There can be few better-named bikes than the Zealous Division. On looks alone, it’s likely to either intrigue or terrify most of the buying population, but there’s a good reason for the rather striking design relative to most 29er hardtails.
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When they were first introduced, big wheeled hardtails had a rough time, with many criticising the somewhat solid handling relative to the perkier and more playful feel of the then-standard issue 26” wheeled competition, despite feeling the ride smoothing benefits of the big hoops.
The guys at Zealous decided that the root cause of the big wheeler’s dull ride feel was heavily down to the fact that they used much longer chainstays. The solution arrived at was to combining the ride smoothing feel of the big hoops with some super tight 415mm long stays.
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That’s been achieved using a plated design at the seat tube and bottom bracket junction that allows the rear wheel to sit in much tighter without ruining mud clearance. This does mean it’s single-ring specific, but you can run high volume 29er tyres or a 27 Plus set up should you so desire.
This is the second version of the frame and there have been numerous other tweaks. First up has been a move to a slightly longer fork — 130mm instead of 120mm — which relaxes the head angle slightly but also raises the bottom bracket a smidge. More significantly, the aluminium frame now gets thinner walled chain and seat stay tubing, more machining work on the head tube and bottom bracket, while the chainstay yoke was completely redesigned to help drop even more weight.
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