DUTCH COURAGE

Bike brand Instinctiv is pinning it all on a gearbox bike with a difference

Fitting a gearbox to a bike is not a new idea; Honda created a huge stir with its RN01 DH bike in 2004, while more recently Zerode, Nicolai, Cavalerie and Deviate have all produced machines using Pinion’s system. But in our minds the modern Pinion-equipped bikes we tried were all held back by the twist-grip gear change design, which limited the appeal of the ingenious gearbox it controlled.

Step forward Instinctiv, a small bike brand from The Netherlands with a new range of gearbox bikes, and crucially a trigger unit to make shifting a more natural affair. Couple that with a carbon frame design that’s made from seven per cent recycled material (you’ve got to start somewhere), with a bespoke chain tensioner adorning the Pinion gearbox, and you have a gearbox bike we could really fall in love with.

Called the M-series, there are three bikes in the new range: the M7 with 27.5in wheels and 150mm travel and a 160mm fork, the M9 with 29in wheels, 140mm travel and a 150mm fork, and the M97 mullet bike with 150mm travel front and rear. They all use the same Horst Link suspension design, with a system of rockers and linkages to keep the frame compact, Instinctive says, delivering a bike with a progressive feel.

The system of linkages brings the shock shaft alarmingly close to the linkage but Instinctiv says there’s enough space. “We took into account enough tolerances, with at least three to four millimetres space,” says Andreas Knol from Instinctiv. The compact design does limit the bike to just a few shocks though – the layout doesn’t allow enough space for any Öhlins shocks, for example, while there are just two options from Fox: the DPX2 and Float X.