Pinarello

Dogma XC Carbon Mountain Bike Frame

While the Dogma XC Carbon Mountain Bike Frame's peculiar design characteristics may be the most visible feature helping it stand out from the 29er crowd, it's Pinarello's carbon fiber expertise that really makes it shine on the singletrack. For virtually perfect carbon, the Italians went to Japan and came back with Toryaca's 60HM1K Nanoalloy carbon fiber, a material that's rigid enough that only 1/3 of the material used in most of Pinarello's road frames was needed in order to achieve comparable levels of stiffness.

Stiffness isn't the end-all of cycling, though — not even for speed-obsessed Italians on speed-obsessed 29ers — so the rigidity of the 60HM1K carbon is tempered by Nanoalloy technology. This involves embedding synthetic material that acts as a vibration absorber and, in the event of a high-force collision, diffuses the force of the impact to protect the frame's structural integrity.

Carbon tech aside, though, the frame's rear triangle does stand out for its formal characteristics. Those wavy chain stays and that asymmetrical seat tube junction turn heads on the trail, but they're not just for show. Italians love speed, but they also love the comfort of a smooth ride. The seatstays not only separate to connect to the seat tube in two places, they also do so above the top tube. Like with the carbon's Nanotechnology, this asymmetrical design is meant to diffuse vibrations across a larger area before they hit the seatpost and the top tube, helping to ensure that stiff hardtail speed doesn't come at the cost of bruising your tail as soon as you hit the trail.

The chainstays are focused less on comfort and more on discomfort. Namely, the discomfort of your competition when you stomp on the pedals and start laying down watts. They're oversized and, of course, asymmetrical to favor the drivetrain side, so more of your efforts go straight to the rear wheel without being lost in a decidedly un-Italian wagging bottom bracket.