It's here!

Well the new frame finally cleared customs and arrived today. Given my little teaser a while back it's a Ventana El Saltamontes it is indisputably Ventana's signature frame.
The name translates to "the mountain jumper". El Salt employs a low 2:1 compression ratio design to offer 4 inches of plush, bob-free rear travel in a non-Horst linkage, non-VPP suspension design.
The priority of El Salt is to a stable pedaling platform. In other words, it’s designed to maximize lateral stiffness so you can hold higher, tighter lines on off-camber terrain, and jump and slide more predictably by keeping your rear wheel in the same plane as your front triangle instead of flexing outward and giving the tire enough outward bite to throw you out of your groove. Ventana’s four-bar linkage uses the shortest rocker possible to provide such incredible stiffness. The shortened rocker creates a more triangulated rear triangle design than the parallelogram-like design of the Horst link.
The first thing I noticed about the new frame was the size of the tubing...they're massive and I mean Cannondale massive. Pictures I had seen of the frame just don't covey the large diameter. Tomorrow will be it's first ride so will give a report back then.



El Saltamontes