Swift Carbon has been around for eight years now, focusing mostly on road, triathlon and TT bikes. Last fall, they launched their first full suspension mountain bike, the Evil Twin.
It’s a short travel XC race bike that’s built for the type of multi-day, long distance stage racing popular in South Africa. Which is fitting since the brand’s founder, Mark Blewett, is a former South African pro cyclist.
The Evil Twin has a heavily shaped, mostly oversized frame that’s very asymmetric in its design. Suspension is just 90mm in the rear, with geometry angled for a 100mm fork. The design started with a primary parameter of fitting two water bottle cages on the frame, making it ideal for long distance racing that’s somewhat supported, but might have long distances between aid stations.
The size medium frame weight is claimed at just 1.94kg (4.28lb) without shock, which isn’t bad considering it had a goal of stiffness over absolute minimum weight, and they wanted it to be durable. After all, their bikes ship with a lifetime warranty.
The downtube has a carbon cover plate that runs the length. It hides the cable and hose, which makes for quicker, easier servicing and setup, and also protects the downtube from rock strikes. The dual bottle mounts are on all frame sizes and made possible by the slender, high-mounted linkage and shock placement.
Bold shapes leading into the bottom bracket…
…and thick tubes on both sets of stays reinforce the idea that this thing’s made to turn all of your pedal strokes into pure speed. It’s a mix of Toray 700 and 800 fibers. The XS frame size uses 27.5″ wheels, the S/M/L all get 29ers. It’s ready for Di2 and a stealth dropper post, too.
The Clifton is part of their new SwiftActiv line of casual, commuter and urban bikes. Handy features for taming the urban jungle include built in suspension at the fork crown, disc brakes and an integrated seatpost cable lock.
The frames are hydroformed alloy that looked like carbon at first glance. If you’re going to commute, bikes like this are what you wanna be on.
