Topic: Bike: Design

: Soft… not all are created equal

By: g | February 16th, 2012 | No Comments » |

Several years ago, at the start of the whole Mountain Cycle thing, I was introduced to a line of cranks that for all intents and purposes were the goods. At the time we were in the market for a crank spec and I was assured that these cranks had been ridden in-house at MC for the best part of a year and proved flawless*. All seemed good.

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Tags:bikes

: 650 Beee

By: g | January 30th, 2012 | No Comments » |

We have been working slowly on our frame designs here, something if you follow us on Twitter you might have caught wind of. It’s a simple line consisting of three ‘real world riding’ frame configurations, all made in the US from US made materials and components. Reading that, I can hear alarm bells going off as the thought of ‘handmade in the US’ floods you with pictures of boutique prices. We have a few surprises in store for you…

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Tags:650B,mountainbike

: Designing a Mountain Bike

By: g | January 16th, 2012 | No Comments » |

Done and dusted with Mountain Cycle, I was cleaning up my files when I came across a wad of drawing scans I did that defines the design process of the Mountain Cycle San Andreas 2.0; from the period of 2008-2011 I was involved with Mountain Cycle and in 2009 was tasked to design, manage and oversee (the Taiwan based owners chose to manage production and QC themselves) the first new line of frames the company had seen for some years.

The design process used to create such bikes, or products for that matter, is one that for many remains a mystery – it’s understood that somewhere someone does something and at the end a finished product is spat out of a factory but not much more. So rather than bury this away, never to be seen again, I thought some out there might find the whole process interesting, or at very least slightly entertaining.

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Tags:design,frame,mountain bike,mountaincycle

: Singlepivot Thoughts

By: g | 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

: Tektonics Design Group

By: g | January 1st, 2012 | No Comments » |

I spotted these trials frames made by tectonics Design Group in the US, being displayed at the Hand Made Bike Show. Very cool industrial feel to them.

The below frame is one of a series of 7005 AL Trials frames built for Cirque du Soleil rider Lance Trappe. These frames are custom designed for Lance’s style of riding and geometry requirements.

[Tektonics Design Group]

Tags:tektonics,trials