Review: All Mountain Style Honeycomb Frame Protection
3 June 2013 | By AngusMcIntoshThere is nothing worse than hearing that loud hollow “ting” sound when riding. The unmistakable sound of a rock hammering off the down tube of your pride and joy will nearly bring a tear to the eye for most.
I’ll be the first to admit I hadn’t ever heard of All Mountain Style but then they haven’t been in the mountain bike game for all that long. I had a lovely email from one of the guys behind the Spanish based brand called Xavi wondering if we fancied giving some of their brand new honeycomb frame protection a go and sharing what we thought. I kindly obliged.
2 sets of the protection arrived with us shortly after both in there clear/silver variety in what appears from the outside some pretty basic packaging but that doesn’t matter to us if what’s contained inside serves the purpose!
What is it?
The protection basically consists of 380 microns thick semi rigid PVC that is held in place with automotive strength adhesive. Don’t just go thinking you are covering your frame in some of Blue Peter’s finest sticky back plastic… The PVC provides great impact and abrasion protection and It feels reassuringly thick to the touch. It’s sure to take some of the sting out of the hits to the frame.
Included in the packaging are 9 individual pieces of protection including one large 270x60mm down tube protector, 5 additional chevrons to either extend the large piece or use elsewhere and 3, 25mm diameter protective circles to stop cable rub.
Fitting and Removal.
As you can see on the instructional video kindly provided by All Mountain Style below, fitting the protection is a breeze. It just sticks on with very little fuss and once we’d put it in place we just forgot about it. It coped perfectly with a good helping of the trusty Duck Smart Earth Mover during and never showed any signs of peeling at the edges.
When the time comes that you ever want to remove the protection All Mountain Style recommend firing up the heat gun or hairdryer and it should peel off leaving your paint intact with no mess and no fuss. I could never see why you would actually ever want to remove the protection outside of some pretty exceptional circumstances, but it’s reassuring to know it won’t be on there forever!
Does it actually work?
In terms of actual protection and testing funnily enough we didn’t go out with intention to take a rock strike on the down tube, but when it did. The paint remained intact and the sound was more of a dull thud than a sharp expensive sounding ting. The honeycomb frame guard performed flawlessly!
You'd be hard pushed to actually be able to see the stuff if you didn't know what you were looking for!
Conclusion
If your looking for some simple hassle free frame protection for your pride and joy the All Mountain Style honeycomb protection will more than do the job. It’s easy to fit, looks pretty tidy and will keep your paintwork in factory fresh condition for years to come. Best of all if you buy the clear stuff you won't even be able to see it!
It is currently only available directly from the All Mountain Style website which you can find here for €22.90 with free delivery in either clear or black! You could say that it’s a touch expensive for what is essentially stick on PVC but rest assured it will do its job time after time.
