Singletrack/MTB
Gravel/All-road
Dirt-road Touring
Fat-bike
Esker Cycles just expanded their hardtail lineup with their most aggressive hardtail to date, the Smokey Ti. Optimized for a 160mm travel fork with a 64.5° head tube angle, this bike looks ideal for riders who love a rowdy descent. Learn more about the Esker Smokey Ti here…
Esker’s Japhy and Hayduke, which are both designed around a 120mm fork, are fantastic options for bikepacking. The Japhy is slightly more geared toward singletrack than the Hayduke, but both bikes share a similar overall silhouette. Esker saw an opportunity to expand their hardtail lineup and pushed the rowdiness factor to 11 with the new Esker Smokey Ti, a long-travel titanium hardtail. It’s optimized for a 160mm suspension fork, has clearance for 29 x 2.6″ (up to 2.8″ with some tire/rim combinations) tires, and is, you guessed it, longer, lower, and slacker than the Japhy and the Hayduke.
The Smokey Ti is built up around a seamless, butted, and cold-shaped 3/2.5 titanium frame, with external cable routing, internal dropper post routing, two standard bottle mounts inside the main triangle, and triple pack mounts under the downtube. There are no dedicated rack mounts, but a handful of workarounds exist these days. It’s great to see a 73mm threaded bottom bracket, boost hub spacing, and Esker’s UDH-compatible adjustable Portage dropout for singlespeed setups and to tweak chainstay length.
As for geometry, The Smokey Ti is clearly designed to charge down steep, rough descents. It has a 64.5° head tube angle, 77° seat tube angle, and 440mm chainstays across the entire size run, with a long reach and 60mm bottom bracket drop. Dig into the complete geometry chart below, shown at 30 percent fork sag.
Esker Smokey Ti Geometry
| Size | S1 | S2 | S3 | S4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seat Tube(mm) | 375 | 410 | 440 | 475 |
| Eff. Top Tube (mm) | 571 | 609 | 639 | 679 |
| Head Tube (mm) | 90 | 100 | 127 | 174 |
| Chain Stay (mm) | 440 | 440 | 440 | 440 |
| Wheelbase (mm) | 1178 | 1217 | 1254 | 1304 |
| Bottom Bracket Drop (mm) | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 |
| Head Tube Angle(°) | 64.5 | 64.5 | 64.5 | 64.5 |
| Seat Tube Angle(°) | 77 | 77 | 77 | 77 |
| STACK (mm) | 612 | 622 | 646 | 688 |
| REACH (mm) | 430 | 465 | 490 | 520 |
The Esker Smokey Ti is available now as a frame-only for $2,500, a frame + fork starting at $3,100, and complete builds begin at $4,500, with a number of upgrades available. Complete singlespeed builds start at $4,200. Learn more at EskerCycles.com.
Further Reading
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