AMS Frame Protection
All Mountain Style is a small Spanish company that’s best known for their nicely finished handlebar stems and frame protection. With Lusty Industries now bringing the frame guards into Australia, we decided to check them out.
Stick-on frame protection is nothing new and a number of brands offer transparent adhesive film for this purpose. The All Mountain Style product is a little different however.
Where most protective film is soft and relatively flexible, the AMS uses a semi-rigid PVC with a corrugated honeycomb outer finish. It’s a fraction thicker than most ‘skin-like’ frame coverings too, with little AMS logos printed here and there. While they do come in clear (as pictured), you can also get them in an assortment of colours, so they’re not meant to disappear inconspicuously into the frame like most other products.
All Mountain Style offers both frame and fork kits, and they range from $70-$90 in price. The XL Frame Guard kit ($90) includes one main 33cm long frame protector and a selection of small to mid-sized patches. We wanted to protect both the underside of the down tube and the top tube on our Norco Optic, so we would up using one XL frame kit, a regular frame guard and a fork kit to get the job done—all in that's about $230 worth of protection.
After a good clean with isopropyl alcohol, we carefully applied the transparent stickers. While the material seems quite hard, there’s just enough flexibility to let it wrap around most frame tubes. I hit a few hurdles when it came to more complex bends; avoid these bits and it’s a straightforward job. We also had a few air pockets where the guards were applied over the top of raised stickers – like the Fox stickers on the fork – and no matter how much I rubbed they remained.
First impressions point towards it offering really good abrasion resistance, as the hard textured finish seems to be quite slippery—it’s less prone to scuffing than the soft and more flexible adhesive backed coatings. On the downside you’re not going to be able to cover as much of the frame with the AMS product, as it is harder to apply in and around bends. The adhesive certainly seems strong but we’re going to leave the guards in place and report back with a full review after we’ve been using it for 4-6 months.
