ZERODE KATIPO DELUXE - €8,395 (excl. import duties/taxes) 29in .zerode.eu

With its drivebelt, twist-shifter and Pinion gearbox, the Katipo's quirky but is it quality?

- Mick Kirkman

After riding, racing and testing mountain bikes for decades, this is the first bike where I’ve received instructions on how best to change gear. And there’s me figuring I had a pretty good handle on what all the buttons and shifters do by now…

It’s fair enough though, considering Zerode uses a completely different drivetrain and shift system to the vast majority of bikes. You don’t need to squint to see what form this takes, either: a Pinion gearbox replaces the chainset and bottom bracket, a rotary shifter looks like something from a bygone era, then the futuristic drivebelt and tensioner pulley sit where you’d normally see a chain and rear mech.

Pinion’s system seals cogs in a CNC’ed aluminium housing and they are permanently bathed in 60ml of lubrication, which is not too dissimilar to the gearbox in my van. The gear range is a bit broader though, offering a 600% range via a twist-shifter that’s part of the right-hand grip. How does that stack up with a stock set-up? Well it offers a considerably wider range than SRAM Eagle, which has a 520% range, although 10-52t Eagle still has an ‘easier’ lowest gear for climbing.

This Deluxe Katipo model has 12 evenly spaced gears, but you can’t shift under load. And having more interconnected cogs increases friction too; although the internet consensus is that this equates to around 5% extra drag when bedded in, so not huge. Plus, derailleurs distort the chain at the extremes of the cassette and get caked in mud, so smoothness degrades to narrow this gap further.