by Ben Haworth 3 months ago 5

The Factor Lando XC full suspension bike and the Factor Lando HT hardtail are outright XC race machines designed to go the (long) distance.

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have spotted the Factor Lando XC making its race debut at the recent Cape Epic, under the overworked chamois of the Amani Racing Team.

Designed for XC, XC marathon and “fast, extended off-road adventures”. It’s a carbon fibre bike for sweating and/or drooling all over.

Although these are the first MTBs bearing their name, Factor have been something called a “original design manufacturer” of other brand’s mountain bikes for quite a few years now.

Factor claim: “The new bikes couple Factor’s extensive in-house expertise in carbon fiber frame design for road, gravel, and time trial bikes with a deep understanding for modern geometry and suspension kinematics in mountain bikes.”

115 whole millimetres of rear travel. Paired to a 100-120mm fork up front. Linkage-driven single-pivot design. Claimed frame weight of 2.1kg.

You betcha it’s a flex-stay too. Pivots are for enduro brutes.

Although Factor’s marketing material makes the usual squared-circle claims of “a more active ride with the firm-platform pedal efficiency”, we expect in oractice the Factor XC is designed to be used with a frequently operated remote lock-out/firm-up set-up.

Factor do have some informative words about the frame construction: “Maintaining torsional stiffness and low overall frame weight was also a crucial consideration in the bike’s design. A vertically-oriented shock ensures forces are concentrated in the strong bottom bracket area, allowing for weight savings elsewhere. Equally, the frame’s split seat tube enables the use of a monobox chainstay connection for extra torsional stiffness and reduced weight.

“The use of a shared shock and lower swing arm pivot, mounted as wide as possible, ensures the simplest, lightest and strongest use of available frame material. LANDO’s one-piece molded carbon rocker complements its one-piece rear triangle, also minimising weight and maximising stiffness, while eliminating shock side loads or binding.”

The 67° head angle, 75.5° seat angle and the one-piece -10° 60-90mm bar-stem won’t set any down-country hearts a-beating, but will no doubt sound crazy progressive to existing Factor fans coming from the road and gravel world (who must be a clear target market for these bikes).

The hardtail Lando draws from several design cues seen on Factor’s road and gravel bikes. The frame’s tube shaping shares several attributes with the Factor Ostro Vam. The bike also sports road-obligatory dropped seat stays with a ‘kinked’ design, promoting (gnnn…) “vertical compliance“.

110mm fork. OR a Black Inc. fully rigid fork for further self-flagellation setup flexibility. The fork’s axle to crown spacing of 50.5cm slackens the bike’s head tube angle and weighs a claimed 720g.

As well as that eye-catching one piece bar-stem, Factor’s component brand Black Inc is specced heavily on both Landos.

Black Inc Twenty Seven wheels provide (you guessed it) a 27mm internal rim width as well as a 27mm rim depth. Claimed weight of 1,459g.

Factor Founder and CEO Rob Gitelis said: “We have increasingly seen our road bike customers explore new cycling disciplines, be it in gravel or mountain biking. With this convergence taking place across our sport, we felt that this is the right moment for Factor to take the next logical step and expand into MTB. LANDO is a manifestation of Factor’s engineering prowess in the form of a mountain bike; we can’t wait to finally see Factor bikes beyond the road, out on the single track.”

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I probably shouldn’t but I do like the look of that.

Being as my racing pretention stretches as far as zwift though I’d ditch the silly bar stem combo mind and put something more normal on it for plodding along.

No complete bike weights though….

Did they put the wrong colour rear end on the lando xc looks odd in grey?

I assume Dylan Johnson will be leaving his Niner sponsorship behind now…?

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