The Mullet Peacemaker is a 6-inch Technical Trail Shooter [Review]

The Mullet Cycles Peacemaker stands out among mixed-wheel mountain bikes, both in terms of ethos and design. With 160/150mm of suspension travel front and rear, a single-pivot rear end and dedicated mixed-wheel geometry, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would this be a good bike for riding park? A rock crushing trail smasher? Versatile enough for riding a little bit of everything from in-town to out of bounds?

After testing the bike this winter I’ve come away impressed with the brand’s attention to detail and found the bike to be a very capable technical descender, plus it pedals and climbs well enough for after-work rides too.

Reviewer profile height: 190cm (6’3″) weight: 75kg (165lb) testing zone: Southeast, USA

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Mullet Peacemaker key specs

• 160/150mm suspension travel front/rear
• Mixed wheels, fits up to 27.5×3.0″ rear tire
• Single-pivot alloy frame
• Weight: 35lb as tested, size large
• Price: $2,500 (frame only). Customizable complete builds available. ~$6,700 as tested.
• Order from Mullet Cycles

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On the surface the Mullet Peacemaker appears to be a straightforward bike, with an alloy frame and a simple, single-pivot suspension layout. But look closely and there are a lot of small design details that add up, starting with the top tube which is hydroformed to give it its unique profile.

“It was ridiculous expensive,” Miles, Mullet Cycles “designer and executioner” told me. “The tubes I actually had to have manufactured in China and then shipped to Taiwan to have welded.”

The seat stays sit in line with the top tube for optimal, straight-line cable routing that’s all external, save for the seat tube which has internal routing for the dropper remote cable. Both the seatstays and chainstays are mechanically formed rather than cut from normal tubing.

Even the bronze head badge is cast by a NY-based luxury jeweler.

With just a single pivot, the Mullet Peacemaker uses needle bearings on the outside of the main pivot point and the largest Enduro radial bearing inside of that, a setup the brand calls Double Stacked. Miles says this is so the bearings won’t creak and will never need to be replaced.

The Mullet Peacemaker uses the longest standard metric shock size, 230x65mm, a size that’s typically only used for the biggest enduro and downhill bikes. This gives the all-mountain Peacemaker a low leverage ratio which in turn allows riders to run lower air shock pressures that tend to be easier on the shock.

Mullet uses custom, CNC-machined dropouts that give the bike a unique and overbuilt look. Sadly the current dropouts are not UDH-compatible. The Peacemaker uses its own proprietary derailleur hanger, though Miles points out the hanger is wider and shorter than most others and has proven to be quite robust.

Thanks to the elevated chainstays riders can fit up to a 38t chainring on the Mullet Peacemaker. My test bike was set up with a 34t crankset paired with a 12-speed Rotor cassette. Because the chain runs below the stay the included rubberized protector attaches to the bottom of the stay, rather than the top. I found that my right heel rubbed the protector occasionally, perhaps due to a poor fit.

Miles says the single-pivot, elevated chainstay design also results in a smaller rear triangle that’s stiffer and lighter than is possible with more complex designs.

The name, Peacemaker, is a nod to the Colt Single Action Army (SAA), aka Peacemaker, a pistol known for its reliability in addition to its accuracy and power. Miles is a fan of the old west, and for a time he was a regular Tombstone reenactor in old Tucson. The SAA was a six-shooter; the Mullet Peacemaker is a 6-inch travel bike.

The claimed weight of a size small frame with the RawDog finish is 6.8lb (a little over 3kg). My size large test bike, with a custom parts selection, weighs about 35lb.

Geometry: The secret sauce

Mullet Cycles prides itself on being one of the few brands offering dedicated mixed-wheel geometry. Miles and business partner Mike Vidovich are big believers in the benefits of mixed wheels for mountain biking, and spent “years” dialing in the design and geometry of the bikes. As a result they’re protective of their proprietary geometry, and even the name Mullet itself, a trademark they officially registered in 2018 and that was upheld upon review in 2022.

Looking at the Mullet Cycles website you won’t find a typical geometry chart, just an abbreviated table listing the reach and a few tube lengths for the three Peacemaker frame sizes: small, medium and large. I tested a size large frame which has a 480mm reach according to the brand.

While official measurements aren’t available, there’s nothing stopping anyone from just measuring one of the damn bikes. So I did just that.

According to my calculations the Mullet Peacemaker sits at about a 65° head tube angle and an actual (not effective) seat angle that’s about 72°. With sag the effective seat tube angle is likely close to 75°.

Miles did tell me that the bottom bracket sits much higher on the Peacemaker than the average trail or all-mountain bike. According to my own measurements it’s about 345mm off the ground which isn’t too far off the average 2023 trail bike, where BB heights have been creeping up slowly over the past several seasons. The Santa Cruz Bronson, also a MX bike with 150mm of rear suspension travel, has a 344mm BB height in hi mode, and 341mm in lo. Miles notes that there’s an advantage to a high bottom bracket on mixed-wheel bikes.

“My bottom bracket is ridiculously high. But that’s because I’m turning around the rear wheel. I’m not turning around the bottom bracket because we’re on an elevated axle path. So just like a boat that raises its bow and turns around the stern, [the Peacemaker is] still stable when it turns. Whereas a sailboat needs a keel in order to be stable when it turns because the the bow and the stern sit in the water at the same height. With a symmetrical wheel bike, the front axle and rear axle are at the same height. So you need a keel (a low bottom bracket) in order for thing to be stable and go around turns.”

The wheelbase of the large Mullet Peacemaker I tested measures approximately 1232mm. However the one measurement that really sticks out is the chainstay length, which is just 412mm. That’s much shorter than the average trail bike and is made possible thanks to both the smaller, 27.5″ rear wheel and the elevated chainstays.

Of course all of these numbers are approximations at best so take them with a grain of salt. Overall the numbers point toward fairly standard, modern trail bike geometry.

On the trail with the Mullet Peacemaker

I tested the Mullet Peacemaker on a variety of trails at several different bike parks, from flowy jump-style trails to raw and natural steep tracks. I also took a couple spins on my local trails to see how well the bike pedals. The bike was set up with a 160mm Cane Creek Helm fork and a Fox DHX2 coil shock.

Descending

Looking at the Peacemaker it’s clear this is a bike that’s designed for descending. Miles and I hit a few small jump lines on my first test ride and I found the bike handled well, deftly cushioning the landings even if I wasn’t smooth every time. I got more comfortable jumping the bike after several test rides, though with a coil shock the Peacemaker isn’t as poppy as other bikes I’ve ridden. That’s not at all surprising given the fact that this is a single-pivot bike and there are limitations to running a coil shock with a single pivot. To get the most out of the Peacemaker I would suggest running an air shock, or perhaps the Cane Creek Tigon coil plus air shock that Mullet offers as a part of their custom build program.

Where the Mullet Peacemaker really shines is on steep, natural descents. In fact on no other bike that I’ve tested are the benefits of a mixed-wheel configuration more apparent than they are on the Peacemaker. With the larger, 29er wheel up front plus a longer-travel fork, the bike soaks up rock and root hits while maintaining control at speed.

The 27.5″ rear wheel, on the other hand, is noticeably quick and nimble, lending the back half of the bike a snappy feel. At Windrock Bike Park, where my bike was likely the only 150mm bike on the shuttle trailer, I noted how the big wheel up front convinced me to drop into some tricky situations, and the smaller rear wheel bailed me out of them. The front wheel would roll over a rock or into a root hole and the rear wheel would just fly right out with a flick. The faster I rolled through technical trails, the better the bike felt.

The smaller rear wheel, with its slightly lower relative axle position makes for a bike that’s super stable in the turns. For that reason I found the bike performed extremely well on sharp switchbacks and tight trails.

On especially steep trails the Mullet Peacemaker is well balanced front to back, providing good control and traction. It’s tempting to attribute weight balance on a mixed wheel bike, whether climbing or descending, to the relative heights of the front and rear axles. However that’s only helpful if you’re say, taking a 29er bike and putting a 27.5″ wheel on the back or going the other direction and putting a 29er wheel and fork on a 27.5″ bike. Because the Peacemaker was designed as a mixed-wheel bike from the start the weight balance has everything to do with the chosen head and seat tube angles given the differing axle heights.

All of that is to say the Mullet Peacemaker doesn’t necessarily deliver better front-to-back weight balance for climbing or descending than a matched wheel bike just because the wheels are mixed. As a trail bike — mixed wheel or not — the Peacemaker is as optimized and balanced as any of the bikes I’ve tested, with a slight lean toward the descending side of the coin just like any other long-travel trail / all-mountain bike.

Climbing

The Mullet Peacemaker is a fine climber. At Ride Kanuga the roughly 500ft pedal to the top on the High Rocks Climb trail felt like a breeze. The front wheel tracked arrow straight and with a coil shock the bike stayed absolutely planted, delivering fly-trap traction.

On steeper climbs the weight of the Peacemaker naturally makes itself a bit more apparent, and at grades above 17% the front wheel does start to feel a little light. Or maybe it’s just me feeling light headed. Either way, though I was quickly spoiled by the shuttles at Rock Creek, Windrock and Jarrod’s Place, I found the Peacemaker to be more than capable — and comfortable — for adding a little extra vert whenever the opportunity presented itself.

I got in more than enough testing at the bike parks but I also wanted to see how (if?) the Peacemaker would perform on my local trails, which have less elevation and a whole lot more pedaling. With the coil shock the Peacemaker feels well-supported pedaling flat out and is responsive through short bursts to get up and over technical features. This bike is overkill for my local trails but I could see riding the Peacemaker on the regular if I lived somewhere like the Front Range of Colorado or say Knoxville.

When mountain bikers talk about reach it’s usually in relation to descending where a longer reach is said to be more stable at high speeds. As a taller rider I find a longer reach (but not too long!) also puts me in a better position for climbing and here, the size large frame I tested comes up short (ha). With a 480mm reach the Peacemaker is about average for a size large trail bike, though there are certainly longer trail bikes like the 485mm Scott Genius and Yeti SB140. Based on my height, if Mullet offered a size XL Peacemaker with a longer reach — say 500mm — I suspect I could climb on it much more comfortably.

Single pivot

It’s been a while since I’ve ridden a single-pivot bike and I worried the Peacemaker might feel limited compared to bikes with more complicated linkages. In the end I found it rides as well as any other full suspension bike, providing good traction and control on both the climbs and the descents.

My experience confirms something Marin’s Aaron Abrams told me just last year. “Fast forward to 2023 and shock technology is fantastic,” he said. “Things like simple, single-pivot bikes and Horst link bikes especially were not that great until shock technology evolved to where it is now.” Even with a coil shock — not ideal for a single-pivot bike — the Peacemaker is a very capable bike.

Mullet Peacemaker build

If you’ve read some of the bike reviews and news releases I’ve written you know that I tend to gloss over build kit details. In truth that’s because most of our readers are already familiar with components from the major brands, and a Fox 36 Factory fork is going to perform almost exactly the same on a Pivot Switchblade as it is on a Yeti SB135. At best I can comment on whether I think a brand has made good component choices, and in the case of smaller brands like Mullet Cycles that allow buyers to choose their own parts, even that’s not really relevant.

That is, unless, a bike brand supplies their own parts. I was surprised to learn that Mullet makes their own wheels, though given that mixing wheels is sorta their thing I guess it makes sense. It makes even more sense knowing what an eccentric perfectionist Miles is when it comes to his offerings.

The Mullet wheelset

The alloy Mullet wheels are sold as a pair (29 front, 27.5 rear). Both feature a 35mm internal rim width which is on the wide side for a trail / all-mountain wheelset. Honestly I was skeptical at first but I found the wider rims give a tire like the 2.35″ Schwalbe Hans Dampf a nice shape for riding in rough conditions.

In an unusual move the Mullet rims are drilled for full-size Schrader valves. Miles told me he once broke a Presta valve while riding at Keystone and wanted something stronger. So, he had his own tubeless Schrader valves manufactured and drilled his rims accordingly. Just like a tubeless Presta valve, the valve core is removable for adding sealant.

One added benefit to Schader valves, besides being able to fill up at a gas station air compressor, is the variety of novelty valve caps that are available. My test bike came with skull-shaped caps. The skull caps, paired with the gambling-themed and perhaps tattoo-inspired decals, look as if Ed Hardy might’ve styled the wheels himself.

Still, these are serious wheels with real advantages on the trail. The Mullet hubs deliver 140 points of engagement which works out to less than 3° and is on par with much pricier hubs. And the driver body adds three galvanized steel strips to the teeth to reduce the chance of gouging.

I found the wheels held up to all the abuse I could dish out and have remained true throughout testing. I haven’t suffered a single pinch flat and the tires have proven to hold air well, even in one case without any sealant.

The Mullet wheelset is priced starting at $500 with the purchase of a frame or $700 for just the wheels.

Miles Wide

I’ll be the first to admit that I think single-pivot bikes are ugly. In general the elevated chainstays just look… not right. Mullet Cycles mitigates this to a degree by aligning the chainstays with the top tube which results in a continuous, swooping line for the eye to follow. Honestly though, I didn’t even notice the Peacemaker was single-pivot at first glance. Instead my eyes were drawn to the colorful, and dare I say tasteful, pops of color on this build.

A lot of those pops are thanks to accessories from Miles Wide Industries, Miles’s independent accessories company. Miles Wide makes the color-matched Sticky Fingers brake lever covers you see in the photos and also the Cable Buddies that keep the cockpit looking neat and dialed. Then there’s the Fork Cork, which you can’t see, and that’s by design. It’s a plug that fits in the bottom of the fork steerer tube so you can stash a tire plug tool or possibly an Apple Air Tag inside. At the Miles Wide website you can also pick up those tubeless Schrader valves I mentioned.

Completing the look for this particular build is the teal Jagwire cable housing and PNW bars with teal decals. There’s also the Limited Edition Cane Creek Helm fork with rainbow sparkle finish and an oil slick SDG saddle. Pairing these colorful components with the silver frame results in a bike that looks dialed, fast and fun. Everywhere I went riders were sure to comment on the bike, and nearly all were complimentary.

Pros and cons of the Mullet Peacemaker

Pros

• Burly alloy frame and simple design promises hassle-free maintenance
• Dedicated mixed-wheel geometry feels balanced for all-mountain riding
• Unique details make the Peacemaker one of a kind

Cons

• While the frame is coil-compatible, it’s probably better with an air shock
• No XL frames. Riders taller than 6ft will likely find the size large is too small

Bottom line

The Mullet Peacemaker capitalizes on the advantages of mixed-wheel bikes and delivers a quality bike that’s tough enough for rough descents and also capable of climbing back up to the top for another lap.