Cervelo ZHT-5

Our mantra is to make riders faster. And doing that means creating bikes that turn power into forward motion as efficiently as possible. Nothing does this more effectively in dirt than a hardtail. But power is nothing without control, so we focused on making a rapid cross-country race bike that still handles confidently in technical sections, feeding the desire to ride faster.

Weighing in at just 907g (size Medium), ZHT-5 is a featherweight fighter with the punchy turn of pace that only a hardtail can deliver. Decades of making frames built for the strongest sprinters in the world has fed into a super stiff mountain bike design that propels you to the front without compromising weight or ride quality.

If you’ve not ridden a hardtail for a while, you’ll be surprised at how the ZHT-5’s 69-degree head tube angle, 457mm reach (size L), and 430mm chainstays feel progressive and refreshingly modern. If you’ve ridden them all your life, you’ll be baffled at how we’ve managed to eke out yet more performance from such a clean and simple design. The ZHT-5’s geometry puts you in the driving seat to carve up all the tight hairpins and features that litter the ups and downs of today’s XC trails.

We know from winning cyclo-cross World Champs that when the going gets gritty, threaded bottom brackets are the best way to go. ZHT-5 adopts the BSA threaded standard to meet the strength, stiffness, durability and serviceability needs of racers and race mechanics alike. It also makes it the ideal winter training companion.