They don't make them like this any more. But we do. The Slacker is an alloy framed, 27.5" wheeled downhill bike, designed to be as fun as possible. It's the cornerstone of our #sessionsnotseconds ethos. In an era when other brands are building super-long, super-complex and super-exclusive race sleds, we've gone the other way. Build it as a freeride rig, a park bike, it's up to you. The Slacker will remind you what mountain biking is all about.
New for 2025, Purple Drank is an 80% matte powder coat finish. As befits a bike like this, it looks sweet but it's hard as nails. Paired up with a silver anodised rocker and black anodised hardware. Choose your head badge finish from black or silver brushed alloy.
The classic Airdrop finish. Hand-brushed alloy with a clear matte powder coat to keep it looking fresh. That's paired up with a black anodised rocker and black anodised hardware. Choose your head badge finish from black or silver brushed alloy. Every one is a bit different, but they're all sick.
We know that you'll be using your Slackers to get up to all sorts of stuff. So we designed the Slacker's kinematics to work perfectly with either air or coil shocks. And of course, we offer the Slacker as a frame-and-shock kit, so you can build yours to your exact specification.
The unmistakable feel of coil, evolved with premium technology to give you world-class suspension performance. This is the top-end DH RC2 shock with rebound adjust, high- and low-speed compression adjust, adjustable hydraulic bottom-out control and the new TouchDown position-sensitive damper.
DebonAir technology gives coil-like suppleness with the advantages of an air spring: maximum tunability in a lighter package. This is the top-end DH RC2 shock with rebound adjust, high- and low-speed compression adjust, adjustable hydraulic bottom-out control and the new TouchDown position-sensitive damper.
The Arma v4 is there for riders who want to extract the absolute maximum performance from their Edit frame. Hand made in Italy, the Storia incorporates 4-way adjustability with a series of performance and finishing refinements that take things to a level unmatched by mass-produced dampers.
We design our frames in-house, then have them manufactured in small batches in one of Taiwan's finest factories. We then build every bike to order in our Sheffield workshop. That's one of the many perks of buying a bike from a small and independent brand; your bike hasn't been churned out on a production line. Every step of the process has been done by a skilled engineer, by hand.
A Slacker ordered today will be built in the week shown below. Please be aware that these dates are estimates and can be subject to change.
Option | Build Date |
---|---|
Slacker Frame & Vivid Coil | w/c 26th May |
Slacker Frame & Vivid Air |
w/c 26th May |
Slacker Frame & EXT Arma v4 |
w/c 26th May |
Slacker Core | w/c 31st March |
Slacker Works | w/c 31st March |
When you place your order, you'll have the opportunity to fine-tune many aspects of the build. That means you get to make the big decisions about how you want your bike to be set up, and we get it right first time.
As with all Airdrop bikes, we carry a full selection of spare parts and accessories for the Slacker. If you need a replacement rear axle, mech hanger or bearing, no problem. With The Slacker Project we also branched out a little to offer Slacker merch, which helps us to fund the design and development of the bike.
Ordinarily, bike brands like to do their development work in secret. It means you can try things out, make a bunch of mistakes and get everything dialled without anyone really knowing. Then boom... release a fully completed bike. That's fine but we wanted to do things differently with the Slacker. For a start, we didn't even know if we could do it. And we knew that if it was ever going to have a chance, we'd need to get people behind the idea. After all, the industry thinks DH is dead, not to mention 27.5".
The Slacker Project blog details every step we've taken to design and develop our own DH bike from scratch. If you've ever wondered what it takes to create a downhill bike from nothing, read on...