a brief first impression…
I was recently invited to the Slam69 shop to view a very interesting new bike. The Smokestone Mr Harry.
Graham Foot, the guy behind this new bike has lots of experience in this sort of thing, producing his first bike back in the hey day of MTBing in the late eighties right up to the present and very successful fat bike range (the Henderson) the latest of these being made of Titanium.
The Mr Harry is also titanium and currently this is the only frame in existence and was literally only built an hour before the launch which is why a few of the parts are eclectic.
The basic idea of the bike is an Adventure/Gravel/bike packing bike that can take standard gravel size tyres or rubber right up to 29 x 3″
It has 3 bottle cage mounts, a larger triangle for full size frame bags if that’s your thing, is 100mm suspension corrected and pannier and dropper post compatible. This build with not particular lightweight parts nudged the scales at 26lb (11.8kg)
The quick ride I had showed me that the handling was very neutral, more MTB than twitchy road which is good for load carrying and unladen tech riding. The front height has been on my wish list for ages, high enough to see where I’m going without the need for a million spacers and a high rise stem. riding on the drops would be a comfortable place on this bike. It did no hands riding comfortably always a good sign of a balanced bike. I Loved the stand over and straight tubes on this large size frame and the sloping geometry. Stick a fork with the 3 bolt mounting options on it & I think it’s got the potential to cater for a wide range of rider.
I’m hoping to get a few days riding on it in the next couple of weeks to give it a proper run in real local conditions but first impressions are really positive.
More info can be found on the Smokestone bikes website
UK GRAVEL COLLECTIVE 