Up next in the Pinkbike Field Test is the new Rocky Mountain Altitude, a bike that had a strong debut under Jesse Melamed during the shortened EWS season.
The Altitude has 160mm of rear wheel travel with a 170mm fork, with different wheel size options depending on the frame size – there are 29” options for M, L, and XL sizes, and 27.5” sizes for S and M sizes. Rocky also offers full carbon and aluminum framed version of the Altitude, with a total of 8 complete configurations to choose from.
That 160mm of travel is delivered via Rocky’s Smoothlink suspension design, their version of a Horst link layout. The Altitude’s kinematics changed with the new frame, and the result are numbers that blend the best traits of the old Altitude and the Instinct BC. Anti-squat sits a little below 100% at sag, but it doesn’t drop off quite as quickly as before.