership with Thomas Frischknecht, stating that certain key ingredients of the Scale range came about after Scott’s designers and "Frischi" personally pre-examined the 2004 Olympic race course in Athens.

Those of you who didn’t blink during the UK television broadcasting of the Olympics will know that the Greeks designed a particularly fast, short course with some very steep climbs and lots of tight, twisty turns. To deal with these factors, the Scale Ltd has some fairly aggressive geometry (71 degree head angle, 73.5 seat angle), a long top tube and a short overall wheelbase.

The Scale series of bikes is aimed to be the “lightest hardtail family in the world”. A bonkers weight of 990g (2.18 lbs) is claimed for the frame. The fully built bike we received weighed 19.95 lbs. Blimey.

Scott have not gone for the traditional monocoque or lugged methods of making a carbon fiber frame and have instead helped pioneer a new process. This new method is essentially fairly similar to welded metal-tubed frames, but the tubes are made up of million of carbon fiber strands and are bonded (not welded) together.

The secret magic is in how the individual tubes are made. Up to five different types of carbon fiber "strands" are used in making just one tube of a CR1 frame and each tube can be custom butted and pre-stretched for maximum strength and lightness in highly specific areas. This technique has been applied to certain areas of the frame to make the ride lighter, more responsive and a bit more comfortable at the same time. The subsequent "weld-gluing" and finishing still leaves the lovely seamless appearance of a monocoque.

The component choice continues the no-nonsense racehead weight-weenie theme: 80mm Rock Shox SID WC with lockout, XTR shifting, DT Swiss wheelset, Avid Single Digit Ultimate V-brakes, FSA carbon cranks and headset, a painful looking Selle Carbonio saddle and Crank Bros. Triple-Ti Egg Beater pedals.

If you’re after the best example of cutting-edge XC race bike technology, the Scale Ltd is very probably it. If you can’t win races on this bike then we’re afraid you only have yourself to blame.