Rocky Mountain Altitude Carbon 70 review

Fun trail machine that offers incremental geometry adjustment for fettling fans

Our rating

4.5

5399.00
5000.00
7499.00
Its geometry may not be radical, but the Altitude’s decent weight, big tyres and involving handling make it a blast to ride

Russell Burton

Tom Marvin

Published: November 10, 2017 at 7:00 am
Our review
A fun ride, both for everyday trails and long hauls in the hills Buy if, You like your bikes to do it all

Pros:

Smart kit choices, especially the tyre combo; agile and involving handling means it’s happy whipping through tech terrain

Cons:

Longer geometry would boost all-out speed; more mid-stroke support would give a tauter feel to the suspension

Its geometry may not be radical, but the Altitude’s decent weight, big tyres and involving handling make it a blast to ride - Russell Burton
We’d have liked more mid-stroke support from the Fox DPS EVOL shock - Russell Burton
The chunky tyres on wide rims conform effortlessly to the ground, letting you push hard into corners and brake late when things get lairy - Russell Burton

The Altitude is probably the most UK-relevant bike in Rocky Mountain’s line-up. With 150mm of travel out back and 160mm at the front, it’s meant to be a do-it-all, do-it-anywhere sort of bike, prime for singletrack shredding and big-mountain adventures.

A full-carbon frame helps keep weight to a competitive 12.6kg (large). It’s constructed using rigid internal moulds and specific carbon/resin mixes and lay-ups for each tube. The four-bar linkage layout gives Rocky Mountain plenty of control over the suspension curve, and the Fox shock gets a different tune on each frame size (lighter tunes for smaller riders).

One particularly interesting frame feature is the ‘RIDE-9’ geometry adjustment system. Nine different settings can be accessed via two interlocking chips on the swing link, from ‘Slack’ (65-degree head angle) to ‘Steep’ (66.1 degrees).

Changing between them is a simple case of removing a bolt and flipping the chips. Other key geometry numbers (on the large size, in the ‘Slack’ setting) include a reach of 452mm, a bottom bracket drop of 13mm, short 426mm chainstays, a 74-degree seat angle and a pretty average 1,206mm wheelbase.

Rocky Mountain Altitude Carbon 70 kit

Fox take care of damping duties with a ‘Performance Elite’ spec 36 Float fork with FIT4 damper up front and a matching DPS EVOL rear shock. There’s no slippery Kashima coating, but everything else you’d want from Fox is there.

The drivetrain is based around Shimano’s 11-speed XT group, with Race Face Turbine Cinch cranks. Shimano bring it all to a halt too, with XT stoppers.

The bike comes with one of our favourite droppers, the Fox Transfer, and Race Face and Rocky Mountain take care of the finishing kit. Wide Stan’s Flow rims (29mm internal) are wrapped in high-volume Maxxis Minion tyres in the new ‘Wide Trail’ format to provide a spot-on wheelset.

We’d have liked more mid-stroke support from the Fox DPS EVOL shock - Russell Burton

Rocky Mountain Altitude Carbon 70 ride impression

With a low bottom bracket, slack-ish head angle and stacks of suspension travel, it would be hard for the Altitude to lack attitude when the trail descends. The ‘Performance Elite’ suspension front and back is controlled and tunable, only missing out on the top five per cent of potential performance because it lacks the gold-standard Kashima coating.

Because the wide rims allow lower pressures, the chunky tyres are able to conform effortlessly to the ground beneath them, letting you push hard into corners and brake late when things get lairy.

Under braking there’s a little bit of skitter from the back end – you’ll either love or hate this, but you certainly aren’t left feeling isolated from what’s happening under the tyres.

On bigger compressions and hits we’d have liked a touch more support from the shock’s mid stroke, because we found the bike was prone to dipping towards the end of its travel prematurely.

The chunky tyres on wide rims conform effortlessly to the ground, letting you push hard into corners and brake late when things get lairy - Russell Burton

Geometry wise, the Altitude is far from radical – the reach is almost short for a modern enduro bike, and that’s certainly the case out back. This helps the bike feel nippy and agile, and ready to turn on a dime.

But it does mean it loses out on some of the high-speed stability that we’ve come to love from the longer crop of current enduro bikes. The Rocky Mountain claws back some of that confidence in the corners with its low bottom bracket though.

While geometry fiends will like the easy adjustment of the frame’s shape, we’d argue that there are too many options – just give us slack and steep settings, especially when the two extremes aren’t that far removed.

Rocky Mountain Altitude Carbon 70 specifications

  • Frame: ‘Smoothwall’ carbon fibre, 150mm (5.9in) travel
  • Fork: Fox 36 Float EVOL FIT4 Performance Elite, 160mm (6.3in) travel
  • Shock: Fox Float DPS EVOL Performance Elite
  • Drivetrain: Shimano Deore XT with Race Face Turbine Cinch cranks (1x11)
  • Rims: Stan’s NoTubes Flow MK3
  • Hubs: Rocky Mountain Boost (f) and DT Swiss 370 Boost (r)
  • Tyres: Maxxis Minion DHF WT 3C 27.5x2.5in (f) and Minion DHR II WT 3C 27.5x2.4in
  • Brakes: Shimano Deore XT, 180mm rotors
  • Handlebar: Race Face Turbine, 780mm
  • Stem: Rocky Mountain 35 AM, 35mm
  • Seatpost: Fox Transfer dropper
  • Saddle: WTB Silverado Race
  • Weight: 12.6kg (27.8lb), large size without pedals
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Tom Marvin

Senior technical editor

Tom Marvin is a technical editor at BikeRadar.com and MBUK magazine. He has a particular focus on mountain bikes, but spends plenty of time on gravel bikes, too. Tom has written for BikeRadar, MBUK and Cycling Plus, and was previously technical editor of What Mountain Bike magazine. He is also a regular presenter on BikeRadar’s YouTube channel and the BikeRadar podcast. With more than twenty years of mountain biking experience, and nearly a decade of testing mountain and gravel bikes, Tom has ridden and tested thousands of bikes and products, from super-light XC race bikes through to the most powerful brakes on the market. Outside of testing bikes, Tom competes in a wide range of mountain bike races, from multi-day enduros through to 24-hour races in the depths of the Scottish winter – pushing bikes, components and his legs to their limits. He’s also worked out that shaving your legs saves 8 watts, while testing aerodynamics in a wind tunnel. When not riding he can be found at the climbing wall, in his garden or cooking up culinary delights.
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