Simon Andreassen is riding Orbea's new Oiz, first teased at the Nové Město World Cup round, then fully released before the Leogang World Cup. Here, Andreassen piloted the new bike to a win in a rain-soaked XCC. It was a perfect start to the racing life of a bike that Andreassen has been heavily involved in helping develop since he joined the Orbea team at the start of 2025. Andreassen’s mechanic, Emil Vestergaard, took me through the bike, highlighting some key things they’ve adjusted and some of the choices they made during development.
The frame has had a significant overhaul from the old model and now follows the current trend of tucking the shock up into the top tube. The geometry has been tweaked ever so slightly, with the head angle slacked by .2° to 66.8°, still a number on the conservative side by today's standards.
Suvi Loponen
Vestergaard said that Andreassen was too late joining the team to be involved with the development of the geometry and shape of the frame, but he did have a say in the different layups of the frame to give different ride characteristics. They narrowed down two different layups for testing, one 60 g lighter than the other. In a blind test, Andreassen immediately chose the heavier option, stating the lighter one to be too soft and flexible.
The Oiz is designed around 120 mm of rear travel; however, Andreassen is running a different linkage that bumps the travel provided by his Fox Float SL up to 130 mm. Oddly, the reasoning for this was that it was the easiest way to steepen the head angle, pushing it to 67° like the old frame. This is matched with the stock 120 mm of travel in the Fox Float 34 SL up front.
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