When we launched The Slacker Project, we said "Small bike brands don't normally do stuff like this. It's bold, risky and it might not work. But if it does, it might just be the best thing we ever do". Chapter by chapter, the Slacker has gone from being a pipedream to a reality. And now it's in production...
The Slacker is a 27.5" wheeled alloy downhill bike, designed specifically to be as fun as possible. Build it up as a freeride rig, park bike, it's up to you.
The first batch of Slackers was an instant hit and sold out quickly. We have a second batch coming soon, and we're bringing in some updates to the builds for 2024...
At Airdrop we have always offered frames for customers to be able to build their own bikes, and the Slacker is no different. The Slacker is available as a frame-and-shock package with the finest coil shocks that Rockshox and Öhlins have to offer. Every Slacker frame comes equipped with shock, spring, hose guides, CNC axle & seat clamp, UDH mech hanger and an Airdrop reach-adjust headset.
All Slacker bikes are built to order in our Sheffield workshop. Every bike we offer has a carefully selected and rigourously tested build kit; we only select parts that we'd be happy to use ourselves. The Slacker bike range caters for a variety of different approaches from the budget-friendly, single-crown Luxe build, through the singlespeed, stripped-down Park build to the no-holds-barred Works build.
As with all Airdrop bikes, we carry a full selection of spare parts and accessories for the Slacker. If you need a replacement rear axle, mech hanger or bearing, no problem. With The Slacker Project we also branched out a little to offer Slacker merch, which helps us to fund the design and development of the bike.
Ordinarily, bike brands like to do their development work in secret. It means you can try things out, make a bunch of mistakes and get everything dialled without anyone really knowing. Then boom... release a fully completed bike. That's fine but we wanted to do things differently with the Slacker. For a start, we didn't even know if we could do it. And we knew that if it was ever going to have a chance, we'd need to get people behind the idea. After all, the industry thinks DH is dead, not to mention 27.5".
The Slacker Project blog details every step we've taken to design and develop our own DH bike from scratch. If you've ever wondered what it takes to create a downhill bike from nothing, read on...