The Emblem is MacMahone’s slope style/ freeride/ do it all bike. The frame offers 130mm of rear wheel travel through its intricate 4 bar linkage and Manitou X3 air shock.
The attention to detail, which has gone in to this frame is second to none. The welds are all perfectly uniform and smooth, in fact the Emblem probably has the best welding of any frame I’ve seen over the past few years! The anodized finish is extremely tough as is sure to look just as good after a few seasons of hard use as it does new. Even the seals on the bearings are green to match the decals!
The cnc’d components on the frame are also of jaw dropping quality, with any material not needed machined away to cut down the grams, but not sacrifice the overall strength. There’s even a special machined piece behind the ’seat tube’ in case you wanted to fit a front mech, but unfortunately there are no chain guide mounts on the bottom bracket shell.
When putting a bike together you can usually tell the quality of a new frame by how easily everything goes together. The Emblem is a perfect example of this, all of the faces were perfect , and all the components went on with no worries or clearance issues.
Once built up I took it out for a quick spin around the block. My initial thought was just how well it pedaled with no noticeable bob. This is probably partly due to the SPV rear shock, but as I hadn’t really set it up properly the suspension design must have played its part too. Down a few staircases and off a few small drops the suspension soaked everything up well, even with slightly snug (read new) bearings.
We’ll be riding and testing this and another Emblem over the next few months so keep posted for updates and rider impressions.
