LA FLECHE: The Hardcore Hardtail a 4X Racer Asked For
LA FLECHE: The Hardcore Hardtail a 4X Racer Asked For
I had been wanting to build a hardtail for a long time. Not a soft one. A real one. The kind of frame that does not need suspension in the back to make an argument.
Then, as luck would have it, a former 4X racer got in touch. His brief was refreshingly short: a hardcore hardtail with no compromises, except one. It has to be really fun, and it has to survive that fun.
That is how La Fleche was born. The Arrow.
Where it came from
At that point HUHN was mostly known for the Moorhuhn, the full-suspension bike where 3D-printed lugs connect steel and later titanium tubes into shapes that plain tube-to-tube construction simply cannot produce. That project brought a lot of people to the workshop, and one of them turned out to be the customer for this bike.
So La Fleche is the hardtail answer to the Moorhuhn question: what happens when you take additive manufacturing and put it exactly where it earns its keep, and use classic craft everywhere else.
Print two joints, braze the rest
On the Moorhuhn, almost every junction was printed. On La Fleche only two are: the seat tube junction and the head tube. Everything else is fillet brazed by hand.
That is not a compromise, it is the point. Those two areas make the biggest difference in terms of strength, and they are exactly where I need geometry that a round tube cannot give me. The printed lugs let the tubes flow into each other instead of just meeting, which is where the swoopy look of this frame comes from. Everywhere else, a good brazed fillet is stronger, cheaper and more beautiful than anything a printer could add.
The tubes are Reynolds 853, the printed parts 316L stainless. And yes, the HUHN feather graphics are back on this one.
The geometry: he wanted it extreme
The customer set two things: 27.5" wheels and 130 mm of fork. Everything else we worked out together, sitting down and arguing about numbers until the bike made sense.
We landed on a 64 degree head angle, a 72 degree seat angle and 453 mm of reach. Static, of course, it all steepens once you are sagged in. MTB-News put it best: the customer wanted it extreme, and he got it extreme.
Geometry chart via MTB-News.de
Those numbers say clearly where this bike is going, and it is not uphill. Trails, pumptracks, bike park: yes. Marathon days: ask someone else. Pinkbike tried to invent a category for it, floated "hardcountry" and "downcore", could not decide which portmanteau was more painful, and gave up. Their comment section then spent a day inventing riding genres that sound like metal subgenres. Technical death downhill remains my favorite.
The build
The customer built it up the way you would expect from someone who used to race gates: 130 mm RockShox Pike, SRAM XX1, Magura Vyron wireless dropper. Two-tone paint, chosen by him.
Frame and build photos: Madeleine Burkhardt
Steel or titanium, your geometry
La Fleche was never a one-off. Every one is made for its rider, which means you have a say in the geometry. It comes as La Fleche St in Reynolds 853 steel or La Fleche Ti in titanium, in 27.5" or 29", with two-tone paint of your choosing.
At launch in 2021 the steel frame was 2,400 euros, titanium 3,800 euros, with a five-month wait. The wait has changed a few times since. The concept has not.
The spec sheet
- Material: Reynolds 853 steel with 316L printed lugs, or titanium
- Construction: 3D-printed seat tube and head tube junctions, everything else fillet brazed
- Intended use: 4X, trails, pumptrack, bike park
- Fork travel: 130 mm
- Wheels: 27.5" or 29"
- Head angle: 64 degrees static
- Seat angle: 72 degrees static
- Reach: 453 mm on this build, custom on yours
- Sizing: fully custom
Want one
Custom hardtails are still very much a thing at HUHN, and test rides in the Fichtelgebirge are still on offer. That invitation is a decade old at this point and it still stands.
Coverage: MTB-News.de / Dennis Haas (February 2021), Pinkbike / James Smurthwaite (February 2021). Photos: Madeleine Burkhardt. Geometry chart: MTB-News.de.
A short arrow, pointed downhill.