If you are looking for a lightweight carbon hardtail with stout fork compatibility, this could be the bike.
Fezzari, has updated its hardtail mountain bike offering.
Like many of the American cycling brands doing business from Utah, Fezzari does interesting things with carbon-fibre.
The latest frame to benefit from Fezzari’s Monoform composite technology, is its improved Solitude. This carbon-fibre 29er hardtail sits at an interesting junction in contemporary mountain bike design, with geometry numbers straddling the divide between pure XC racing and trail riding.
Read more: hardtail mountain bikes
Meticulous construction
Keen students of frame design will notice the Solitude’s very clean profile and shapely head tube, testament to Fezzari’s Monoform construction process. Both triangles are moulded into a single layup, delivering the purest possible carbon-fibre bonded structure, with minimal material overlap and resin use.
The benefits of this purist construction are superior ride quality and trail feedback. Frames with too much material overlap and resin, can suffer from that dreaded dullness in terms of rider feedback and deliver a harsher ride.
How much has the Solitude’s measurements and angles changed? The head angle has slackened to 68° and there is a correspondingly steeper seat angle too, at 74.5°. On a size large the Solitude stretches to 460mm of reach.
All Solitudes have the same 430mm chainstay length, promising agile handing, with Fezzari recommending a 51mm offset fork, ideally at 120mm of travel.
Happy to be overforked
There is quite a bit of latitude allowed, regarding fork specification. Fezzari has certified the 2021 model year Solitude to run with forks up to 140mm in stroke length, creating the possibility for a lightweight trail hardtail build.
Frame specification adheres to most contemporary standards with a 12x142mm rear axle spacing and 31.6mm seatpost diameter, with provision for stealth dropper routing.
Available in sizes small, medium, large and extra-large, the Solitude’s sub-1000g frame weight and 140mm fork compatibility is an interesting outcome of contemporary carbon-fibre hardtail mountain bike design.