First Look: The New Last Cinto is a German Made, All-Mountain Lightweight

Last Bikes are a manufacturer based in Dortmund, Germany, and have been in operation since the turn of the millennium. They tend to specialise in the more aggressive trail and enduro bikes. Their range contains the Tarvo, which incidentally is claimed to be the lightest production enduro frame, the Glen and the Coal.

The new bike, the Cinto, is a new all-mountain bike based around a modular platform that is shared with the Tarvo. We're seeing more brands go down this route, which can be a good thing. However, although a rejigged linkage plate can tweak the geometry to bring it in line with the needs of a shorter travel application, it often means there is something of a hangover in terms of weight.

Suspension

The Cinto, from sag, has 29% progression. You can often find with aggressive mid-travel bikes that you can run out of travel because they can be so capable and they enable you to write cheques that your lesser amount of travel isn't so happy about cashing. The Cinto aims to get around this by offering a decent amount of progression towards the end of the stroke. It's this characteristic that also means it should work well with coil shocks, which are inherently more linear, or larger volume air shocks.

When calculating anti-squat, a large variable can be simply where the centre of gravity is. This, of course, will change from size to size and rider to rider. Last, to negate this, change the pivot placement depending on the frame size and combine it with an estimate of where the COG will lie. From there they can tailor the anti-squat value for the frame size. With the blue markings, you can see the frame size with this optimisation compared to the grey line which represents it without. In the lower gears the value is quite high, which means that as you pedal the suspension will be trying to extend. This should ensure both grip and efficiency. Please note that the graph shows the anti-squat throughout the whole range of gears at sag, not one gear through the entire stroke.

For the anti-rise, which is a value that tells us how our mass transfers when we apply the brakes, the Cinto is relatively flat and spends most of its stroke at a value between 80-100%. Under braking, a value closer to 0% will mean that the shock wants to extend, above 100% and it will try and compress as you get on the anchors. At around 100% it will mean that the rider is quite supported by the neutral reaction of the suspension to braking forces, as it neither extends nor compresses as the rider's mass shifts forward.