If you love to ride bikes and get dirty then you have no doubt heard of Salsa Cycles. The brand has been around for a long time and their bikes have been to just about every corner of the world. Their motto is “Adventure By Bike” and this carries over into their design philosophy.
Salsa believes that adventure makes our lives better and that is an ethos we can certainly get behind! That thought process has led them to create some of the most iconic and industry-defining rides. The Salsa Fargo is one of the original drop bar mountain bikes built more for adventure than anything else.
Adventure elements are found on just about every bike that Salsa has ever made. They created one of the first production bikes with S&S couplers that allowed you to easily take the bike apart for international travel. They created the first full carbon fat bike in a time when there were only a handful of brands even producing these bikes. So whether you need to strap tons of cargo onto your bike for a month-long adventure or you want to simply escape your urban environment for a pedal-powered overnight, Salsa has a bike for you.
The brand has introduced some fantastic tech over the years including, most notably, the Split Pivot suspension design. This unique suspension design isolates pedaling forces from braking forces so the they can tune the bike for both. It provides maximum efficiency so every pedal stroke counts. This really adds up over a long day on the bike.
How Salsa Cycles stands out
Salsa Cycles has been synonymous with adventure for decades! The Cutthroat is the first bike purpose-built to tackle the rigors of the Tour Divide. The Warbird, is one of the first gravel-specific bikes at a time when gravel racing and riding was largely just a grassroots effort and not recognized by the UCI, let alone attended by top professionals! And of course the Blackborow, is an ultra niche “mid-tail” cargo fat bike built for adventures far and wide.
Salsa has consistently been a brand pushing the industry in a certain direction and continues to innovate to this day.
Fan Favorite Bikes
The Salsa Cutthroat has become the most well-known and beloved Salsa bike. It was introduced back in 2017 as a stock solution for tackling the Tour Divide and has since become one of the most popular bikes to tackle any agressive route. The newest generation of the Cutthroat improves upon an already terrific bike and offers a 1×12 drivetrain, dropper post, and a ton of on bike storage capacity. The mid level SRAM Rival build weighs in just over 23 pounds for a complete bike.
The Salsa Notch is a new e-bike offering that can tackle everything from rowdy single track to cross country trails. The name “Notch” refers to a topographical feature between two mountains. A notch is a place you might just find yourself in while pedaling this all mountain machine.
This bike comes equipped with a 170mm travel front fork and 160mm rear suspension which should provide enough travel to handle just about anything you can dream of throwing at this bike. The electric assist motor from Bosch provides 85nm of torque to help you pedal up the steepest of inclines and provides a 500WH battery pack to keep you riding all day. We can picture taking this bike on long outings on extremely rugged 4×4 roads out here in Colorado.
Backpackers.com Affiliate Policy: This article may contain affiliate links, which help fund our website. When you click on the links to purchase the gear we get a commission, and this goes a long way to creating guides, gear reviews, and other excellent content.