Onguza Rooster Custom Steel Mountain Bike Hardtail, Built to Ride Away From Lions
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Onguza is back with another new steel bike made in Namibia, this time a made-to-measure Rooster steel hardtail mountain bike. You may not immediately think of bike craftsmanship made in Africa. But, Onguza reminds us that these are bikes built by people who know the value of a reliable bike when you live somewhere tough…
“Namibia knows tough. Namibia knows what happens if your bike breaks in the middle of nowhere. We’ve got lions!”
Onguza Rooster custom steel hardtail mountain bike
Onguza has updated their gravel The Goat, aka Model 1 and road-plus The Holy Fire bikes with 4 new color options and complete bike upgrade options for this year. But at the same time, they’ve added an all-new The Rooster hardtail mountain bike.
Those two drop bar bikes are pretty dedicated for their specific disciplines. But the new Rooster really opens up a lot more possibilities. Onguza calls it more of an “open slate”.
It’s a 29″ hardtail with a 120mm fork, but for some people that could mean an XC race bike, others could see it as more of a trail all-rounder. And there’s also a growing crop of bikepacking adventure racers who see this as the perfect platform for ultra-distance riding far away from civilization.
“Tested over many years and in several different formats in harsh terrain, The Rooster has raced across Namibia several times in the Desert Dash with its earliest prototype winning the event ridden by Dan Craven in 2012.“
Onguza says they prefer “a progressive geometry” for the Rooster and 120mm of fork travel, but don’t go into specifics on numbers quite as much as they do with the dropbar bikes. They say, “you fill in the details”. And after you give them your bike fit details and explain what you are looking for in an online consultation, Onguza will tailor all the important details just for you.
Tech details
The made-to-measure Onguza Rooster hardtail gets fillet-brazed, built up with Columbus steel tubing. The Rooster features a straight machined 44mm headtube, post mount disc brakes, 30.9mm seatpost, Boost thru-axle rear end with a stainless steel SRAM UDH dropout. It includes fully guided internal brake routing through the downtube and chainstays as standard, built for a wireless SRAM AXS drivetrain & dropper setup, as standard. But you can optionally add on routing for a mechanical drivetrain if you wish, and for a mechanical dropper if needed. They’ll also do custom bikepacking mods and more mountain point braze-ons as extras, too.
Onguza Rooster – Pricing, options & availability
Like the Goat & Holy Fire, the new Onguza Rooster MTB hardtail sells as a frameset starting at $4100 USD, including free worldwide shipping.
For the mountain bike, that gets you a frame, a 120mm RockShox SID fork, stem, fixed seatpost, and headset – all painted to match. Plus, the matching ‘Made Out Here’ headset top cap.
Here that frameset price also gets you a lot of off-road design flexibility. Onguza builds each mountain bike frame truly made-to-measure, so the bike is dialed in perfectly for the rider. You can even book a free consultation via their website to see if it’s the perfect bike for you. Complete bike builds are also possible.
But Onguza is a relatively small workshop. And they only can make so many. So, you’ll need to put down a $1500 deposit to secure your build slot. Then, Onguza will put you in like to make your bike.
For more about Onguza’s “We’ve got Lions!” campaign and the full Made Out Here video, read on. Their full PR about the collaboration with photographer Ben Ingham below:
