The New RAAW Yalla!

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Product development can be attacked from a few different angles. For some, the direction comes from focus groups. For others it comes from developing the best product that aligns with the trends at that time. But for RAAW, it has always just gone about developing a bike that they’d want to ride, that they’re stoked about and will prop against the TV stand to savour it just that little longer before it gets covered in mud.

Developing a DH bike has been a seed in the minds of the guys at RAAW since almost day one. The crew grew up absorbing the bikes and culture of DH racing. Many years later, they still see it as the most exciting expression of mountain biking. And even in the small world of DH, there are so many different expressions of what a DH should be.

Performance and adjustability, all wrapped up in a durable package, is how we see a downhill bike. So RAAW set to it, developing their own DH bike with those drivers in mind. And after over a year of riding, racing and tinkering, The brand is over the moon to finally release the culmination of it’s DH Project – the RAAW Yalla!

RACE PROVEN

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.

And while not World Cup racers ourselves, the crew 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 RAAW’s philosophies, 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 the brand embarked on their first year of World Cup racing. But in just its 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.

ADJUSTABILITY – A Toolbox for the Rider

The RAAW Yalla! is designed around a toolbox concept. While a DH bike is a very focussed tool for a specific job, sometimes that job can change. Different riders and racers jump on board, the tracks vary from race to race and conditions can change at the flick of a switch. So, having a toolbox to delve into to meet all those demands is useful to have when you’re up at the ragged edge and still pushing for fractions of a second or for the maximum thrill.

That said, if you’re not into tinkering, then no worries at all. The middle settings of each adjustment option, which the frame comes delivered in, are something that was thought long and hard about. You can leave it there and never worry about it, instead just focussing on the riding. And the simplicity and solidness of the adjustment parts mean that they will just go about their job silently.

But, RAAW has endeavoured to make sure that the Yalla’s adjustability is simple to use, so that anyone can do it. After all, if an adjustment is easy to change then it encourages more people to use it and play around.

The brand encourages you to experiment with the adjustments and learn what works best for you in your terrain. None of the extremes of the adjustments will make the bike unrideable, and if you learn along the way how different adjustments change the bike feel then you’ll be better equipped in the future to turn a bike into your bike.

GEOMETRY & SPECIFICATION

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 RAAW 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.

The engineers didn’t just choose the same suspension design as the Madonna and Jibb to look the same, but it did come from all the same reasons as why it was chosen for them too.

The four bar layout gives the freedom to manipulate the suspension characteristics, the long link lengths give naturally favourable curves, production tolerances have less of an effect when going from 3D models to the real world, and the layout is efficient on material while being naturally stiff. This layout does exactly the job in hand in the simplest and most efficient way possible.

The Yalla! has 198 mm of predictable travel, avoiding really high leverage ratios and progression amounts to strike a wonderful balance between suppleness and support. It also avoids pushing anyone into a corner with their setup, instead creating a usable range of shock adjustments and plays well with both air and coil shocks.

A nice dollop of anti-squat means a direct and driven feel when you push on the pedals and accelerate, and it’s delivered in the travel zone that you’re most likely to be pedalling a DH bike in. The suspension offers the same direct feel in all gears and is designed around today’s common 34T chainring.

The influence of braking is designed to be very constant giving a predictable balance between combating the effects of load transfer when braking and remaining active in the suspension feel. This characteristic remains the same no matter the lower shock mount you choose, keeping the number of things to think about to a minimum when adapting your bike to the track and conditions.

FRAME DETAILS

Durability is at the core of RAAW. They want bikes that can be ridden hard and put away dirty and that will last year after year or owner after owner. Aluminium was chosen 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.

While the Yalla! is as durable as possible, it’s inevitable that at some point you’ll need to give it some TLC. For that reason, the Yalla! is 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.

The areas of the frame that will see an onslaught of mud have been designed in a way to leave few anchors. The back of the seat tube and chainstay bridge is as close to one vertical surface as possible. Forgings are hollowed out from the inside, leaving no hidden pockets. And the seatstay bridge is knife-like to cut through the spray from the rear wheel.

To protect the frame, the Yalla! has got stick-on soft rubber protection pieces on the underside of the downtube, covering the edges of the tube, chainstay protector, which is also ribbed to silence chain slap, and on the inside of the seatstay. RAAW also offers a stick on guard for the upper end of the down tube, protecting when shuttling or if your local lift hooks under the frame.

With the addition of nine tenths of naff all weight, why not have some added storage for some spares or a banana on your DH bike? If you don’t want it, no worries, it’s nicely hidden away out of sight. All gear straps fit and maybe even the odd data acquisition system too with a nice 3D printed bracket.

All external routing makes working on the bike a doddle, especially in a rush at a race, while keeping the cables secure, tidy and not looking like a bird’s nest. The upper cable guides on the main frame double up as the fork bumpers and are designed to provide protection for all the range of different fork offsets available today.

And as much as possible, hardware is shared with the Madonna and Jibb. This makes it easier for you to keep spares between bikes and get hold of replaceable parts when the time comes for some maintenance.

OPTIONS, PRICING & AVAILABILITY

The Yalla! is in stock and available to purchase as a framekit right away. The framekit without shock, including rear wheel axle, headset and all hardware is available for €2,990 in the EU and for $2,690 US / $3,611 CAD / 2,495 CHF / £2,244 outside of the EU. Shock options from Öhlins are in stock and Fox options will ship at the end of March.

Pricing in the EU will depend on the VAT rate in your country, and pricing outside of the EU will depend on exchange rates.