Maybe its just me but those are some of the ugliest bikes i've ever seen in my life. They might be highly functional but do they have to look like they fell out the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down?!?!?!

Which one? The EVO looks a brute i'll grant you that, but the rest look nice! I especially like the look of the VF2 and the XCL looks a no-nonsense frame ideal for UK bike centres i reckon.

have to agree with jayson to be honest - i doubt they're any more functional than all the other makes either!

the evo is partiularily ugly. the cable routing looks terrible. what does it mean factory settings on the cane creek shock? anyone can tune it to their preferance can't they? one inch on the bb height, how bloody high is it to start with? there are a lot of better bikes out there.

the other thing that makes me crazy is seeing a manufacturer's setup showing a hammerschmidt with a long cage rear derailler. take a little time and set them up proerly before you send out the pictures. why would you run a long cage on that evo with that setup? it should have a short cage on there. spec your bikes properly before sending out pr shots

The BB height has been LOWERED on the new EVO, and it was not that high to start with (Now 13.75). Not sure i agree about the cable routing, it is out of the way of the filth which is more important than how it looks.

Chumba have worked with Cane Creek on the VF2 linkage and have come up with some starting points for customers, rather than just fiddling blindly. This gives the customer a good base to work from if they choose to do so, can't be a bad thing?

The hammerschmidt was a bit of a rush job to get the bike to press and whilst a shorter mech would be more appropriate, a long mech is not 'wrong'. Most customers going over to hammerschmidt would use their existing mech, which would probably be a long cage anyway.

Hey plmrman, have you ever rode the Evo? First of all, the bb isn't any higher than most other hardcore 6" am bikes. I used to ride the Turner RFX/Six pack and the Evo and the bb height was almost identical on both. There may be better alternatives out there but the Evo is a very good bike that Pedaled great.

it's still one of the fugliest bikes out there with terrible standover clearance. with a high bb and poor standover it's a sackshot waiting to happen.

as far as the excuse you were in a hurry to get this shot and people will re use their existing derailler, these are new bikes. if they come from chumba complete with the hammerschmidt as an option, show a picture with the correct setup. long isn't wrong but it's not what most people would spec. by most i mean anybody with any experience riding a bike will want to take advantage of using a short or mid cage derailler..

is this not the new evo then? is the new one coming out in 2010 or 2011? if next year why show a bike that won't exist in 2010?

so good cable routing to you means zip ties on the seat tube? this bike is hardly hammerscmidt ready if you don't have any cable guides for te hammerscmidt. has it been tested with a hammerscmidt? i heard some bikes pivot locations weren't optimized for a 22 tooth ring. is that the case here si?