Takeaway: The new Element is a ground-up redesign of Rocky Mountain’s Element cross country platform. Doing its best to ditch the XC tag, the new version has longer, slacker, and more aggressive geometry than its predecessor. Combined with added suspension travel and a lightweight build kit, this is an ideal bike for riders who want to ride all kinds of terrain but find XC race bikes too limiting and trail bikes too heavy.
- A four-bar suspension design delivers 120mm of rear wheel travel paired with a 130mm fork upfront.
- The Element uses the Ride-4 geometry adjustment system, creating four different geometry setting positions to tune head angle, seat angle, and suspension feel.
- The frame can hold two water bottles (both on the downtube) with clearance for 2.6’ tires
Price: $9,590
Weight: 24.8lbs (size M)
Style: Full suspension 130/120mm trail bike
Frame: Smoothwall Carbon. Full Sealed Cartridge Bearings. Press Fit BB. Internal Cable Routing. Adjustable Geometry + Suspension Rate. 120mm Travel.
Wheel Size: 29”
Fork: Fox 34 Float Factory 130mm, 44mm Offset
Rear Shock: Fox Float DPS Factory, Sealed Bearing Eyelet 190x45mm
Drivetrain: Shimano XTR, 12-speed
Cranks: Race Face Next SL G5 Cinch, 30mm Spindle, 170mm length (all sizes)
Chainring: 32 tooth
Cassette: Shimano XTR, 12-speed, 10-51T
Brakes: Shimano XTR 2 Piston, Metal Pads, Shimano RT86 180mm rotors (Front and Rear)
Front Wheel: Rocky Mountain Sealed Boost 110x15mm hub, DT Swiss evolution 2.0/1.5/2.0 spokes, Rocky Mountain 26XC Carbon Rim
Rear Wheel: DT Swiss 250 Boost 148x12mm 36T Star-Ratchet hub, DT Swiss evolution 2.0/1.5/2.0 spokes, Rocky Mountain 26XC Carbon Rim
Tires: Maxxis Rekon WT 3C MaxxTerra EXO Tubeless Ready, 29”x2.4”
Saddle: WTB Silverado Carbon 142mm width, Carbon Rails
Seatpost: Fox Transfer Factory Series, 30.9mm diameter, 150mm travel
Handlebar: Race Face Next R, 780mm Width, 20mm Rise, 8° Backsweep, 4° Upsweep,35mm Clamp
Stem: Rocky Mountain 35 CNC, 0° Rise, 50mm (all sizes)
The new Rocky Mountain Element sheds the “race” from its cross country race bike roots and becomes a better bike in the process. It’s the kind of cross-country mountain bike that likely suits most riders, and I include myself in that group. For most folks, a World Cup level race bike doesn’t make a ton of sense, but until very recently it’s been the only option for riders who like to ride fast uphill as well as down. The Element does nearly everything a race bike can do, and a whole lot more.
The new Element is a ground up redesign of the previous version; with the new bike gaining 30 to 40mm of reach across all sizes and a head tube angle that’s up to four degrees slacker. Suspension travel increases in the front to 130mm and 120mm in the rear, a bump of 10mm and 20mm respectively. It’s a bike that’s just begging me to call it “downcounty.” But the Element is not an XC race bike with a longer fork, beefier tires, and a minor geometry tweak like the Canyon Lux Trail. It gets at the same goal of being a more capable XC bike from the opposite direction, by building out a trail bike with lightweight parts.
Components on the top end Element 90 Carbon that I tested lean toward lighter weight rather than rugged. Shimano’s XTR handles the shifting, and the suspension and dropper post are all Factory level parts from Fox. A lightweight Next SL carbon crank from RaceFace is used instead of the heavier XTR version. A carbon-railed saddle from WTB and a carbon wheelset from Rocky Mountain complete the lightweight build.
It can be hard to select parts for a bike this versatile, and your feelings about how aggressive the parts list should be will largely depend on where you live and the terrain you typically ride. While testing this bike, I would constantly swing between feeling like the Element was slightly under-gunned (compared to something like Trek’s new Top Fuel or Niner’s Jet RDO), then the next moment relish in how wonderfully light and playful the bike was on the trail. The two-piston XTR brakes with 180mm rotors front and rear felt appropriate in eastern Pennsylvania, but some riders will wish for the four-pot version. I would have preferred Rocky Mountain use a slightly wider rim than the 26mm model they are currently using on the Element. While impressively light, the stock Maxxis WT Recon 2.4” tires barely inflated to 2.3” on these rims. With frame clearance for 2.6” tires, a wider rim would suit the Element much better.
Some brands approach short travel trail bikes by taking XC bikes and adding some trail geometry and parts. The Element is instead a trail bike with XC weight, making it one of the most versatile mountain bikes I’ve tested. It’s a mountain bike that can handle a bit of everything, from technical East Coast rock crawl trails to steep and fast shuttle runs, while maintaining XC race like weight and efficiency uphill.
Bike Family
There are seven models of the Element available, with three alloy models and four carbon bikes from which riders can choose As expected, the higher end builds come on the non-metallic bikes.
The aluminum bikes start with the base model Alloy 10 retailers for $2,560 and features Shimano Deore level parts and RockShox suspension parts. For $3,090, the Alloy 30 improves the fork to a RockShox Recon Gold, and the shock is updated to a RockShox Deluxe Select+. The alloy bikes top out with the Element Alloy 50 at $4,050. It features an SLX / XT drivetrain with a Fox 34 Float Performance fork and a Fox Float DPS Performance shock.
Riders looking for a carbon frame will need to spend $4,260, for the Element Carbon 30, which uses a Shimano SLX and the same Fox Float DPS Performance shock as the Alloy 50 but swaps in a Marzocchi Z2 Float EVOL Rail fork in for the Fox. For $4,900, the Carbon 50 model gets an upgrade to Shimano XT while using the same fork and shock as the Alloy 50. The Carbon 70 model gets a full Shimano XT drivetrain with a Fox 34 Float Performance Elite fork and Float DPS Performance Elite shock for $6,820. We tested the range topping Carbon 90 build, which retails for $9,590 with Shimano XTR, carbon wheels, and Fox's top-of-the-line fork, shock, and dropper post.
While I tested the most expensive version of the Element, it’s worth noting that every model in the range shares the same geometry and frame features. As you go up in price through the range, the bikes will lose some weight and gain some suspension refinements and adjustments. The low weight of the Carbon 90 is admittedly a big part of why I like the Element so much. The lower priced versions of the Element won’t be as light, but they will still have the same level of descending prowess and pedaling efficiency. This is a big part of why the Element range is so good.
Geometry and Fit
The new Element is drastically different from the previous iteration. The head angle is a whopping 4 degrees slacker, the reach grows between 30 and 40mm depending on size, and the seat tube angle has become steeper to 75.5º. It’s been routine to call these kinds of geometry changes “progressive”, but objectively they are very much in line with what we expect geometry to be for a bike like this in 2022.
The Ride-4 adjustment system featured on the Element allows riders the option to tune the bike’s geometry a bit to the terrain they ride. By rotating one chip on the rear shock linkage, riders can steepen or slacken the head and seat tube by as much as 0.8 of a degree. In the slack setting, the Element felt dialed on steep and fast trails, the steeper and faster the better. Flipping the geometry to the steep setting improved the Element's manners on flatter, twistier trails. Giving the bike a more playful and quick steering feel.
I’m generally skeptical of geometry adjustment flip chips on most bikes because the incremental changes tend to not do enough to actually change the character of the bike. But on a bike as versatile as the Element, which can be used to ride all kinds of different terrain, a geometry adjustment chip made more sense. It gives riders a bit of flexibility to dial in the bike to their home trails and preferences.
On the fit side, every size of the element ships with a 50mm stem, which is not out of the ordinary for a bike in this category. My recommendation for riders that find themselves in between sizes is to size up. The steep seat tube angle combined with the short stem can result in the bike feeling a bit cramped. As always, a test ride is your best bet, if possible.
Finally, for smaller riders, it's worth noting that the XS Element uses 27.5" wheels while the rest of the size range sticks to 29".
Ride Impressions
I have a lot of praise for the new Element, so much so that I’m going to get my criticism out of the way first. It’s a bit of a boring bike on flat trails. With its low weight, trail oriented geometry, and ample suspension travel, it's just too capable for all but the most technical East Coast rock crawls. So if you primarily ride somewhere without much elevation and mostly flowy trails, the Element might be too much bike.
Everywhere else the Element excelled. I’m partial to fast mountain bikes with remote lockout and was initially skeptical about a 130/120mm bike feeling fast without one, but the Element proved me wrong. The combination of the reworked suspension design, shock tune, and low weight felt incredibly efficient under hard pedaling, even with the suspension fully open. This combination shined brightest on technical climbs, where the Element tracked the ground well without ever feeling like it was wallowing in its mid-stroke.
Once the trail pointed back down, the Element fully came into its own. For a 24lb bike with only 120mm of rear wheel travel, I was amazed by how I could simply plow through rough trail sections. That’s not to say the Element will win a race downhill against an enduro bike, but if you wanted to try and keep up with some friends on bigger bikes, you could pull it off on the Element.
The Element was nothing but confidence-inspiring and solid on high-speed and steep sections of trail. The long reach and slack headtube combined with the 150mm dropper post kept my weight centered on the bike, making the Element feel precise, planted, and stable, even when the trail was doing its best to toss me off line.
Bike design is all about compromise, but I think the Element strikes a really appealing one. By keeping the weight low and the geometry dialed, Rocky Mountain made a bike that’s fast enough to keep up on the climbs while getting you down even the most challenging trails. For riders looking to ride a bit of everything, from technical climbs to steep and fast descents, but who have no interest in dragging around a thirty-plus pound trail bike and find XC race bikes to be too limiting, the Element hits the balance between the two perfectly. It set’s a new industry benchmark for what I want from a short-travel trail bike and I hope other manufacturers take note.
