A JUNIOR RIPPER FOR ALL
TThis no-nonsense 26” bike from South African start-up Signal was designed with the Spur Schools Mountain Bike League in mind. The League aims to introduce more learners to bikes, and encourages schools to adopt mountain biking as an official sport.
Learners compete in a crosscountry racing format, with four events taking place in each province between May and September. It’s a big deal – at
the final in Magaliesberg last year, about 400 riders from 60 schools competed. The schools go head to head, using team tactics to accumulate points, which moves the racing away from an individual-rider focus. Supersuper-fun! healthy, and
“We partnered with the League in an effort to help support and develop cycling from grassroots level,” says Signal marketing manager Oli Munnik. “The competitive racing element is obviously core, and Signal encourages it, but where the league truly shines is in its inclusiveness – allowing children of all abilities and backgrounds to participate.”
In 2019, Signal sponsored a fastest-lap competition – a race-within-a-race – which gave riders a chance to give it their all. At the final event, all the fastest-lap winners went into a lucky draw. The winner, Zandri Strydom, walked off with a Signal Elite mountain bike.
The S 610 is designed to bean accessible race bike for teenagers who think they might be keen on the sport. For the 2020 model, Signal ditched a 3x7 Shimano drivetrain in favour of a 1x9 setup from L-Twoo, a new Chinese company – whose founder, apparently, was a former highlevel employee at SRAM.
Indeed, the design of the derailleur is suspiciously similar to a SRAM product; but that aside,
everything works as it should, and it’s allowed Signal to send out into the world a modern, sub-R6k bike that will make any teenager smile. With an 11-46T cassette, the range across the nine gears is enormous – easily matching the overcomplicated 3x7 system that preceded it.
The brakes are mechanical disc, and the 80mm fork uses a coil spring – there’s even a lockout on the crown for weekday rides to school. In terms of geometry, it’s like a shrunken 29er, with all the same angles and offsets as a bigger bike. The 69.5° head-tube angle, for example, puts the bike squarely in racey XC territory.
Other modern features include a wide 720mm handlebar with a slight rise, and a short stem for better handling. The wheels and hubs aren’t the lightest – to be expected – and the standard-issue tyres are quite narrow, at 2.1”. You might want to replace them with wider rubber at some point, but 26” tyres are comparatively cheap these days since 29ers steamrolled the market.
At the end of the day, the S610 is simple and sturdy – it won’t break, and it won’t break the bank. The price makes it accessible to most families with a keen-bean cyclist in their midst, and the spec is just right for our local riding conditions. Now dad just has to keep up somehow... –