The Saracen Myst enters the carbon game for 2013…

Yes the front end is still made from aluminium but the new sleek looking rear end is indeed made from the magic black stuff. Why only the rear end? Well for starters it’s much easier to keep costs down if you only make the rear end from carbon as both bike sizes use the same rear end, but Saracen also found that they could save far more weight from the rear end by switching to carbon than they could at the front. Basically they just didn’t feel that it was cost effective to offer a carbon front end as the weight savings would have minimal despite the cost increase being high. The 600g weight saving at the rear is far from minimal though, especially when you consider that all that weight would have been unsprung mass.

Now that’s a clean looking back end if ever I did see one.

Aside from the carbon rear end the frame remains largely unchanged for 2013, but that’s no bad thing cos we’re always fans of the ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ approach. Exact pricing is yet to be finalised but there will of course be a slight rise compared to 2012 simply because of the carbon addition. Actually, prices for components are on the rise too so the price of the full builds that you see below will also reflect that, but I think it’s safe to say that both the frame and the complete bikes will still be very competitively priced.

As you’d imagine the Team build will be built up pretty much exactly the same as the team riders bikes, and as such will be more than up for being rolled straight out of a shop and onto a World Cup standard race track.

The cheaper ‘Pro’ build is an excellent example of how some sensible component choices can make even a cheaper priced bike still be ready to hit the race track. By the sounds of it the largest price difference when compared to 2012 will be on this bike but you will be getting the new carbon rear end and some of the components have been upgraded too. For example Saracen have taken the sensible decision to fit Shimano brakes rather than Quad ones for 2013. The Quad ones worked well, but the Shimano are leading the brake game at the moment and spares will be far easier to pick up. With Madison being the distributor for both Saracen and Shimano it will also enable them to offer even better rider support at the various races that they’ll be attending.

We’ll update you with more details as we get them…

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