Oranges are the only fruit (in the show anyway)
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Oranges are the only fruit (in the show anyway)

September 3, 2010

Orange has been very busy this year. While most of the bikes appear unchanged, there’s a load going on under the surface. And apart from this Yorkshire based citrus brand, we’ve not really seen a great deal of real oranges here…

First off there’s the P7. Now all beefed up for the CEN standard (despite the fact that they never appear to fail in real life) the frame gained some gussets last year. It’s still a popular model and here is shown in the custom pink and ”Turd’ brown paint job.

If you have an in-house powdercoat facility, you might as well abuse it.

The P7 has gained sliding dropouts and all that stuff in the last few years, but some folks wanted a simpler bike. Here's the P7 'Pure' with regular vertical dropouts and 'not-Reynolds' tubing. The bike complete will be £999

The new Orange Crush gains a tapered head tube and the complete bike price comes in at a very reasonable £1399.

Crush gets a flared head tube too. £1399 or so.

The Orange guys were very excited about the new Orange Elite: It’s a race or all day or ’10 hour race’  bike. It has a tapered headtube and is designed for 100mm forks. It’s one of the lighted Orange bikes ever made. In ‘Pro’ spec  (XT/Hope/Fox/Avid) it comes in at £1899. There’ll also be a frame-only option. We’re keen to get one in on test.

It's a bike for the new style of XC/big day racer. 15mm forks and flared headtube on a very light chassis.

Who said XC riders didn't like stiffness?

There’s a new Orange ST4 too. As the Five has become a little more burly (with its slacker, flared headtube ways and its optional Maxle back end) so the ST4 has resolutely stayed ‘XC all day/bumbling around’ focused. For 2011 the linkage changes to a swing link aimed at reducing flex. Rear travel is ‘110mm-ish’ for an intended 120mm fork. It remains the bike that 50% of Five buyers should really get instead as it’s a perfectly capable trail bike with a lighter feel.

New ST4, new stiffer link.
ST4 Diva. Comes in a 15.5in size only.

The Alpine 160 gets a few tweaks to keep it current, including a flared headtube (that houses a Cane Creek Angleset  – allowing for a couple of degrees’ head angle tweaking) and a new, larger 31.6 seattube ready for droppy seatposts.

Cane Creek Angleset appears on many of Orange's bigger bikes.

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

More posts from Chipps

22 thoughts on “Oranges are the only fruit (in the show anyway)”

  3. ” It remains the bike that 50% of Five buyers should really get instead as it’s a perfectly capable trail bike with a lighter feel.”

    Explain…

  5. Explain…

    Because many buy a Five but then never ride beyond what the very capable ST4 can do… ST4 does 90% of what a Five can do and does it better IMO.

  7. 15mm forks and flared headtube on a very light chassis.

    That seems a contradiction to me. Most XC/big day racer are tiny do they want big forks?

  12. Nice Vid. My ST4 has meant the Pace405 I have hasn’t been ridden much at all. I’m going to try the ST4 in the peaks if it comes in time and assuming it’s good up there, the Pace will be going.

    It’s not even that it’s particularly light compared to the 5, it’s just very “usable” for all types of trail and terrain. Enough bike for me by some distance.

  13. Prefer the look of the new ST4 and as much as I like the Five my puffy riding would be fine with a ST4 I’m sure. Like that new Elite but terrible paint job. Looks like one of those cheapo catalogue bikes rather than the jobs on Treks/Lapierres for example. But like the idea of the bike. In fact probably more use to me than an ST4.

  17. I think this is interesting. when the st4 came out people weren’t really sure what it was for. now people have come round to it. funny old world.
    nice to see orange getting back to their cross country racing roots.

  18. The ST4 looks great, i have spent the last 6 months buying components for a new Morewood zula frame, now ive finished i have spotted this and has thrown a right spanner in the works. tough decision i think.

    do you think it will come in white?

  19. @gregory…i believe you can get Oranges in any colour you like.

    agree the new ST4 looks groovy, think we caught a glimpse of it in the background of the STW / Mojo feature a few issues ago?
    It’s like a Blood but for more good eh?

  20. 15mm forks and flared headtube on a very light chassis.

    That seems a contradiction to me. Most XC/big day racer are tiny do they want big forks?

    A taper steerer fork could be both lighter and stiffer, great for XC; it’s not just a technology that’s appropriate for “big forks.” Check out the carbon tapered steerers of road forks and some of the new Rock Shox.

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