Lal Katana

The Sunshine Coast of BC has long been a creative hotbed for some of the heaviest hitters in the bike game. The Coastal Crew, Brandon Semenuk, Gracey Hemstreet, and Paul Genovese, amongst countless others, call this quaint spot home. They've spent thousands of hours honing inimitable skills on two wheels, simultaneously testing gear for sponsors whose headquarters are hundreds or thousands of kilometres away.

In 2022, Lal Bikes and Supre Drive brainchild Cedric Eveleigh traded the frigid winters of Chelsea, Quebec, for the balmy climate of the Sunshine Coast. Nestled between the seaside locales of Roberts Creek and Sechelt, Wilson Creek rarely encounters snow, and is a ten-minute pedal to the trail network - perfect for year-round bike testing.

Today, Lal Bikes debuts the Katana, a 130mm travel high-pivot trail bike. Designed for all-day rides and pedaling multiple laps of your favourite descent, the suspension platform punches above its weight. The Katana reaches for the top rung of drivetrain durability and reliability, featuring the latest iteration of the Supre Drive. Let's find out how sharp the Katana is.

Background

Coined by Cedric Eveleigh, the Lal moniker pays homage to Pierre Lallement, the inventor of the modern pedal bicycle. Eveleigh grew weary of continuously torching rear derailleurs, using his mechanical engineering knowledge to design and launch the now-patented Supre Drive in 2021, aboard his homemade high-pivot enduro platform. The Supre Drive caused significant waves in the bike industry, and took home Pinkbike's 2021 Innovation Of The Year award - no small feat.

Cedric brought engineer and composites specialist Alex Ham into the Lal Bikes fray as various manufacturers showed interest in licensing the Supre Drive for a production bicycle. German manufacturer Nicolai pulled the Supre Drive trigger for their 2024 Nucleon 16, a long-travel enduro sled built for steamrolling...everything.

Realizing the Nucleon 16 served a niche rider demographic, the Lal team hired engineer Jacob Burggraf, and returned to the drawing board. Envisioning a Supre Drive-equipped trail bike that could hang comfortably on all-day alpine epics or jump trail shuttle laps, the engineering trio now reveals the Katana, a frame comprised of Reynolds 853 steel, machined alloy, and molded carbon.

Lal Katana Frame Features

• $4,850 CAD for frameset plus Supre Drive (without shock)
• Reynolds 853 front triangle, CNC alloy rocker link, carbon swingarm with flexstay pivot
• 4 sizes, Small through XL
• 130mm high-pivot suspension platform, designed around a 150mm fork
• Proportional rear center lengths across 4 sizes
• 157mm Super Boost hub spacing
• 52mm chainline to reduce cross-chaining angles
• Designed around the Supre Drive drivetrain
• Removable carbon fender also doubles as a torsional stiffener
• 3D printed lobed chainslap guards
• Uses mixed wheels, aftermarket link allows 29" rear wheel
• Externally routed cables/brake lines close to pivots
• 28-34T Chainring
• Max rear rotor size of 200mm

Geometry Chart

Working your gaze from front to back, the Katana is a chronological lesson in bicycle material progression. A refreshingly wispy, traditionally shaped front triangle of Reynolds 853 steel leads back to a small machined raw alloy rocker link and floating air shock, mated to the elegant carbon swingarm.

Lal Bikes engineer Jacob Burggraf TIG welded the front triangle, calling on his experience building Formula SAE cars in university. Water bottles fit easily within the front triangle, and the straight seat tube accommodates full-length dropper posts.

A 4-axis Haas CNC mill machined the alloy rocker link. Composites specialist Alex Ham designed the swingarm molds, achieving swoopy swingarm shapes with internal bladder molds and 3D printed silicone preforms. Pre-preg carbon is laid up in two halves, eventually connected by a lap joint. Once out of the mold, the carbon avoids any further finish application.

Pivots are supported by gargantuan double-row 3002 LLU Enduro bearings at the main pivot, while 6001 LLU bearings live within the rocker link. Bearings are pressed into bearing seats in the steel and aluminum, instead of the carbon swingarm. Bearing covers are further sealed with O-rings, keeping contamination to a minimum.

Suspension Platform

Lal calls the Katana suspension platform a "high pivot flexstay". A rocker link drives the floating 195x45mm RockShox Super Deluxe Ultimate air shock. 3° of flex is engineered into the seatstays, providing a progressive ramp through the shock stroke. The flex stay also cuts unsprung weight and bearing replacement by eliminating a pivot junction.

The rearward axle path extends 15mm through the stroke. The 130mm of high-pivot squish chows down on chatter, keeping the rear centre snappy instead of growing and slowing through corners. The forward-mounted pivot allows for low anti-rise values, maintaining geometry values while hard on the brakes.

Supre Drive

The Achilles heel of a perfectly tuned derailleur is the lower cage/pulley assembly. This rat bastard hangs dangerously close to the ground, tagging trail debris like a four-year-old playing duck-duck-goose at preschool. And we're supposed to be reasonably ok with this! Unfortunately, trashing a derailleur is nearly a rite of passage.

Derailleur replacement ain’t cheap. A budget-wary Shimano Deore 12-speed derailleur will run you $90. But what about the Disraeli Gears of the servo-controlled digital SRAM X01 Transmission? $800. Ouch. Double ouch if pushed into the spokes of your rear wheel. Shit! I can't justify the amount of scratch involved in replacing one of these derailleurs, even if I drool from using one.

Is there a middle ground, somewhere between the functionality of a derailleur, spliced with the compact footprint of an internal gearbox? Cue Cedric Eveleigh and his patented Supre Drive.

While snow-biking in Quebec in 2019, Eveleigh lamented the durability of traditional derailleurs. His engineering brain pondered how to relocate the vulnerable derailleur cage to a safer area on the bike, separating shifting from chain tensioning. Cedric pored over ideas and began prototyping in Chelsea, QC, eventually migrating to a more consistent climate on the west side of Howe Sound - the Sunshine Coast of BC. (Not an island.) Perfect for year-round testing on world class trails.

Specifically designed to showcase the Supre Drive, the Katana architecture strays from traditional drivetrain mounting points. Below the elevated chainstay, a triangular swingarm lobe encompasses the Supre Drive derailleur unit - a cable-actuated alloy parallelogram and pulley which moves the chain over the cassette. Instead of a derailleur hanger or UDH, the 3D printed nylon knuckles bolt to the inside of the surround. Any further derailleur similarities end here - there's no lower cage to speak of. The lower chain path leading to the tensioner pulley by the chainring hugs the chainstay, safely tucked away from trailside impacts and debris. Fun fact: Supre is Esperanto for "above" - aptly named as the drivetrain is physically above others, or perhaps above the rest in durability. Say bye-bye to bent derailleurs and chainslap.

From the top of the cassette, the chain moves forward to a swingarm-mounted oversized 22t idler pulley. It then travels downward, wrapping counterclockwise around the chainring, and up to the tensioner pulley. Comprende? Ok.

The derailleur clutch/one-way bearing is reconceptualized as a small frame-mounted hydraulic damper/spring unit, housed in a 4130 box-section yoke bridging the BB to the downtube. A standard derailleur cable connects the damper to a tension arm, mounted behind the chainring, which rotates concentrically around the BB shell. The pulley lives aboard the arm, tensioning the chain from above the chainring. As the rear wheel travels over bumps, the internal damper spring keeps a constant tension on the arm, with the rate of return controlled by hydraulic valving inside the cartridge.

Considering the crucial functionality, Lal's execution is visually tidy. There's a lot to absorb here, but Lal's Supre Drive is built on the tenets of durability and reliability.

Mini-Interview with Cedric Eveleigh

What's the min/max travel fork suggested for the Katana?

We optimized the geometry around 150mm, but riders can use 140 or 160 depending on their preference.

Are you shipping the frame with a shock? Are you working with a manufacturer for the shock tune, or is it off the shelf tune?

The preorder is for the frame without a shock, but customers will have the option of adding a shock to their order when it’s ready to ship. We’re currently working with RockShox for a shock tune and plan to work with others including Fox.

Is the suspension an inverted 4-bar single pivot (like the current Forbidden rear ends) with flexstay @ SS, or what are you calling it exactly?

The suspension system is single-pivot with a linkage-driven shock, with the pivot that would be in the seat stay replaced by 3 degrees of flex. We’re calling it “high pivot, flex stay suspension”. We could expand that to “high pivot, flex stay, single pivot, linkage-driven and floating shock suspension” but then we’d have to come up with an acronym and nobody likes acronyms. It seems like this suspension system is novel, but there’s probably an obscure bike from two decades ago with the same suspension (I’d love to know about it).

At what point in the shock stroke is the flexstay actuated? Does it affect suspension progressivity?

The seat stays are progressively flexed, so there’s very little flexing early in the travel and then it ramps up toward the end. It’s like adding a very weak progressive coil spring in parallel with the shock’s spring. This is a subtle effect—the main advantages are reduced weight and simplicity with less bearings.

A 3002 LLU bearing is utilized @ main pivot, what are the other bearings at the upper link, and how many?

There are four 6001 LLU MAX, 12 x 28 x 8mm bearings pressed into the aluminum rocker. Together with the main pivot bearings, that makes six bearings in total for the entire suspension system. Also, they’re all protected by secondary o-ring seals. As you can tell, I like things to last.

A slight housekeeping question here, but your press release says the frame is available as a frame/Supre Drive combo. Will you sell the Katana without the Supre Drive? Is Katana compatible with any other drivetrains that aren't Supre Drive?

The Katana works specifically with the Supre Drive. The only preorder option is the frame + drivetrain as a package to keep things simple. (The price breakdown is just there in case it’s helpful.) Later on, our online shop will have them available separately. Long term, I hope there will be frame options from other bike companies and also Supre drivetrain options from other drivetrain companies—whatever gets more Supre bikes out there, because I believe mountain bikers benefit from this drivetrain.

Fun fact: the Nicolai Nucleon 16 could be swapped to a regular drivetrain by changing the swing arm. They did back-to-back testing and found that with the Supre Drive, the bike was “more stable, balanced, silent, and had a better overall ride feel”—so it’s not just a durability advantage.

Is the hydraulic damping cartridge designed for the lifespan of the bike? What happens if it fails mid-ride?

The chain tensioner cartridge with the hydraulic damper and spring is designed to last the life of the bike. The hydraulic damper doesn’t wear out because it uses hydraulic friction instead of the sliding friction that wears out derailleur clutches. Also, the cartridge is well sealed, and the spring and damper practically don’t see contamination. If the damper failed, the bike would probably still be pedalable, but if the spring failed, there’d be a loss of chain tension. This is the same as regular derailleurs. With all that said, replacement chain tensioner cartridges are available and they can be swapped with standard tools.

What's the chain wrap percentage on the Supre Drive compared to traditional derailleurs, and the advantage of extra wrap?

The added chain wrap of the Supre Drive matters especially in the higher gears where there are few teeth. For the 10-tooth cassette sprocket, with the Supre Drive, there’s 195 degrees of engagement, and with a regular derailleur, there’s about 148 (I just measured for a 2025 Norco Sight with XT). This is about 32% more chain wrap, which is helpful for reducing the stress in the chain and cassette. Another aspect of the Supre Drive that reduces the stress in the chain and cassette is the low cross-chaining angles that result from the forward idler pulley position. This has the same effect on the angles as if the cassette were narrowed by two sprockets. A third thing that reduces the stress on the chain and cassette is the super boost cassette position combined with a boost 52mm chainline, which reduces cross-chaining angles in the climbing gears where people spend a lot of time (same philosophy as We Are One).

Is Supre Drive optimized for the Shimano Hyperglide Plus ecosystem? You mentioned the possibility of configuring TRP and SRAM pull ratios for your derailleur, do customers have that option for the Katana?

The Supre Drive can be designed to work with pretty much any shifter and any cassette and chain, but currently, our only offering works with Shimano 12-speed, Hyperglide+. I built a prototype derailleur that works with a SRAM shifter and another one that works with a TRP shifter. SRAM doesn’t sell partial drivetrains to bike companies. I’d be stoked for these companies to offer their own Supre Drive.

Supre Drive is only compatible (so far) with high-pivot applications. Will future development allow for differing suspension platforms?

The Supre Drive requires an idler pulley to work. Low pivot suspension is technically possible, but if you’ve got the idler, may as well take advantage of the high pivot suspension that it enables.

Build Highlights

• 150mm RockShox Lyrik Ultimate fork
• RockShox Super Deluxe Ultimate shock
• Lal Supre Drive drivetrain
• Shimano XTR shifter, XT chain/cassette
• Race Face Era crankset
• We Are One Convergence Triad/Hope Pro 5 mullet wheelset
• SRAM Maven Silver brakes, 180mm HS2 rotors
• We Are One Da Package bar/stem combo, Ergon saddle
• Schwalbe Tacky Chan/Hans Dampf Super Trail Addix Soft tires, w/Cushcore Trail inserts

First Ride Impressions

My first ride on the Katana was well suited for a proper trail bike. A 300m rip down a flat flowy traverse led into a technical root-infested 150m vertical ascent. Topping out, steep granite slabs with chunky exits are followed by small technical climbs, rinse and repeat 8 times or so. To finish, a blast through low-angle flow is peppered with small airs and flat corners. A cross-country version of Mt. Seymour's Cambodia, so to speak.

I immediately noticed A: how comfortable the geometry felt, and B: how freely the cranks spun - unlike any high-pivot bike I've ridden. If chain bind was present, I didn't feel it. This is likely due to the oversized idler pulley providing a shallower break angle for the chain, and the 52mm chainline/157mm super boost hub spacing reduces excessive cross-chain angles. I believe the low drag of the Hope Pro 5 hubs also factors in the glassy drivetrain feel.

Upshifting, the Supre Drive quietly thunked across across the Shimano XT cassette, with a light shifter feel - as a new drivetrain should. The Katana was telling me to get out of the saddle and pedal! I played an unfamiliar role as the "explosive sprint guy" for about twenty seconds, until my legs threatened to cramp unless I calmed the F down. Pete Roggeman quipped "You're a diesel motor, not a turbo 6!" He's right. Nonetheless, the spry nature of the lightweight build taunted me for more.

Reaching the short and janky climb, the Katana's huge traction quelled any worries about the unfamiliar tires with a compound appropriate only for the driest of summer days. Careful torque management and proper weight distribution are crucial for cleaning the unrewarding barrage of low-RPM cruxes. Shifting under load in this scenario felt positive and very quiet. Fortunately, the Katana sliced right through, showcasing its balance of high anti-squat and supreme grip. I don't often play in this arena, but a janky climb became...fun? The jury is still out on that, but I aspire to be a well-rounded rider. Perhaps the Katana can slice through my bad attitude too.

Dropping into the first slab involves arcing left on a convex knob into a 70° granite runout - unless you want to careen into hemlock trees from 7 metres up. The 64° head angle paired with the sensitive 150mm RS Lyrik Ultimate inspired confidence. I nailed the corner without skidding a single tire lug, let off the brakes, and pushed into the runout. The frame felt reasonably stiff, with a slight compliance I can only attribute to the Reynolds 853 front triangle. The exit felt like I was riding a longer travel bike - the 15mm of rearward axle path shines here, offering tremendous stability when needed. In the rare instance I bottomed the rear end out, the end-stroke progressivity leads to a soft, controlled end to the travel instead of a brutal thunk.

I can't describe the sounds emitted by the Katana, because they simply don't exist. The Katana is an order of magnitude quieter than anything I've ridden. The Supre Drive hydraulic damper erases any chain slap. Riding through chunder and landing airs feels like you're starring in your own Raw 100 movie, or I've jammed earplugs into my ears. This kind of wizardry is usually reserved for sound studios and erasing noises digitally, so chapeau to the Lal Bikes team for creating a silent bike.

Final Thoughts

Lal Bikes is offering preorders for the $4,850 Katana + Supre Drive drivetrain as of April 10. A $500 refundable deposit secures your spot, with delivery estimated in March 2026 for the first run.

I respect Lal Bikes for building a funky steel and carbon frame in-house, with an unconventional high-pivot flexstay suspension platform. It works exceptionally well, confirming that shorter-travel trail bikes indeed kick ass, especially when the geometry is dialed.

A perfectly tuned derailleur works spectacularly, until you bash it against something, knocking it out of alignment, or worse, destroying it. I've witnessed many a broken rear mech. The Supre Drive virtually eliminates the weakest link of the modern MTB drivetrain. It requires vastly different build parameters compared to the status quo, but one ride aboard the Katana and you might be able to tune your ears to the magical music of dirt being shredded apart by your tires.

But most of all, I respect Lal Bikes for boldly showcasing their very own Supre Drive drivetrain on the Katana, flying directly in the face of large drivetrain manufacturers. I truly hope the Katana reaches the hands of many, so they too can experience the level of silent sorcery built here on the Sunshine Coast.

Lal Katana