Price: Frame only from £2,300.00, as tested £5,400.00

From: Geometron, geometronbikes.co.uk

Geometron’s Chris Porter is clearly a man with a vision. Mostly, that vision seems to be that modern bikes are nowhere near the right shape, and for the past few years he’s been aiming to do something about it. Armed with a stopwatch, a mind that refuses to accept that convention is right for a reason, and a few friends at Nicolai in Germany, he’s created a monster. An enormous monster.

Starting at the back and moving forward, 155mm of travel will do very nicely, followed by what used to be called a Horst Link and a chainstay extender which helps to extend the wheelbase to a postcode-troubling 1,352mm. The bottom bracket area is extremely sturdy, and accommodates a wide, wide 83mm bottom bracket. The seatstays connect via a stoutlooking linkage to a gorgeous EXT coil shock. Frame welds are beautiful, and enormously chunky throughout; there is gussetry on the head-tube and a couple of nice machined braces betwixt top and seat tube. In fact, the whole bike exudes the air of Teutonic no-nonsense toughness for which Nicolai (who make it) has a deserved reputation.

This is the XT build – I’ll not dwell too much on specifics (that’s what the list at the end is for) but a couple of things are worth mentioning. Firstly, BikeYoke’s excellent Revive post with a splendid 185mm of drop keeps the saddle aloft.