RAAW Mountain Bikes (Germany) - Press Release: Secretly, downhill is the first love of most of us at RAAW. There’s nothing quite like what you can do on a downhill bike. The risks you can take, and get away with, leave you with a mischievous grin as you head into the next corner, already trying to one up yourself from the corner you just left behind.

Ever since RAAW began, the idea of one day creating our very own downhill bike has been a seed in the back of our minds, organically growing along with the brand, until we just had to do it.

The RAAW Yalla! is a bike built for sending it down the Champéry World Cup track, a place that we hold very close to our hearts. There’s no messing around there, no fuzziness in the intended use. Every decision in the bike followed that crystal clear idea and results in a bike fit for tackling one of the most demanding courses to be raced on, again and again.

A Toolbox for the Rider:

The RAAW Yalla! is designed to be an extensive toolbox for the rider. DH tracks, conditions and rider preferences can demand a plethora of different setups from a bike. The relationship between you and your bike and the ability to make your setup work for that day is key.

The Yalla! features a large number of adjustments that open the door to tuning the fit and feel of the bike for you and the track in front of you. But if you’re not into playing around with the bike, no worries. The base geometry of the Yalla! is something that we chose very carefully for all three sizes, so you can also just grab it and go shred.

Durable & Easy to Work on:

Durability is at the core of RAAW. We want bikes that can be ridden hard and put away dirty and that will last year after year or owner after owner. We choose aluminium not just for its recyclability, but that it’s a wonderful material that can be formed, forged and machined into shapes that fit the purpose of a DH bike so well.

We also like to invest some weight on our hardware. We ask a lot from the pivots so we outfit them with big bearings at all the points that move. This ensures suppleness in the suspension system and ensures it for a long time.

While the Yalla! is as durable as we can make it, it’s inevitable that at some point you’ll need to give it some TLC. For that reason, we wanted the Yalla! to be as easy to work on as possible for the home mechanics out there as well as the World Cup mechanics. Cable routing is external, you only need a few common tools to completely strip the bike and you don’t need four pairs of hands and a degree to put it back together.

Race Proven:

While not World Cup racers ourselves, we knew that developing a bike fit for tackling the wild World Cup track in Champéry could have what it takes to compete at the highest level of downhill racing. And that a lot of the philosophies that we live by at RAAW, like durability and being easy to work on, would also lend themselves well to a racing environment.

2022 was a year full of learning as we embarked on our first year of World Cup racing. But in just our second race at Fort William the Yalla! not only qualified for the finals but came away with 23rd place under Luke Williamson. His wild run was the stamp of approval that the Yalla! is instilled with the speed to be right up there with the best.

And throughout a whole season of relentlessly challenging tracks it continued to solidly perform where many others fell apart. Durability is a huge part of RAAW, and to have frames that can take a beating like that all season long and come back asking for more takes away a lot of the worries that a racer, or just rider, might have in their equipment.

Race and ride the Yalla! hard, put it away dirty and do the same thing next weekend. It’s not made of sugar.

Geometry & Specifications:

The Yalla! comes in three different sizes from M to XL, all with 29” wheels front and rear. The three sizes cover riders from 167 to 199 cm and are equipped with a great number of adjustments to find perfect setups for different tracks, conditions and riding styles.

The riding position on the Yalla! is roomy and very similar to that of the Madonna, with an identical reach for the same sizes. This firstly results in a very familiar position between the same sized Yalla! and Madonna and makes you feel at home on the bike as soon as you jump aboard.

We’re big fans of low bottom brackets and our bikes attribute a bunch of their characters to this. This love is carried through to the Yalla, with the BB dropping 26.5mm, giving a BB height of around 345mm. This came from extensive real world tyre measuring as well as tying it into our supportive suspension design, meaning that you have a dynamic position in the bike, rather than perched atop it, and bringing stability and confidence when cornering hard.

Technical Specifications:

• Travel rear / front198 / 203
• Wheel size 29” (740-755 mm)
• Max tire width 2.6” (66 mm)
• Tire clearance 84 mm
• Rear hub 157 x 12
• Shifting One-by only, boost, 36t max
• BB 83 mm BSA / ISCG05
• Brake 203 mm Postmount
• Seat tube diameter 31.6 mm inside, 35 mm outside
• Internal seatpost routing no
• Seatpost max insert 140 mm
• Headset 56 / 56 Zero stack
• Cable routing All external
• Shock hardware Ball bearings and hardware included
• Bearings main pivot 2 x 61808-2RS1 (52 x 40 x 7)
• Bearings other pivots 10 x 91903-2RS1 (28 x 15 x 7)
• Recommended fork dimensions ATC 601.9 mm – Rake 52 mm
• Shock dimensions 225x75 – Trunnion
• Weight 4.2 kg (incl. shock hardware, rear wheel axle and frame protection, w/o shock, size M)
• Material AL 6066 T6
• Colours Matt Black and raw with matt clear coat