1. Full-length outer casing and a large exit port down near the bottom bracket made the internal cabling easy to service and set up.

2. Sweet flowing lines on the hydro-formed alloy frame.

3. While the Fox RP2 shock offers a distinct level of platform damping, we found the X-Flow pedalled really well in the full-open mode.

Lapierre X-Flow 412

trail test

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Many Australian MTB riders have been turning blue in the face for the last few years; envious of our European counterparts, we’ve been holding our breath

waiting for Lapierre bikes to be readily available over here. Breathe easy fellow riders, because a new Australian distribu-tor has taken on the French brand and is keen to convince us that the wait has been worthwhile. The 140mm travel Zesty and 160mm Spicy have garnered a huge fol-lowing and an enviable reputation over-seas, however for 2012 Lapierre has just released a totally new bike; the 120mm travel X-Flow. Not only is it a new model, but unlike the Zesty and Spicy it uses the unique ‘Pendbox’ suspension system, as seen on Lapierre’s DH Team, which has been heavily reworked to suit the shorter travel platform. The three top-end ver-

sions feature a full carbon frame, but we thought the mid-range alloy X-Flow 412 might be of more interest to those who haven’t yet won lotto. Equipped with an SLX/XT drivetrain, Formula brakes, Easton wheels and Fox suspension, it sells for $3,999. Our medium test bike weighed 12.7kg without pedals and 3,350g for the frame including the rear shock. So, voulez-vous de rouler Francais?

SimPle lookS...Although aesthetics can be a very

personal thing the X-Flow is undoubt-edly easy on the eye; the lines are classic, clean and uncluttered, and although the frame’s cross-sections have been heavily manipulated, the tubes themselves are rel-atively straight. There’s plenty of stando-ver height thanks to the steeply sloping top tube with its beautifully formed top

brace, the construction and weld quality looks tippy-top, and there are nice bolt-on cable guides for the rear brake as well as a dropper post. The internal routing of the derailleur cables keeps things look-ing neat and simple, and the large cable exit hole near the bottom bracket ensures fitting the cables is a relative doddle, although threading the final length of the front mech cable through a tiny hole in the swingarm is a little tedious. Big props to Lapierre as well for the wheel and tyre choice; for 2012 the Easton wheels feature a fully sealed UST rim bed, and they’re teamed up with airtight Michelin UST tyres. This is the first time we’ve ever come across a bike which hits the showroom floor with full tubeless set up ready to go, so you don’t need to faff around taping rims, removing tubes and sealing the tyres yourself; nice work.

Less impressive is the limited rear tyre clearance; you might fit a 2.25-inch tyre between the chainstays but you certainly won’t fit anything bigger, so light, high volume tyres are pretty much ruled out. Given the move in recent years towards through axle dropouts the quick release rear end also seems a bit passé, although in fairness the back end of the X-Flow doesn’t lack stiffness. Overall value for money is not the best either, with most bikes around this price featuring through axle forks, full XT (or better) drivetrains, and name brand cockpit components. That said, the mixed Shimano drivetrain and house brand cockpit components all work fine except for the 660mm wide handlebar which just feels wrong; when will bike manufacturers realise that you can always cut a wide bar to shorten it, but you can’t glue any extra onto a bar that’s too narrow?

...Can be DeCePtiveFrom the drive side you could easily

mistake the X-Flow for a simple, well executed linkage driven single pivot de-sign. Then you turn the bike around, and

ideas of simplicity are quickly replaced by looks of confusion and puzzlement as you try to figure out just what on earth is going on with all that stuff behind the bottom bracket; the Pendbox!

Lapierre’s Pendbox is a ‘Floating Bot-tom Bracket’ (FBB) design, whereby the bottom bracket is not attached to the front or rear triangle, but rather ‘floats’ on a short link between the two main frame components. It is however a very unusual take on this design, because unlike other FBB systems (GT I-Drive, Mongoose FreeDrive etc) where the bot-tom bracket moves constantly rearward to reduce chain growth, the Pendbox actually moves the bottom bracket for-ward from the sag point, increasing chain growth. What this means is that whenev-er you’re pedalling, the suspension is try-ing to bring itself back to the neutral sag position, so the X-Flow pedals efficiently without needing to rely on platform damping in the rear shock. Because the action of the Pendbox is neutral at the sag point, the suspension remains very supple on small trail chatter even when you’re pedalling; the further you are from

the sag point, the more your chain torque will stiffen the suspension.

The other main benefit of the X-Flow’s Pendbox design is the ability for the engineers at Lapierre to tweak the brak-ing performance and axle path relatively independently of pedalling performance. With a single pivot suspension system, small changes to the main pivot loca-tion will affect all of these parameters, however in this case the pivot location primarily controls braking behaviour and axle path, whilst the Pendbox itself looks after pedalling. It’s a clever system and it doesn’t require royalty payments to a patent holder (as is the case for the Horst Link based Zesty and Spicy models).

The downside of Pendbox is twofold; weight, and complexity. The X-Flow’s frame and shock is nearly 800g heavier than the lightest 120mm alloy bike we’ve tested, and it’s around 400g heavier than some alloy 150mm travel offerings. Given that Lapierre are pitching the X-Flow at the XC trail and marathon market, that’s a lot of extra baggage to be lugging around with you. The K.I.S.S. principle is also clearly absent here, with the X-Flow

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7. amazing hydroforming—the top tube splits in half to improve top tube clearance while also offering support to the extended seat tube.

8. most bikes come with inner tubes and leave the tubeless conversion to you. the X-Flow has proper USt tubeless tyres with matching USt rims and no inner tubes fitted—nice work lapierre!

SPeCiFiCationS

Frame Alloy SuperLite PendBox

Shock Fox Float RP2 (120mm travel)

Fork Fox Float RL 120mm

Headset Semi-Integrated Tapered 1 1/8 - 1 1/2

Handlebars Lapierre Comp Alloy Riser, 660 mm

Stem Lapierre AMR Alloy

Shifters Shimano SLX

Front Derailleur Shimano SLX

Rear Derailleur Shimano XT

Cassette Shimano Deore 11/36 10-speed

Chain Shimano

Cranks Shimano XT 24/32/42

Bottom Bracket Shimano Press-Fit

Pedals N/A

Brakes Formula RX

Wheels Easton EA70

Tyres Michelin Wild GripR & RaceR UST 2.1

Saddle San Marco Concor Kevlar

Seatpost Lapierre XC Alloy, 31.6mm

Weight12.7kg without pedals (Medium frame 3,350g)

Available Sizes S, M (tested), L & XL

Price $3,999

DistributorAdvance Traders Australia 1300 361 686 / www.lapierre-bikes.co.uk

thumbs Down• Frame weight• Spec for the dollars• tyre clearance

thumbs Up• Quality suspension• lateral frame stiffness• overall good looks

having no less than seven pivots versus the usual four (not including shock eyes) on most dual suspension bikes. There’s a lot more places to potentially creak and develop play. Thankfully, all of the pivot bolts can be tightened from just the non-drive side with an allen key and appro-priately sized spanner. We had to tighten the pivot bolts to silence some noises during the review and it was a simple five-minute job, unlike some other bikes where you need to remove the cranks to access both sides of the frame.

Feeling the FloWWith nothing else quite like Pendbox

on the market, we were indeed curious to see how it would ride, how it would feel, and whether it could live up to the marketing claims. First up, you can rest assured that there’s no sensation of the X-Flow’s bottom bracket moving as the suspension cycles; the maximum displace-ment from sag is around 5mm, which is insignificant in relation to how much everything else is moving around on a bumpy trail. The suspension feels margin-ally less active when you’re hard on the brakes, but not enough to significantly affect overall performance.

Secondly, the suspension action defi-nitely feels supple and smooth, although not plush in the traditional sense. It seems to use just the amount of travel required for any given impact and no more, and even on drops or square edges where you use full travel, there’s still a sense of a smidgen being held in reserve. On some bikes this would tend to feel somewhat harsh, but with the X-Flow it’s the opposite; it feels more like many 140mm travel bikes. It absorbs sharp, square impacts comfortably and without losing significant momentum, although when going uphill there seems to be a

shade more feedback through the pedals than on the best climbers out there, and it also feels more sensitive to correct rebound adjustment than any other bike we can remember.

Thirdly, the X-Flow does indeed pedal well, and we very rarely bothered to use the ProPedal setting on the RP2 shock; when we did it felt quite harsh and un-pleasant in comparison to the open set-ting. There’s no sense of wallowing under load, and although seated pedalling is always going to be smoother on any bike, when standing the amount of unwanted movement is quite acceptable for all but the raciest of mindsets. For some reason the X-Flow 312 and 412 appear to use a low-volume air sleeve on the shock, whilst models above that use a high-vol-ume sleeve. We didn’t get a chance to try it out, but we’re curious to see what dif-ference if any this would make to overall suspension performance.

the X-FloW’S X FaCtoRThe X-Flow’s geometry feels spot on

for a modern trail bike; at 69-degree the head angle is comfortably slack without creating boat-like steering at low speeds, and the steepish 72.5-degree seat angle keeps your weight centred on seated climbs. The short, 423mm chainstays lend a lively feel to the back end, making it an easy bike to manual and hop over and through obstacles. Top tube lengths may seem just a fraction on the short side, however because the actual seat tube angle is somewhat slacker than the effective angle, as you raise the saddle height there is a significant increase in effective top tube length, so it all works

out in the end. The bottom bracket height is a great compromise between pedal clearance and cornering stability, and the whole frame is impressively stiff, so you can corner aggressively without fear of the back end wobbling around like a soggy noodle. It’s a real shame, then, that the 412 comes with a 9mm quick release fork; it’s quite a while since I’ve ridden one, and it was a stark reminder of just how much more direct and predictable thru-axle forks are. It’s an unfortunate spec, as you’ll find a good number of similarly priced bikes that come with a thru-axle. With Lapierre you have to go all the way up to the $5,299 Carbon X-Flow 612 to get a 15QR fork.

The input of Lapierre test rider and all-round mountain bike legend Nico Vouilloz shines through in the X-Flow’s personality; his aggressive, downhill-inspired riding style is just what the X-Flow begs for, even with the flexy front fork and poor rear tyre clearance. Put simply, we can’t agree with Lapierre’s pitch of the X-Flow as an XC/Marathon bike; despite emblazoning the frame with a trademarked ‘Alloy SuperLite’ moniker, at the end of the day it’s just too heavy for long distance duty. It’s far more at home as a hard-charging, terrain stomp-ing trail bike. Give it some curry and it’s a fun bike to ride, and will hold its own with bigger bikes both uphill and down.

There’s a lot of potential in the Lapierre X-Flow package, especially in regards to the overall design and build quality, and the excellent performance of the Pendbox system proves yet again that we haven’t seen the end of suspension development. In order to fully realise that potential, the frame really needs to undergo a diet and gain some tyre clearance without sacrificing its impres-sive stiffness. We’d also like to see a 15QR fork as standard. If that can be achieved it’ll be an absolute killer and Lapierre’s X-Flow might get Australian riders doing what La Perouse couldn’t; speaking French.

article by Steve hinchliffePhotography by John hardwick2

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4. Sag points are marked into the top rocker link to ease suspension setup.

5. tucked away down below, the Pendbox linkage moves the cranks and bottom bracket independently from both the swingarm and the main frame.

6. hidden from view, the inside of the dropouts is heavily scalloped in an ef-fort to remove excess weight.

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“ It’s far more at home as a hard-charging, terrain stomping trail bike. Give it some curry and it’s a fun bike to ride, and will hold its own with bigger bikes both uphill and down. ”