Flight Carbon Review by BMX Plus Magazine.

bike test.

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When it comes to performance race products, Redline has long enjoyed its position at the front of the pack. But, in the past few years, we have seen a surprising change come over the company. If you asked us to describe Redline in one word three years ago, we would have spat out “conservative” almost immediately. While there is nothing wrong with being conservative—it does allow for affordable performance after all—it doesn’t do much for the imagination, as their Flight frame had remained unchanged for several years. But then, two years ago, they dropped a bomb on us and completely redesigned the Flight frame line, making it lighter weight, stiffer, and applying recent advances in tube and frame technology for a sleek new design that may still have been conservative at a glance but was sneakily advanced to the trained eye. Expecting this to kick off another five unchanged years in the Flight line, Project 79 once again left us putting our feet in our mouths as Redline dropped racing’s best-kept secret on everyone, and in one massive advance, could very well have changed the way we race forever.

top pros, Justin Leal After being ridden by a dozen 79 through its final ect Proj fiber on carb the piloted unanimous ranks in the ng joini ately ultim , sunset laps had ever ridden. he ” bike race best saying it was “the

9 7 T C E J O R P e Redlin

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WHAT IS PROJECT 79?

After years of watching other brands try, and fail, to make a functional carbon fiber frame (we should know, our test force broke a few), Redline decided it was time to reach into tech resources provided to them by their geared bicycle lines, wave off the terrifying topic of price and set out to make a carbon fiber frame right. The biggest problem other brands have had with carbon is it’s not just expensive as a material, it is extremely expensive to work with. How expensive? Consider the sample frame we were riding had roughly $150,000 of Redline’s money wrapped up in it and you get the idea. And yes, we did consider holding it for ransom but thought better of it.

Starting from scratch, Redline took everything they knew of carbon and bounced several designs between their engineers and some of the best carbon fiber manufacturers on the planet.

Since not every carbon fiber benefit offered on a road bike or a mountain bike applies to BMX, several elements of the frame had to be developed from square one. The cool thing about carbon fiber and what makes it truly unique among frame-building materials is that you can literally create any shape you want, as well as add or

remove material from specific areas to increase/decrease stiffness, strength and weight, not too mention result in a frame that would—with any luck—live up to the visual appeal necessary for its proposed price tag.

The frame itself draws on Redline’s conservative roots and applies a triedand-true triple triangle design. But don’t be fooled; this frame is anything but conservative or easy to overlook as its smooth lines and constantly changing shape grabs eyes from across the track—and love it or leave it, it is very distinct. Inside the integrated head tube you will find alloy cups encased in reinforced carbon, as with the Euro bottom bracket, both housed in oversized shells that taper gradually in all directions to stiffen and strengthen the joints while offering a smooth and gradual highway for impacts to disperse throughout the frame. Tapering to the rear of the frame, the dropouts are one of the crown jewels of the design. The enclosed dropouts are designed to be used with the provided thru-axle cassette hub. The enclosed design is stiffer and stronger and is stuffed with a CNCmachined aluminum dropout to prevent damage to the carbon upon tightening.

The dropouts also feature integrated tensioners for simple setup and adjust-

ability. The provided hub (necessary for use with the frame) turns on a sealedbearing, hollow 15mm axle and finds its drive by way of a standard OD cassette body turning on performance bushings.

Also included with the frame is a quickrelease seatpost clamp and a headset bearing top cap to help smooth the transition between the oversized head tube and conventional steer tube.

As a complete, the projected $2799.99 price tag is justified by a top-of-the-line parts package, but it is still tough to swallow. No holds were barred when pairing up proven parts like Answer Dagger forks and Shimano DXR cranks. Multi-butted chromoly Redline bars, fit with a DX lever and lock-on grips, are fit for the Elite gate, as is the new Flight front-load stem with the unique wrap-around clamping mechanism. The 32-spoke front and 36-spoke rear wheel combo is fit with sealed bearing hubs, Sun Envy rims and Tioga Folding tires, with a 1.85-inch Power Band in the front and a 1.85-inch Power Block in the rear. A Redline quick-release clamp holds a Pivotal Tioga D-Spyder S-Spec seat in place and is cushioned against the carbon with a rubber collar to prevent damage resulting from regular seatheight adjustments.

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SPREAD THE WORD

When we got to the track for the test, word had already spread, and people had come out specifically to get an up-close glimpse of the frame.

But it wasn’t just those who came out to snag a look; we had quite a few pro riders turn out in hopes of taking the 79 for a spin. After burning through our short-lived legs, we decided it was time to get some pro rider input and compile as many opinions of the bike as possible. Lap after lap, rider after rider, the response was the same: “Don’t tell my sponsors I said this, but...” We get it; if you are sponsored by a company other than Redline, your sponsor probably wouldn’t be too psyched to hear you call Project 79 the “best bike I have ever taken a lap on.” Even the riders who opened up with a negative opinion of the frame like, “A frame is a frame and geometry is geometry; material can’t make that much of a difference,” changed their tune in the time it took them to crank out half a lap. From our test force to a gate’s worth of top Elites, the opinion was the same; hands down, the bestfeeling BMX bike they had ever ridden.

But it wasn’t simply because it was light, looked trick or was packed with top-of-the-line parts; the 79’s true shining star was much more specific than that, once it came time to break it all down.

From the first pedal stroke, every rider found the exact same thing; an extremely stiff, extremely responsive ride quality. While there are very stiff aluminum frames out there, the feel is, as most riders described it, “just different.” As we care to be a little more specific with our ride descriptions, we broke it down to figure out what made the 79 so distinctly superior. For starters, it is 25 percent lighter than the R6 aluminum Flight frame of the exact same geometry. Since most frames will flex more when lightened, as material in most cases is removed to cut weight, the 79 has the distinct advantage, as its carbon fiber construction allows it to be both lighter and stiffer than aluminum. The result is a frame that not only has the weight advantage to accelerate faster, but also the rigidity to put that power advantage to the ground. But don’t be fooled into thinking that the carbon fiber alone makes the 79 what it is, as we have seen plenty of carbon frames over the years that have lacked the ride quality of the Flight carbon. Working with engineers who specialize in carbon fiber, Redline was able to design a frame that could benefit from being both stiff and strong by layering and transitioning the joints, as well as bulking up areas such as

H I T S:

• Extremely lightweight • Very stiff • Oversized thu-axle • Stable jumps M IS S ES:

• Expensive

HEAD TUBE: 74° SEAT TUBE: 70° TOP TUBE: 21.6” CHAINSTAY: 15.3” WEIGHT: 19.8 lb.

PRICE: $999 (frame and hub), $2799 (complete, tested) (Pro XXL tested, also available in Pro XL)

the chainstay yoke, where flex is most common. Now compare the Redline, which fights flex and disperses it with each pedal stroke, to a common welded frame, where every last junction on the frame becomes a leverage point for flex. But Redline didn’t stop there, and this is possibly a very large part to why the 79 was such a success. Redline’s 15mm hollow thruaxle design not only allows for closed dropouts, which increase stiffness, the axle itself also reduces driveline flex by 20 percent. This extreme stiffness had some riders concerned as to how the bike would handle on the open track,

expecting it to chatter up turns or get lots of wheel spin under load without a desirable amount of flex to keep the power on the ground; but the worries proved unwarranted, as the bike exuded no such traits. Combine all of these elements and you can see why every single rider found the Flight carbon to accelerate faster, track straighter and feel more stable than the average sub-20-pound complete. Speaking of weight, at 19.8 pounds, most of our extended test force felt as though the bike would feel skittish and twitchy in the air, but to everyone’s surprise, the bike felt as solid and controllable in

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9 7 T C E J O R P Redline

the air as it did on the ground. The bike felt so good all over the track, in fact, that two of our test riders called Redline the very next day to see about dropping their current sponsors for an opportunity to ride the Flight carbon. Enough said.

CAN YOU HANDLE THE PRICE?

There’s no two ways about it; the Flight carbon is carbon done right.

We don’t need to ask if you want one; we are pretty sure everyone is on board with the 79 at this point. The real question here is if you can afford

it. If your plan is to wait for the price to come down, or wait for another company to come out with something cheaper, you are in for a long wait.

As we said before, carbon fiber is an extremely expensive material to work with, and Redline is in no way taking advantage of monopoly pricing on the frame/hub combo, which retails for $999, and then has the option to be built into a $2799 complete. After speaking with other companies who are in development of carbon fiber projects of their own, you can expect this to run about average for comparable frames and completes. It stings,

we are sure, but also keep in mind that the Flight carbon was developed to give Redline’s Olympians a distinct advantage. Offering that advantage to you is something Redline decided to do without watering down design elements or the price, so the Flight carbon should be viewed as a premier frame for serious racers who no doubt have deep pockets. Whether you can afford it or not, we can only rub it in by placing the Flight Carbon at the peak of the race bike market and reminding you that we rode it first.

It’s worth every penny, all 279,999 of them. ❑ october 2011 BMXplus! 31

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