:Singlepivot Thoughts

January 8th, 2012 | No Comments » |

Yes, I am working on a new set of frames, not for Mountaincycle, that ship’s sailed, but for Lab-Gear:workshop.

As anyone who has done it will tell you, doing a FS frame is fraught with issues, not so much the actual making but more the suspension - and not because of what suspension but because of all the shit brandied about clueless marketing departments in order to convince people to by the ALL NEW frame, that’s really no better than last year’s ALL NEW frame.

Doing some looking around, I came across an interesting blog post:

“…The single pivot suspension is a compromise without a doubt. However, sometimes things that look great in theory don’t translate as well on trails and sometimes things that look crap in theory turns out to be a pleasant surprise.”

This pretty much sums up the reality from where I’ve seen it for the past 10 years. Sure, on paper so many new suspension designs seem and are great but when you get them on the trail, they all sort of balance out - especially when you consider how poorly the large majority of bikes are set up. Add to this that in today’s market, where shock units have finally matured to do what they should in the way they should, and that there is really no such thing as a bad bike anymore, then all the hype about the latest and greatest suspension design is pretty much that, hype. In many ways I see it as academic masturbation enjoyed mostly by magazine writers, marketing departments and those that talk more than they ride - I’ve had my arse handed to me by people on bikes ‘inferior’ to mine many times.

Can you imagine if the automotive world had as many different variations of suspension that the mountain bike world does?

So sure, you can call me an arse and that that’s fine by me. But if I’m wrong, then why do you still see people riding, say Mountain Cycle frames that are some 20 years old in design and yet they claim that the bikes are still great. Same with the FSR suspension etc. etc. In so many ways, it’s not the bike that’s the issue it’s more the owner’s own doing or worse, perception - if they think the bike’s a dog, then it is, regardless of what you might say or suggest and the only remedy is a newer, ‘better’ bike.

Read the whole rather interesting post here

 

Tags:mountain bike,singlepivot,suspension

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