Egerie Aston-A-Tron - PT1 Intro
Introduction: The Four Horses of the Apocalypse!
Why on earth do you have all these weird bikes?
The weird bikes came about after decades of racing and testing for various outlets and brands. When everything went downhill in Spring 2020, I was quickly jobless and needed to start something new.
I initially had great intentions: to buy stock bikes, test them, tune them to get the best out of them, and then give them away in a raffle to a lucky winner. This would hopefully allow me to recoup the money and earn a salary for myself.
I bought my first bike on a credit card, the Norco Shore, with big plans to turn it into a futuristic super enduro bike. At this point I had a raging stoke-on to get the new business started, this lasted literally about three runs. Months of hassle later I eventually got a full refund, Norco changed their design and spec, and sent loads of customers replacement parts thanks to my review. You can see the full Saga on YouTube. This was the start of my #buildbikebetter mission.
The next bike was a Canyon Sender, fantastic bike, which then broke and was replaced under warranty. I had a Banshee Titan, which broke. and was replaced under warranty. Then the white Commencal, which broke, and I got a refund for. Then I got a silver used Commencal which broke. I ended up more jobless and broke than before, with a bunch of bikes waiting for warranty parts during the post-pandemic bicycle shortage crisis.
I’d been speaking to Nico at Egerie_Velo_Moto, a custom frame builder near Morzine in France, and I had a front triangle build slot booked; the idea was to build a steel front triangle and use the one remaining swingarm and linkages I had sitting in the garage from two broken Supremes. A few weeks or so before the build was due to start, I saw the bike I’d been looking for pop up on the Egerie Instagram page. This was exactly the design I was after and had spoken to multiple custom frame builders about making, but none of them wanted to create what I wanted, as they had their own views of how things should be done. No matter how many times I asked for what I wanted in return for my money, I couldn’t get it.
Egerie was different. I emailed him with my unconventional geometry and travel requirements, and his reply was, “Are you sure you want these numbers? They look like typos”
I double-checked and convinced him they weren’t typos, and one week later, he had knocked up the steel machine for about €2500 without paint – an absolute bargain for a custom frame in my opinion – cheaper than any production DH frame in the world and in 2021 when everything I wanted to test was still sold out or months away.
Then I had it: a super simple single pivot, loads of travel, a high pivot for devouring bumps with an idler to cut out kickback, my educated guess at futuristic geometry, and most importantly at the time, steel material that could be patched up by any local welder in an emergency.
This bike outperformed anything I’d ever ridden (Best Bike in the World - my humble opinion) for what I wanted: DH, bike parks, enduro, and a comfortable pedalling position for 1000m climbs. Yes, it was heavy, but I just break light stuff and I’m not entering any uphill races on it soon.
Egerie’s good value and ease of working with led to building the Pinion-driven titanium horse, the Sunn Radical Replica and then this black beauty. All of which I planned to give away in competitions, but I loved them all too much. I built this black bike with the purpose of giving it away, and even this will be extremely difficult to say goodbye to!
Next Articles (dropping before the competition ends)
Geometry
Steel and Flex
Kinematics
Avalanche Suspension