Dark Raw

The Slacker DH bike is available in a new finish we call Dark Raw. This is what it's all about.

We've wanted to do this for ages. A couple of years back we changed all the bikes over from wet paint to a powder coat finish which is much more hard wearing and contains fewer VOCs. At the time we had to work with the powder shop to develop a solution for our Raw frames, which meant doing a brushing process to the raw alloy before applying a clear powder on top. At the time the possibility came up to add a tint to the clearcoat and since then we've had a tubing sample in the workshop, just asking to be put into production. 

The Slacker Project provided the opportunity we were looking for.

Naming colours is always tricky but we settled on Dark Raw. As has been pointed out by the keyboard warriors, this isn't really a raw frame at all; it actually has a sophisticated finish involving multiple processes. So no, it's not raw raw (that would be a lot easier and a whole lot cheaper). But it is derived from our Raw finish and you can still see the alloy through the powder, so we're calling it Dark Raw.

We've specified Dark Raw for both the front and rear triangles and paired that with a natural ano silver finish on the one-piece rocker and a brushed alloy headtube badge. All the pivot hardware is black ano. The result is stealthy and subtle, but it's also lush. Here we've added a silver chrome decal kit which matches up to the fork decals.

This is a Slacker Deluxe so it's built up with Rockshox Boxxers, Super Deluxe Ultimate Coil, GX DH 1x7 drivetrain, Hope DH wheels and SRAM Code RSC brakes. At present we only have Boxxers in black but that's OK... they look sweet.

The Gloss Black Boxxer Ultimates come with silver chrome decals, so we've specific silver Hope Pro 4 hubs on the Slacker Deluxe. You can add a set of Burgtec Mk5 Penthouse Flats (normally £130) for only £80 when you buy them with a bike.

We decided to take a more minimal approach with the Slacker's decals and the result is a lot cleaner. It's nice to let the design of the frame and the finish speak for themselves.

It's tricky to photograph but you can see the brushed alloy finish through the Dark Raw clearcoat when you get up close. And all those lovely welds.

So there you have it. Dark Raw. When we produced the launch photography for the Slacker we only managed to get a matte black frame here to do it, so until now we haven't been able to show Dark Raw off properly. But hopefully it's been worth the wait.

At time of writing we have all Slacker Frame & Shock options as well as Slacker Full Bikes available in all sizes in both Matte Black and Dark Raw.