Sage Powerline Ti Hardtail Heads Downcountry w/ Bigger Tires & Fresh Angles

The 3rd generation Sage Titanium Powerline hardtail gets upgraded, 3D-printed parts to fit bigger tires, with updated geometry optimized around the latest crop of 130mm forks.

Cable routing also moves more internal, eliminating the cable clips used to secure the brake hose and shift lines to the outside of the top- and downtubes, but leaves the option of keeping the brake external if you want…

Once you get past this gorgeous one-off Cerakote+Anodized Splatter finish (which is a $2,000 premium option if you want something similar), the most visually striking part of the new Powerline is its 3D-printed titanium chainstay yoke.

Compared to the CNC’d plate it replaces, it's slimmer and prettier, and also helped them bump tire clearance up 0.1″. The new Powerline will fit a 29×2.6″ mountain bike tire, up from 2.5″ on the v2 model, and still have the necessary chainring clearance for big gear mashers.

It's slim, but a shift cable will still run through it…as will wires, and you can read into that what will. There's no option for external shift routing, it's full internal only.

When run internally, the brake hose will stay inside and run through the chainstay, popping out just in front of the rotor so you can loop it up to the caliper, which remains on the outside of the rear triangle.

But if you opt for external routing (and you can choose either at no extra cost), it’ll clip under the top tube and run down the seatstay.

Beyond just getting a little slacker, Sage reduced the head tube height by 5mm and designed it to accommodate the latest Rockshox Pike with 130mm travel. The bike is built specifically with 44mm offset/130mm forks in mind, and the Pike has the tallest axle-to-crown measurement of the bunch.

The prior bike was designed in 2019/2020 around the then-current Fox 34 forks, which had a shorter 537.1mm A-to-C. The current MY23 Pike has a 551mm A-to-C, and the MY23 Fox 34 has a 544mm A-to-C.

"The Pike is a bit taller than the 2023 Fox 34," says Sage Titanium founder and designer Dave Rosen. "So the bike was intentionally designed around the taller fork to prevent it from getting too slack if it had been designed around a Fox 34 but then someone put a Pike on it."

"For example, using a MY23 Fox 34 will change the head angle to 66.3º, but had we designed around this fork, then adding a Pike would have pushed into ~65º territory, which gets too slack for this bike's intended use."

The Powerline sits between Sage's Optimator XC bike and Flowmotion trail bike with an aggressive yet race-able geometry. The v3 model has a 66º head angle to give the rider more confidence on the descents, but without getting floppy on slow climbs.

Subtle tweaks to top tube length and seat angle keep Stack and Reach similar to before even with the taller forks and shorter head tubes, which was intentional.

"The bike felt great, really well balanced, I didn't want to change that neutral body position," Rosen says. "You get on the trail and you just kinda sit in the middle of it, giving it a surefooted feel on both the climbs and descents without having to overcompensate on either."

The new Sage Powerline starts at $5,200 for the frame. Complete bikes are built to order with your choice of drivetrains, forks, wheels, tires, and cockpit with average bike prices ranging from $10,000 to $13,000 including choice of standard finishes.

SageTitanium.com