When a company like Lapierre renews its Cross Country range, you have to pay attention. They revolutionised the sector back in 2001 with their legendary X-Control and a trend-setting suspension system, and in 2013 they launched the first XR, looking for a competitive and lightweight XCO.

Under the same premise, Lapierre have developed the new XR. A renovation with four pillars: lightness, kinematics, geometry and design.

Weight has been one of the main challenges of this new version and with the aim of reducing it to under 1800g, they have chosen a monopivot system without a rear articulation point, the lightest and most widely used system in XC today.

In order to optimise the kinematics, the engineers decided that the flex rest position offered by the rear triangle due to its carbon structure and construction is right at the SAG position. This means that when the rider is on the bike, the fibres of the swingarm are at rest.

The position of the shock is now as close as possible to the top tube, even the tube has been shaped so that it is practically integrated in the same line. This allows two bottle cages to be carried and the shock to be in an area of low mechanical stress and with a simple and short locking cable routing.

Regarding the material chosen for the manufacture of the frame, the top of the range models, such as this XR 9.9, use UD SLI Team fibres, Lapierre's best carbon. A frame that is made up of more than 300 pieces and in which they have achieved a greater compression of the layers in the mould. The result is a saving of more than 300 g compared to the previous version of the XR, leaving it at 1,772 g. If we add the shock and screws, the saving is almost 400g, bringing the total weight to 2,038g.