Vitus Escarpe 29 CRX, Oliva

Dappled forest light on warm dusty trails. The soundtrack of tyres rushing through berms, nimbly threading a rock garden and the buzz of a happy freewheel. Eyes trained on the way ahead. You’re focused, but it’s easy. On the full-carbon Vitus Escarpe 29 CRX there are no distractions. All trust and total control.

But life isn’t a photoshoot, so let’s get real here. Swap in off-camber, hectic off-piste and washed-out turns, slick roots and “that climb” back to the trail head. It doesn’t matter. The Escarpe is poised and planted - perfectly balanced to flow with you no matter where the trail goes. You and the bike are singing from the same hymn sheet. You want a bike that inspires confidence on technical descents and keeps you grinning for more, not gritting your teeth. You want a bike that holds speed and drives keenly into the climbs, keeping your legs fresh for one more run. You want weight down and performance high. This is it.

Whether braking hard, pushing more power or negotiating a twisty descent, your centre of gravity is rarely constant, so key to the whole system is efficiency. To deal with the dynamic nature of trail riding, the Escarpe stays predictable and consistent so that you can stay loose. No white knuckles here. The suspension kinematics have been enhanced compared to the previous platform, further countering the effects of pedal-bob and reducing the harshness of small bumps and trail vibrations that drain your energy and kill speed. Smoother is faster for longer. With an adjustable flip-chip, that can raise the bottom bracket by 6mm and increase the head angle, you can also customise the setup to best suit how and where you ride. Whatsmore, geometry and performance are optimised throughout the size range, so whether you are S or XL, there’s no compromise on how this bike feels.

When riding trails there’s enough to think about without having to consider how the bike is going to respond to the next turn or obstacle. You should just know. It should do what you need it to. No back-chat and no fight. On the Escarpe you don’t have to compensate or compromise. You don’t have to adjust your style. Just ride. Just concentrate on having fun.

Updates geometry
Vitus have updated the geometry to give a more confidence inspiring ride. Key changes are slacker head angles and lower BB drop. Vitus have also steepened the effective seat tube angle and made it progressively steeper as you go up the size range. This ensures that each frame size has an optimal sagged saddle position with no compromise. By measuring saddle height at saddle lay back they looked at the position of the saddle relative to the bottom bracket to ensure when the bike was in sag you had an optimal pedaling position. The reason Vitus steepened the seat angle on the larger frame sizes was to ensure that the saddle layback wasn't too far behind the bottom bracket.

Geometry Flip-Chip
The Escarpe comes with an adjustable flip chip to adjust your geometry as required. Vitus have built and optimised the head angle and BB drop around the "low" setting. However the "high" setting allows you to increase head angle by + 0.5 degrees and lift the bottom bracket by 6mm. Giving you the option to tweak your ride depending on the terrain you're riding.

Frame protection
Robust frame protection on downtube, seat stay and chain stay. Chain stay protection features a soft rubber to quieten chain slap.

New full carbon frame
Taking the award-winning Escarpe platform developed last year Vitus have made the best better for 2022. With the addition of a carbon rear triangle they have designed the Escarpe to be the most efficient trail bike on the mountain with less weight for more miles and more fun. A full carbon front and rear triangle brings the next level of performance to the Escarpe range.