The AKA is a proper mountain bike. A pedal up, pedal along, blitz down kind of affair with familiar geometry inspired by the big hitting Mettle. Take it to the flow trails at your local trail centre, go off piste, or take it to your local bmx track – it’ll put a smile on your face.
You’d think making a hardtail was as simple as picking a few decent geometry numbers, throw it together and away you go… if only it was that easy. In fact, hardtails get steeper at sag, so we put a package together that ticks all the boxes with that in mind. A slack head angle, and comfortable seat tube angle, and a low bottom bracket put you ‘in’ the bike and in the thick of it. The AKA is the culmination of years of design experience, tweaking, and adapting the design until we were happy.
Chuck a set of 27.5″ wheels in it with a 140mm fork, or some 29″ wheels with a 120mm fork. The same frame can handle both without sacrifice allowing for unlimited potential. With tyre clearance up to 2.6″ and multiple water bottle mounts, and an adjustable drop out for running it singlespeed…
Hold on, what’s that?
Our ADS sliding drop outs on the AKA and Dr Jekyll were actually designed and in our vaults for a couple of years prior to working on the new hardtails. We wanted to make something new and tidy for with a built-in tensioner that offers 15mm of adjustment. It gives you the choice to run the bike with gears, or without, or in a long or short chain stay, the brake caliper also moves with the axle, so no matter what, it always stays aligned with the rotor, win.