The recently announced Polygon Factory Racing team has arrived in Tweed Valley, Scotland, ready to take on the opening round of the Enduro World Series aboard all new 6-bar linkage enduro bikes. The prototype remains unnamed, but a departure from Siskiu is likely, given the new suspension platform that closely resembles the Polygon Bromo eMTB.
This is the second Polygon prototype Matt has ridden; he tells us that it was originally a bit too slack and low to the ground. The one you see here is very close to what the production frame will look like.
Dan Wolfe, Brady Stone and Matt Stuttard will spend it this weekend, the last of whom is a strong competitor for a Top 10 spot. We picked up Matt to check out his new ride for Shakedown.
Credit: Sam Taylor
Matt Stuttard’s Prototype Polygon Enduro Bike with 6-Bar Linkage
Polygon’s prototype enduro bike is a 29er, with 170mm of suspension travel in the front and rear, damped by a 205mm x 65mm Trunnion mount shock. For now, it’s only aluminum. All of Polygon’s current full suspension mountain bikes run on aluminum frames (only the Syncline hardtail is available in carbon), but that’s not to say it will stay that way. We are told that a carbon version is not entirely out of the question.
The 6-Bar connection is, without a doubt, the highlight of the new bike. We count 16 bearings in total, housed over seven pivot locations, with an eighth pair housed at the lower shock mount. The video above from Matt’s Instagram does a good job of showing how the three clutches, each rotating across the seat tube, articulate as the bike is pushed through the travel of the rear wheel. What you can not see in this video is the pivot point of the seat, placed far back near the chain stay-mounted rear rim.
Only a close-up of the side without drive shows the true complexity of this 6-bar connection.
Determining the axle path are the two counter-rotating couplings that are placed lowest on the seat tube, as these connect directly to the chain links of the bike. Beyond that, the seat stay and the rocker link drive the Ohlins TTX 22M Coil shock. We have not yet received any cinematic information from Polygon, so details on leverage curve, anti-squat and anti-rise will have to wait until the official launch.
Matt Stuttard tells us that he weighs 85 kg and stands at 6’ft 2 ″ tall (188 cm). It drives the Large Frame with a range of 480mm or 485mm, adjustable based on an aftermarket Works Components headset.
Matt tells us that his Polygon has a head angle somewhere in the region of 64 to 64.5 degrees. The final production cycle will see cable routing ports through which the cables can exit lower, which should help prevent them from getting in the way of any license plate.
Matt runs a spring of 502 lbs with the rebound damping set at 2 clicks from fully open, and the compression at 7 clicks from fully open. For the upcoming EWS race, he has not yet decided on coil against air, and will likely be seen as he tests the air cook in practice.
Although the Ohlins coil shock fits nicely, Matt has to file down the paint on the one-piece rocker link to get enough clearance for the Ohlins air shock; The team is currently testing a variety of shocks to find out how much the shape of that top link needs to be adjusted for improved compatibility on the production bike.
Paired with that coil shock is Ohlins RXF38 Air M2 front, delivering 170mm of front wheel travel. A striking feature of this fork is its two adjustable air chambers which allow riders to adjust the sensitivity to small bumps and end-progression disaster in isolation from each other. Matt sets his with 265 PSI in the lower room that determines disaster, with 125 PSI in the upper, main room. Low speed rebound damping and compression are both set to 4 clicks fully open, with the high speed compression adjuster set to fully open.
It looks like an Assegai
This full clearance with that prototype 29 ″ x 2.4 ″ Kenda Gravity Casing tape
Matt has some prototype Kenda gravity-casing tires sitting on an FSA Afterburner aluminum rim cut with Onyx’s instant engagement hubset. He will probably run 22-23 PSI in the front, and 24-26 PSI in the back.
When race tracks are super rough and rocky, and / or lift assisted, Matt runs Rimpact Pro tire inserts in the front and rear. Here in the Tweed Valley, course organizers serve a 42.5-mile course with 1,797 feet of non-lift assisted altitude gain. The vast majority of the stages consist of loamy or hard-pack singletrack with a few rock gardens to speak of. Thus, Matt will abandon the use of the Rimpact Pro in the front tire, and only run in the rear.
With the power-coupling mechanism of an Onyx hub providing near-direct engagement, the use of an Ochain Active Spider is a smart move. Matt runs his in the 6 ° setting, and tells us he would never race without one.
Matt tells us that he would normally run his bar width at 780 mm, but for the notoriously tight tracks of the Tweed Valley, he has further shortened them to 760 mm “which feels absolutely awful, but it makes things much easier here. Even with 760 mm you sometimes have to turn your bar over again. ”This is a 40mm rise alloy bar with a 50mm stem of FSA.
Matt says the team can test new swing arms next week or so
Magura MT7 4 Piston brakes provide speed management, with a 223mm rotor at the front and a 203mm rotor at the rear. It seems to us that the maximum rear rotor size will be allowed by this frame.
Bike Yoke are a sponsor of the Polygon Factory Race Team; Matt runs the 213mm drop Revive, their longest travel offering. On it is a Sagma seal. In no way your bog standard seal, this one has its patented track suspension system supported by elastomers that allow an adjustable amount of side-to-side flex. Matt runs the regular set of shock-absorbing elastomers, but hard and soft are also available so you can tune it to your taste.
A spare quick coupling tape to the dropper cable … a spare SRAM UDH hanger on the top shock mount, accompanied by an inner tube, Muc-Off Stealth plug and inner plugs.
Matt carries a lot of his tools and saves on the bike itself. Using good old duck tape, he taped the Muc-Off CO2 inflator head to the bottom of his bottle cage, mounted via an adapter that even holds two 25g CO2 canisters. Higher down the tube, we see a tube attached to some anchovies, with the Muc-Off Stealth Tubeless Puncture Plug tool degraded from its intended position in the steering wheel, on the frame.
We wish Matt and the entire Polygon Factory Racing team the best for this weekend’s race. You can follow Matt’s journey on Instagram.
Let me now introduce you to a video about the brand new Polygon Factory Race team.
PolygonBikes.com