Tor's founder and owner, Shane Flint, talks us through the bike he took to the Handmade Bicycle Show Australia.

Background
I started as a hobby for about 4 years, but opened the business this year in Beechworth in country Victoria [near the NSW border city of Albury-Wodonga - Ed.]. I have a background in engineering and design and metal fabrication, and I wanted a bike to ride in winter that I didn’t need to worry about, which was also fun to ride. I was not wanting to trash my carbon XC race bike, so I built something like this. 

Inspiration
This bike was designed and built around the 27.5+ wheel platform and building the frame around that platform. The frame has all-mountain or trail geometry allowing you to ride the steeper trails. Also can swap in some 29er wheels and fast rolling tyres for some XC riding. So purpose was to design a versatile, simple hardtail that can be easy adapted to riding shuttle days or with a quick change to XC riding.

Design features
My preference is for longer stays at 440 to give it more stability at speed. Matched with the 67-degree head angle I get a longer, slacker, lower BB height that rides like I want. Also, I needed to work around the tyre clearance for 27.5+ tyres. Longer stays helps, but I came up with my own notched stay to deal with that. That area is always a challenge for fat tyres and wanting to keep stays not too long.

Favourite features
Ability to swap between the 27.5+ and 29er wheels when I want, and I can even swap to a shorter-travel fork if I need. Also, the DT Swiss freehub body, which just pops off and onto a new wheelset in seconds.

Material
Columbus Zona tubing all round.  It’s really nice to work with. Fillet brazed.