TRILLION CYCLES PRIME Price: From: £1,349.00 (frame only) Trillion Cycles, trillion.com Of the three brands on test, Trillion Cycles is by far the youngest. Having formed this time last year, Trillion only officially launched to the public in early 2017 at the London Bike Show – seemingly coming out of nowhere. But as it turns out, there’s some pretty big investment going on behind this new name. Trillion is owned by industrial mega-company the Liberty House Group, which specialises in producing steel and aluminium, while also working in metals recycling. Owner Sanjeev Gupta has made himself known in the UK thanks to a number of key purchases of declining smelting mills around the country, with the immediate goal of retaining local jobs and a long-term goal of repurposing those mills into metal recycling plants fuelled by renewable energy. In addition to his ambitious commodities projects and desire to bring manufacturing back to the UK, Gupta launched the Trillion brand as an homage to his father – an Indian steel tycoon who originally founded Victor Bicycles. However, Gupta is keen to assert that Trillion isn’t a vanity project, but rather a conscious move to kick-start bicycle mass production in the UK – a country that was once home to the biggest bike manufacturers in the world. That’s some pretty big visionary stuff, and Trillion is still very much in its infancy right now. To begin with, Trillion is launching with a small, but focused range of bikes, including this one called the Prime. Currently in the prototype phase with the finer details still being ironed out, the Prime is a UK-made steel hardtail designed for a 160mm travel fork. It’ll be available both as a frame only, or as a complete bike with full builds expected to start at £3k. Custom-build kits are also available, and the final product is then sold and shipped direct to consumer. The Bike The double-diamond Prime frame is made up of a collection of large diameter steel tubes from Reynolds and Columbus, with a 44mm headtube up front and a sharply sloping top tube that takes a pleasingly straight line down the seatstays to the rear dropouts. There are some nice details on the Prime frame, including a proper metal headtube badge, and a subtle British flag graphic on the seat tube that indicates the frame’s origins. All cables run externally under the downtube, captured by tidy bolt-on clamps. The dropper post cable is the only one that runs internally, and it’s only for a small length inside the seat tube. Other nods towards practicality include the 73mm threaded bottom bracket and the addition of ISCG 05 chainguide tabs for those who want to make use of them. Rear dropouts are 148mm wide, and they use a sliding design with integrated tensioners. This allows you to tune chainstay length between 430mm–450mm, and also offers an easy conversion to singlespeed. However, according to Trillion, it also means the Prime can accommodate either 27.5in or 29in wheels, with max tyre clearance rated at 2.6in for both wheel diameters. To match the frame and its wheel size compatibility, Trillion has fitted a RockShox Yari 29er fork with 160mm of travel. With Trillion listing the Prime as “Designed for 29er, compatible with 27.5”, the frame geometry has been set around running 29in wheels. That’s resulted in a 65° head angle, a 74° seat angle, and a 44mm bottom bracket drop. There will be three sizes available in the Prime, with Trillion claiming that’ll suit riders from as short as 5ft 6in up to 6ft 3in. However, the company has also hinted that custom frame geometry may be an option in the future. Our test bike came set up with Mavic XA Elite 27.5in wheels and 2.4in wide tyres, and quite a high-end build kit that would set you back £4,599 for the whole bike. Decked out with Hope brakes and headset along with a SRAM X01 Eagle 1x12 drivetrain, the complete Prime weighs in at an impressive 12.13kg. Being a prototype frame, the Prime we’ve been testing is somewhat rough around the edges. The paint is patchy, and the welds aren’t exactly what you’d call exquisite. The seat tube is slightly oversized, resulting in the seatpost twisting even with the seat clamp tightened up to spec. The dropouts also require heavy spreading to fit and remove the rear wheel from the frame. Apparently this issue was caused by heat deformation on early prototypes from welding without the correct jig on hand. The splayed dropouts have also robbed available chainstay clearance with the drive-side crank arm, resulting in an annoying knock on every revolution. 58
Rockshox is in charge of suspension on the Prime, with Trillion opting for the 29er Yari, for extra stiffness and wheel size compatibility. Trillion turns on the style with this arty seatstay bracing. 59
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