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Solid Pine XC Bike - Review

May 14, 2008

Published by superfly


Looking for a short travel 3.5”/ 90mm ride to hit the local trail centers with and perhaps try your hand at a spot of XC racing or enduro events?

Then your search could well be over with the Solid Pine.


Solid kept this pretty simple and clean cut, even when the pistons of power were hitting the pedals we noticed minimum flex thanks to that solid (excuse the pun) rear yoke and rigid chainstays. The BB shell width? 68mm boys.


Solid offers Cantilever or Disc Brake options on this rig, not sure if that's a required option these days with the price of quality and performance disk brakes ever decreasing. Good news for those of us that don't live in So-Cal is plenty of tyre clearance for us Europeans, a God send on those muddy excursions.


Replaceable mech hanger? Yes! Make note never, ever to buy a bike without a replaceable mech hanger!

The 4-linkage Horst Link some will say is not only the most proven and reliable linkage system out there and still probably the best. Can you agree with that statement? You might have a tough job persuading some riders otherwise, now let the posts below answer that one and the forum discussions begin.

The Rock Shox Ario 2.2 Air comes with a rock solid lockout and weighs an amazing 230g and offers 90mm/3.5“ travel. Shock length for you freaks out there is 165mm.

You're right again! That's a 1 1/8“ Semi-integrated head tube which means a super stiff front end for you. Notice the headset is sunk in there nicely, giving you good foundations for a low headset. Keeping that front end low and proper. Now notice the hydroformed alloy tubes, all made from 6061-T6 Aluminium.

How did she ride?
Now that is always a tough question to answer especially on a XC bike. Surely that depends on how fit you are and how good your bike handling skills are doesn't it?

I could easily write she was a dream up and down the hills as well as as on the fast and slow singletrack sections. All of which are true. She licked it around my local trail "Follow the Dog" at Cannock Chase in Staffordshire for a hard two months of grime time in March and April this year. Zero maintenance and zero hassle means maximum riding time, which is what it's all about.


In summary it's not a show stopping, carbon shining and dripping in gold (XTR/SRAM X.O) bike. What it is for it's price is a high performance all mountain rig. Recommendations would be to stretch your wallet for a Pine 4.0 build for under £1k. As they say across the pond, "That's a lot of bang for your buck".

The Solid Pine XC bike is available in the following sizes:
Small, Medium and Large.
Colour options are Grey, White, Blue and Black.

The stats:

Weight: 6.34lbs/2,88kg (M) without shock

Size Toptube Headtube Angle Seatpost Angle

S 565mm 71° 72°
M 585mm 71° 72°
L 605mm 71° 72°


Bridge Pipe Head Tube Seat Post

420mm 120mm 31.6mm
470mm 120mm 31.6mm
520mm 120mm 31.6mm

For more information on Solid Bikes please checkout http://www.solidbikes.de/eng/bikes_pine.html

Frame only options are:
-Pine frame + Rock Shox Ario 2.2 Air £429.99

Full build options can be seen on the solid website, prices are:

Pine 1.0 £539.99
Pine 2.0 £619.99
Pine 3.0 £664.99
Pine 4.0 £939.99
Pine 5.0 £1,174.99
Pine 6.0 £1,549.99

Don't rub your eyes again, these prices are in U.K Pound Sterling and not U.S Dollars!

Many thanks to Wayne and Colin at MTB Direct who kindly loaned PinkBike.com this bike for review.

FLi Distribution
Phone: +44(0) 1457 864 606
fli_distribution@tiscali.co.uk
www.mtb-direct.co.uk

Stay Unclipped.

Si Paton
www.Descent-Gear.com
For E-13 Components.
  • + 0 props
flag kaktussss (May 21, 2008 at 2:29) (Below Threshold) show comment
nice one ... but for me it's a enduro bike
  • + 0 props
flag makaron (May 21, 2008 at 3:25) (Below Threshold) show comment
kaktussss, no co ty, enduro ze skokiem 90mm na tyle??troche mało choc zalezy jak kto definiuje swoje enduro
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  • + 0 props
flag streetrash (May 21, 2008 at 2:31) (Below Threshold) show comment
gorgeous looking bike, just what it should be for every day xc machine
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  • + 0 props
flag streetrash (May 21, 2008 at 2:33) (Below Threshold) show comment
with lighter parts, and better tires it would make hell of a racer, for what it looks like a steal of the deal price tag.
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  • + 4 props
flag catwjw (May 21, 2008 at 6:53) (Below Threshold) show comment
GIANT NRS??????????????????
  • + 0 props
flag NorCalNomad (May 21, 2008 at 9:36) (Below Threshold) show comment
yeah it's basically a re-badged Giant NRS
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  • + 4 props
flag lehucker (May 21, 2008 at 8:35) (Below Threshold) show comment
What? No comments yet from the huck dopes about how lame cross country riding is?

Looks like a sweet ride to me.
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  • + 0 props
flag mannyyy69 (May 21, 2008 at 8:42) (Below Threshold) show comment
Where can we get this from in canada?
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  • + 1 props
flag bmxracer62 (May 21, 2008 at 9:07) (Below Threshold) show comment
pine is soft, oak is solid!
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  • + 1 props
flag doctorz (May 21, 2008 at 14:57) (Below Threshold) show comment
made in taiwan , i have the xact same model at my disposal
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  • - 1 props
flag bongboy (May 21, 2008 at 22:26) (Below Threshold) show comment
the semi-integrated headset is a stupid idea, good luck trying to find any other headset than what it comes with
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  • + 1 props
flag alexvelox (May 22, 2008 at 12:43) (Below Threshold) show comment
E´um quadro fabricado pela Astro, em Taiwan, não tem nada de novidade, é o modelo XTC da Astro Bikes...Só!!!
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  • + 0 props
flag glorfingal (July 3, 2008 at 2:07) (Below Threshold) show comment
I have one - built as a frame up component build that's ended up almost a
pine 6.0 :-) Slower handling than my xc hardtail, but for all day epics
it's a blinder of a bike. Could do with more like 120mm at the rear, but
90mm seems to cope with just about all that's thrown it's way.

Headset replacement is fairly simple affair, just make sure you get a 50mm
O/D semi-integrated and it fits just fine.
[Reply]

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