Competitive Cyclist

VENTANA EL SALTAMONTES

Ventana El Saltamontes is indisputably their signature frame. It translates to "the mountain jumper", a name befitting a bike that can just as easily serve as a competitive XC race bike, or as an all-purpose, all-terrain warrior. El Salt employs a low 2:1 compression ratio design to offer 4 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.

The priority of El Salt is to provide you with a stable pedaling platform. In other words, it’s designed to maximize lateral stiffness so you can 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 of your groove. 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 Salt to quad bearings to further reinforce the pedaling platform, making the frame track like a hardtail, but deliver 4” of glorious travel.

Like all Ventana frames, El Salt is built with proprietary butted and ovalized 6061-T6 aluminum tubing. As hefty as it looks, you can still muscle up steep hills thanks to the fact that it isn't onerously heavy. And Ventana doesn't sacrifice the least bit of toughness in El Salt: Its internally butted BB, 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.

Mountain Bike Action summed it up nicely, “Ventana’s premier trailbike steers quickly when you are dogfighting your way through brush or boulder fields, and feels stable when you are descending. …. Trail riders know from long days in the saddle that a smooth-riding suspension bike, which goes exactly where it’s pointed, is the most energy-efficient mode of off-road transportation. In the back country, El Saltmontes comes very close to perfection.”

Quad bearings are stock to even further enhance the El Salt's lateral stiffness and ensure prolonged bearing life. El Salt comes stock with a Fox Float RP23 shock, (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 Saltamontes is a disc-specific frame and uses double-sealed, oversized cartridge bearings at the pivot points. 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. Electric Superdust or Blue Metallic is the stock color option for the El Salt -- or, for an upcharge of $150 and a short wait, it is available in any of Ventana’s luscious powdercoats – Electric Red Metallic, Gloss Black, Gloss White, Grinch Green, Army Green, Cosmic Grey and Cosmic Orange.

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2009 Ventana El Saltamontes Pricing