On-One Carbon 456 XT Mountain Bike

The Carbon 456 blends years of experience into an unshakeably surefooted, highly responsive carbon frame with massive tyre clearance for top performance in all conditions. It's nice and stiff with just the right amount of compliance, absolutely bomb proof and has the infallible 456 geometry which we all love so much.

A head angle of 67.5 degrees, with a sagged 150mm fork, makes it very easy to control on downhills and technical singletrack. The super-short 16.7 inches chainstays give the bike immense 'pop' and playfulness.

As What MountainBike commented about 456 geometry: "The very long cockpit combined with plenty of fork travel and a short stem works brilliantly for high-speed rock-dodging shenanigans, delivering precisely the right blend of high-speed stability and instant ?ickability. It's fun to muscle the On-One through choppy sections of trail with a subtle weight-forward bias, letting the fork do the work and allowing the rear to follow through."

As a do it all hard-riding, ragging-around hardtail frame the Carbon 456 is very hard to beat. The frame weighs in a feathery 3.3 lbs which builds into a bike that's light and extremely fast on climbs, yet well balanced and . It doesn't ever feel jumpy although the rear end is re-assuringly stiff. And most importantly it feels like you could drop boulders on it and it wouldn't break.

Such an immensely capable frame needs a proper fork, so we haven't skimped on this build. The 456 got its name from the fact that it can be built up with either a 4, 5 or 6 inch fork. In the real world, most people build up a 456 with the full 6 inches of cush up front. It's our preferred amount of fork travel for a 456 too. So for this complete bike we've opted for a RockShox Revelation RLT Dual Air 150mm with 15mm bolt-thru axle. Stiff as hell. Not a fatty. Amazingly controlled damping. Fully adjustable and tweak-able to the way you like a fork to feel. Cool looking.

The On-One Carbon 456 comes with a full Shimano XT groupset - possibly the finest all-round mountainbike groupset yet produced. Tough enough to deal with being battered. Light enough to give an overall bike weight that can cut it at the highest level. Unsurpassed reliability.

The rest of the finishing kit on the bike is appropriately uncompromising too. Schwalbe Racing Ralph tubeless tyres spinning on a lightweight On-One XC QR wheelset. To keep the 'factory look' all the finishing kit is from On-One: Inbred saddle, On-One Twelfty seatpost, On-One Riser bar, On-One Ultralight CNC stem and On-One lock-on grips.

This is the best On-One 456 yet. We believe it to be the world's first - and still finest - carbon fibre long travel hardtail.