BOLD UNPLUGGED ULTIMATE

€10,999 Swiss superbike with unparalleled integration and futuristic looks

- Finlay Anderson

The Bold Unplugged is probably the most futuristic enduro bike on the market, and this Ultimate build spares no expense. However, the bike's high level of integration does limit how much you can customise it to your tastes.

THE FRAME

Made from carbon fibre, the Unplugged has a sleek, aggressive silhouette, with an oversized bottom bracket (BB) junction that hides the rear shock. Joining the front and rear triangles is Bold's Internal Suspension Technology (IST) linkage - a twin-link, virtual-pivot set-up, which is claimed to allow increased frame stiffness and a lower centre of gravity, as well as optimum suspension performance.

A removable cover on the underside of the down tube grants access to the shock, as well as Bold's 'Save The Day' toolkit, including a mini pump, multi-tool, tyre levers and tube. On the non-drive side, a suspension travel indicator in the rotating lower link allows for easy sag set-up.

The Unplugged's low-slung geometry matches its hard-charging design intentions perfectly. There's a pair of flip-chips in the seat stay, one of which gives the choice of a 'low' or 'high' setting, adjusting the head angle by 0.4 degrees and BB height by 5mm, while the other allows you to convert larger sizes of the bike to a mullet wheel set-up (the small and medium sizes come with a 650b rear wheel as standard). In the low setting, the head angle is a slack 63.2 degrees and the bike has a 77.7-degree effective seat tube angle. The lengthy 488.3mm reach, short 435mm seat tube and 733mm standover height of the large size gave us plenty of room to move about on the bike.

THE KIT