Alfa
BC40
Echo
Able
"Before I got on the BC40, it had been nearly a year since I thought about Strava. I had decided I wasn’t going to worry about how fast or how far I went this summer, only whether or not I had fun riding my bike. The second I started turning the cranks on the BC40 though, I couldn’t get the mega-popular tracking app out of my head. How many KOMs ("King of the Mountain", the fastest rider for a given segment) could I knock off? How many of my local circuits could I set personal bests at? Am I too old to pursue World Cup XC racing? The bike was fast."
Part of what makes the BC40 so quick and lively are the flex stays on the rear triangle...These flex stays work by having a certain degree of flex worked into the rear seatstays and chainstays. The BC40 is engineered around a 120mm rear shock and a 120mm front fork. With that amount of travel, it’s possible to allow the stays to flex just enough where you can forgo a pivot at the axle. Not only does it cut down on weight, but it offers a lively, snappy ride that’s nothing short of addicting.
The Allied BC40 is the fastest mountain bike I’ve ridden since I tested Yeti’s SB100 aways back. The BC40 immediately had me stomping on the pedals and hammering through the rolling singletrack of my local trail networks. It almost has a placebo effect, with its feathery weight giving you the confidence to power up your favorite climb, full speed ahead.
But second to that, it’s a full-suspension carbon fiber mountain bike made right here in the USA. The number of companies doing that can be counted on one hand (by my estimation there are only five total — Trek Project One, Guerilla Gravity, Alchemy, Ellsworth and now Allied — though I’m sure there are more). That’s worth making note of, as bringing manufacturing of carbon fiber bikes stateside is a good thing for both local economies and cyclists.
For what it's worth, if you're looking for a speedy, lightweight mountain-ready ripper, the Allied BC40 has my vote.
