The New Orange STAGE 7 - Warp Factor 29 5

Enter the Stage 7, taking its name from our ever popular 29" wheeled Stage family of bikes but going that bit bigger, faster, and harder, this bike is taking things a little more seriously.

The aim of the Stage 7 was to create a race bike with an outright focus on speed. Its sibling, the Switch 7 has been received exceptionally well and is truly a perfect weapon for racing at world class enduro events where tracks are tight and twisty. But like anything that's good at everything, there are times when you need a bit more.

It's hard to argue with the flat out speed that a full 29" wheeled bike can offer, so with the blueprint of the Switch 7 in hand and feedback from the World Cup team a new warp speed machine was born.

The Stage 7 is a true representation of Orange Bikes’ capabilities in frame development and production. The frame and each individual component have seen extensive FEA analysis and 3D modelling.

The Stage 7 is a UK made frame, manufactured by the hands of craftsmen with decades of experience, from flat sheets of aerospace grade aluminum to individually custom-fabricated tubes, seam-welded for each specific application, working in harmony with CNCed components from aluminum billet meticulously modelled and analyzed. All produced manufactured and tested in the U.K at our own facility.

This all produces an aluminum frame with a weight less than that of many ‘carbon’ frames in its category. It also means we have a product that's strong, durable and fully recyclable at the end-of-life cycle.

Sweating the Details 

The Stage 7 is an 29" wheeled enduro bike, 170mm travel front and 165mm rear. It uses a 205x60 link-driven trunnion shock, mounted low in the frame helping to lower the bike's center of gravity and allow for a more neutral weight distribution whilst riding. A trunnion mounted shock runs on a full complement of bearings instead of bushings, this allows us to achieve a very low break away force, providing incredible sensitivity to the initial part of the shock's stroke.

The heart of this dynamic bike is our STRANGE power link. STRANGE (Special Technology RANGE) has been responsible for numerous projects, from prototype frames to general components like grips, for a large proportion of Orange’s existence. It forms a huge part of our development process and has seen some pretty incredible products over the years.

The STRANGE power link allows us to have a considerably more progressive shock curve than our bikes have used previously. It’s this shock curve which adds to the truly bottomless feeling that the Stage 7 delivers, but also allows the use of both high-volume air cans or coil shocks. Through the rear shock’s travel, the leverage ratio falls from 3.04 to 2.32. Looking at shock force, this means the real working progression is 23.7%. The curve was developed so it maintains the fun confident feel that Orange bikes have become famous for while adding the big-travel requirements of a progressive platform.

With the bike’s kinematics sorted, this race machine also benefits from one our lowest pivot position to minimize pedal kickback, and drivetrain induced interference, leaving the rider to do the job at hand. Anti-squat numbers for the Stage 7 in the 32/50t gearing start at 128% falling to 106% at full travel. Around dynamic sag the anti-squat is at 123%, this means that the bike will be efficient on the pedals when pushing hard in or out of the saddle.

The frame is packed with features seen on our newest generation bikes and are the result of meticulous analysis, testing and feedback. The Stage 7 sports a 49/56 ZS headtube, this has helped improve both strength and stiffness at the front end of the bike, increasing the surface area for welding between head tube, downtube and toptube as well giving us enough room to drop the downtube slightly to allow for a water bottle inside the front triangle. We've made bottle access even easier with new tooling to create a concave on the top side of the downtube. The bike also uses a UDH gear hanger incorporating SRAM’s new industry standard and allowing a spare to be bought at nearly every bike shop on the planet.

Technology developed on our most recent bikes also appears on the Stage 7, it has an asymmetrical swingarm, this allowed us to increase the bike's vertical stiffness whilst tuning its lateral compliance, producing a bike with a direct feel but with buckets of grip.

Focusing on chassis dynamics has been important throughout the Stage 7’s testing program. It’s easy to make a bike too stiff and effectively end up with reduced traction and a “dead” or “wooden” feel to the bike’s ride. A large part of the additional grip being produced by this bike is down to a design that isolates the shock from the lateral forces coming through the frame particularly during hard cornering and large compressions, so the shock is only loaded in a linear manner. There were a few reasons for doing this; first to ensure the best possible life of the shock and bearings, second to minimize any external input that could increase friction and hamper the shock’s performance, and third, this linkage design allowed us to control the swingarm’s lateral compliance using custom designed and manufactured tubes specific for the job.

Throughout the design process we were conscious of our reputation for low maintenance bikes. We made every effort to conceal the majority of our bearings within the front of the swingarm, out of harm's way.

Bikes will come with a 5 year bearing warranty for the original owner and any original owners outside of that period will receive heavily subsidized pricing.

The icing on the cake is our new chainstay and downtube protectors. These keep your pride and joy looking sharper for longer, help dampen chain slap, impact from stones and are the final details on a bike that has seen an incredible amount of development.

The first model available will be the Stage 7 LE.

Front: 170mm | Rear: 165mm | Wheelset: 29

Priced at  $9000.00 USD | £7400 GBP | €8300 EUR

Sizes and Color

Sizes: M, L, XL

Color:  Purple Reign

Decals:  Silver Decals

Frame and Fork

6061-T6 Monocoque UK Formed Custom Aluminum Tubing.

Wheel Size: 29.

Rear wheel travel: 165.

Headset:  FPD 49mm / 56mm zerostack

Fork:  Fox Factory 38 Float 170mm 29

Swingarm:  Bolt Type Allen Key Head (Boost 12 x 148mm Hub)

Rear Shock:  Fox Float X2 Factory 205x60

Drivetrain

Bottom Bracket:  SRAM DUB

Crankset:  SRAM GX Eagle 32t

Rear Mech:  Shimano XT 12spd

Chain:  SRAM NX Eagle

Shifters:  Shimano XT 12spd

Cassette:  Shimano XT 10-51T 12spd

Wheel and Tires

Wheelset:  Stans Flow Mk4 + Hope Pro 4 (Black) 29

Tires:  Maxxis Minion DHF 2.5 3c EXO+ / DHR II 2.4 3c EXO+ 29

Braking

Brakes:  Shimano XT Trail 203/203

Finishing Kit

Seatpost:  Fox Factory Transfer 150/175mm Drop

Seat Clamp:  Strange Bolted

Stem:  Hope M35 x 35mm Black

Saddle:  SDG Strange Bel Air III

Handlebars:  Renthal FatBar M35 800mm

Grips:  Strange Grappler Lock-On