Competitive Cyclist

VENTANA EL BASTARDO

A bike deemed El Bastardo deserves a story, and it's got one. It started with a phone call. Kirk Pacenti, godfather of the 650b movement, wanted a 5" travel 650b bike. He pitched the idea to Ventana's braintrust, president, and resident McGuyver, Sherwood Gibson. Always intrigued by a new challenge, Gibson listened to Pacenti tout the merits of the 650b platform, and agreed to the task. Pacenti chose Ventana for their reputation for unparalelled craftsmanship, performance, and an ability to mobilize quickly as he wanted it for the North American Handmade Bicycle Show.

Within days of their call, Gibson had a working prototype. While he made many tweaks to his initial design, he realized that Pacenti was onto something -- the bike rolled like a 29er, but pedaled like a 26. Traditional mountain bike gear selection was better suited to the 650b than the 29. The wheels were both stiffer and lighter, and the slightly smaller rear wheel diameter allowed Gibson "more room for more stuff" when it came to designing the bike -- evidenced by the fact that his first foray in the 650b realm is a 5" travel frame, Ventana El Bastardo.

Gibson applied much of his experience designing El Ciclon to his work on El Bastardo. The frame provides excellent standover clearance by virtue of the gusset at the top tube and seat tube juncture. El Bastardo exhibits the trademark Ventana stable pedaling platform, attained by maximizing lateral stiffness. It allows you to hold higher, tighter lines on off-camber terrain, and jump and slide more predictably by keeping your rear wheel in the same plane as your front triangle instead of flexing outward and giving the tire enough outward bite to throw you out off your line.

Ventana’s four-bar linkage uses the shortest rocker possible to provide such incredible stiffness. The shortened rocker creates a more triangulated rear triangle design than the parallelogram-like design of the Horst link. This compactness of the rear triangle minimizes lateral flex and the detrimental effects such flex has onto the rear suspension. And if you’re a glutton for stiffness, you can upgrade your El Bastardo to quad bearings to further reinforce the pedaling platform, making the frame track like a hardtail, but still deliver 5.5” of glorious travel. Combine this with a low 2.5 to 1 compression ratio design to offer its five inches of plush, bob-free rear travel in a non-Horst linkage, non-VPP suspension design obsessively crafted by Ventana to provide an inspiring ride.

Like all Ventana frames, El Bastardo is built with proprietary butted and ovalized 6061-T6 aluminum tubing. As burly as it appears, it comes in respectably lightweight, allowing you to hammer climbs without feeling burdened. And Ventana doesn't sacrifice the least bit of toughness in El Bastardo: Its internally butted, one piece, CNC machined bottom bracket shell and main pivot, and internally butted headtube with wrap-around gusseting are designed specifically to provide stiffness and durability for the long haul. The frame’s robust yet lightweight construction and spacious clearance for 2.4” tires make it extremely versatile.

If you are a larger or more aggressive rider, we recommend that you opt for a quad bearing set to further enhance El Bastardo's lateral stiffness and ensure prolonged bearing life. It comes stock with a Fox Float RP23 (View our set-up video). Ventana finishes the frame with a handcrafted stainless steel headbadge proudly displaying the Ventana "V" with the year of their inception, 1988.

Ventana El Bastardo is a disc-specific frame that uses double-sealed, oversized cartridge bearings at the pivot points designed for use with 650b wheels. It has 10mm bearing axles at minor pivots, 15mm bearing axles at the main and tower pivot points and rebuildable 17-4 bearing axles at the upper pivot points. It requires the use of a 1-3/8" (34.9mm) traditional top pull front derailleur, International Standard disc brake mount and a 27.2mm seatpost. It has vertically slotted dropouts with a CNC-machined replaceable derailleur hanger. Gloss White or Ferrari Red is the stock color option for El Bastardo --- or, for an upcharge of $150 and a short wait, it is available in any of Ventana’s luscious powdercoats – Electric Blue Metallic, Electric Red Metallic, Gloss Black, Electric Superdust, Grinch Green, Army Green, Cosmic Grey and Cosmic Orange.

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2009 Ventana El Bastardo Pricing