Grant Allen is a rowdy mountain biker. One of the early Red Bull Rampage riders, Allen, sustained a spinal cord injury in 2011 overshooting a roughly 20m road gap. But the injury hasn’t stopped the Adelaide local from pushing the limits of what he can do on a bike. Aside from being a multi-time Australian Men’s Road Race and Time Trial H4 Champion, he’s earned several top ten finishes at the Para-cycling Road World Champs and took sixth place at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics in the road race and time trial.
He also dropped Mick and Jono at Maydena as if they were going backwards on his Bowhead RX gravity bike. Ahead of the 2024 GWM National Championships at Awaba, Allen has built up a brand new hand cycle, the Bowhead Reach, and we caught up with him to get the lowdown on this wicked adaptive mountain bike.
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Grant’s Kawasaki-inspired Bowhead RX
Allen’s new Bowhead RX is anything but subtle, sporting a loud and lairy lime green and purple paint job.
“It’s a tip of the hat to the iconic 1990s Kawasaki motocross bikes. The bike itself is called the Bowhead RX, and the motocross bike was the Kawasaki KX, with all of the graphics we’ve done, it’s in that look and style.
Bowhead offers its bikes in both Titanium and Stainless Steel frames, and Allen’s new bike is the latter. The added durability and strength are an obvious no-brainer for Allen, considering he’s taking these bikes around Maydena and even rode the World’s DH at Smithfield last year. He says the TI offers a bit of a forever bike.
Both the RX and Reach are assisted by a Bosch Performance Line CX motor, the RX has dual Power Tube 500 batteries. The RX, of course, is the handcycle version and starts with the crank handles, which are made by Bowhead and drive a trio of chains.
“From the crank handles there is a chain running vertically down through the steering column, which is a SRAM PC850 chain and a Shimano BMX 18t freewheel. From there, it connects to another SRAM PC850 (and a chainring), which runs through the Bosch motor,” he says.
“Then the final piece of the chain puzzle, it goes to the back using a T-Type flat top chain,” he says.
That chain of course is interfacing with SRAM’s new XX Transmission T-Type groupset, complete with a 10-51T cassette.
Bombproof rolling stock
Allen’s Bowhead RX rolls on a reverse mullet, 27.5in Reserve DH wheel on the back, and a pair 20in Bowhead Carbon rims up front, all laced to Hope hubs with DT Alpine III spokes and Pro-Lock nipples so everything stays tensioned and taught.
With the front wheels being 20in, until recently, tyres have been a bit of a tricky one for Allen. But with the advent of sticky tyres with real casings for kids bikes, Allen has found some much-needed grip.
“Vee Tyre Co makes a 20×24.in proper tubeless tyres which have an enduro, or downhill casing. Really strong, really heavy duty and has a really good bike to it. Then I run a set of Panzer inserts, which seem to work well for those wheels, and set up tubeless. You can just hit things hard with them and they cope,” he says.
Mounted onto the Reserve wheel is a 2.5×27.5in Maxxis Assegai with a DH casing.
Dropping the anchors on the Bowhead
All up, Allen tells Flow the Bowhead RX weighs about 40kg with both batteries installed. Combined with the speed at which Allen rides, we expected him to be running a set of SRAM’s new Maven brakes in no time.
Suspension and the magic of the articulating front end
What initially drew Allen to Bowhead bikes and what sets them apart from other adaptive mountain bikes was the articulating front end.
“Both wheels can lean and articulate, so on a cambered slope, what one wheel is doing doesn’t matter to the other, so you can stay centred and keep your weight balanced centrally. The wheels behind being able to lean make it ride like a normal bike — you can lean, you can tilt, you can steer, you can slide into corners,” he says.
“For me, it feels like I can make it do what I would want a two-wheeled bike to do, but from a seated position that is awkward to be balanced and not tip over,” Allen says.
This articulation at the front also creates a degree of suspension. As Allen explains, you can lift one wheel up and out of the way as it goes over a rock or a root while two small Fox Float Factory DPS shocks take care of the small bumps and imperfections.
These aren’t custom-tuned with fancy shim stacks or valving, the only big change Allen makes is maxing out the volume spacers. Carrying all the weight of the bike plus his body weight allows for enough sensitivity of the top while still providing enough ramp-up as the shocks cycle through their travel.
The backend is connected by a big bulky linkage, which Allen says reminds him of the old Rocky Mountain RMP, suspended by a Float Factory DPX air shock.
“The back end is incredibly stiff. There is no flex or twisting or anything like that. You can be as rough and brutal with it as you want, and it doesn’t complain or rattle apart or anything like that,” Allen says.
This is, in part, by design. Allen says that Bowhead uses a fair bit of red Loctite at the factory to ensure everything stays properly torqued and you need a heat gun to disassemble the linkage.
Strap in shredders, we’re going riding
Allen tells Flow it’s vital for the rider on an adaptive mountain bike to be super planted and securely attached to the bike, but the seat and harness Bowhead uses aren’t custom or proprietary products. The harness itself is a Ride Engine kiteboarding harness.
“The seat width varies in one-inch increments. I sit on a 14-inch wide seat, which is quite snug and tight around my hips,” he says.
The first layer is a height-adjustable five-inch-wide Velcro strap that wraps around the rider’s stomach. On top of that goes what’s called a spreader bar. This is a plastic piece that fits across the middle of the rider’s waist which is held in place by large cam locks that have buckles on either side.
“I’m lucky with my injury that I have full use and function of my core muscles. But some other people who have a higher injury level or might not have the same function rely upon the harness to give them the core function that they don’t actually have. The harness makes you at one with the bike and puts you locked in a vertical position so that anything you do in terms of movements translates to the bike,” he says.
This connection is what allows the rider to lean and steer the bike.
Allen will be racing his radical new Kawasaki-inspired Bowhead Reach at nationals this week in Awaba and romping around the local trails when he’s not racing.
We should note that Allen is also one of the folks behind Push Mobility, the local distributor for Bowhead bikes. He’s dedicated his life to helping people get moving and ride their bikes.
Photos: Jack Fletcher / @jack.fletcher.aus