Niner W.F.O. 9

Besides forks, I also got to see what's hot in dual suspension 29ers at the Niner booth.  TheW.F.O. 9 is a 140 mm travel bike and according to a Niner representative, one of the only two 29ers to accept the HammerSchmidt internally geared crankset.  What makes compatibility difficult?  Besides some mounting tabs, the suspension linkages have to be arranged to make room for the unit and the suspension must also be optimized to work with the chain constantly in a granny gear position.  The suspension on the WFO. is unique in that the Constantly Varying Arc that the rear wheel travels on results in no chain growth after sag.  This improves power transmission through the chain during full use of the suspension travel range.  According to Niner, the dw-link suspension just can't handle it.  You'll also notice that the bike features a tapered head tube and this model has the longest travel fork available for 29'ers, a Marzocchi that was a collaboration between Niner and the Marzocchi company.

Specialized Shock Fork Cutaway

This nifty shock fork cutaway was up on display in the Specialized booth @ Sea Otter. It's confidence inspiring to see a company that is proud of their product's internal design. It indicates they put some brains behind the function as well as the obviously visible form.

The reason I'm posting this picture is to highlight the yellow foam inner seal. While it may not be standard practice, or suggested by suspension manufacturers, I always store my MTB upside down (easily done if you hang it from hooks in the garage). This soaks the seal with oil and keeps it swollen, retaining oil and keeping out debris. I once met a mechanic who would oil the outer seal after every wash, for more or less the same effect. How much oil got down there, I don't know. However, it seems intuitive that you would want oil leaking out from the inside and not seeping in from the outside to keep the internals debris free (as long as you replace the oil at the suggested maintenance interval).

Gary Fisher's personal mtb

As seen on Gary's twitter page, here's his carbon fiber 29'er superfly with rare (in this country at least) Answer fork. I can't find that fork on the Answer-Manitou website, must be available only in Europe. It uses a linkage and shock assembly instead of a linear spring. Claimed weight is 1260 g which is significantly lighter than the 1698 g for my Rock Shox Reba. However, the price is $1000 which violates the liberal $/gram rule on road bike components.

Here's a link to the bike.


And here's a picture of the crazy fork:
Photo from http://mig-cycles.co.nz/products/offroad/suspension.html

Ride Test - '08 Specialized SWorks Epic

During the Passion Trails Fall Demo, I also got a chance to ride the 2008 Specialized SWorks Epic. It's no longer advertised on their web site, and the 2009 is suspended differently, but I thought I might still share my findings. Prior to this bike, I had only ridden one other carbon framed dual suspension bike and that was the Yeti ASR Carbon. That thing had such a steep effective head tube angle it was shocking. It taught me something though - carbon framed mountain bikes are aimed at the racer crowd. Expect them to act accordingly. With the Specialized, it was little different.
-The bike had precise steering, but not as twitchy as the Yeti. I could really carve up the trail with this thing in a race, but it would probably become fatiguing on a recreational ride.
-The suspension was not very intuitive, and would require some learning and dialing in. The rear shock bottomed out during my test ride, negatively coloring my impression of the bike.

-The thing was fast and didn't mind being thrown off the occasional jump in the trail
-The bottom bracket - seat tube connection was nice, keeping me in a power position at all times
-The Magura brakes faded at one point, bottoming out on the handlebar. I tested them with a few quick pumps and they came back. Wonder what that's all about?

I'll be honest, I'm not in the market for a bike like this, but the Specialized demo fleet was offered up so I had to try it. The Specialized folks were very friendly and knowledgeable and fun to ride with.

Passion Trails is the same. Very cool little shop in Belmont, CA. They specialize in mountain bikes and have even obscure parts. If I ever need my suspension fork serviced, this is probably where I'll take it. They had enough general bike equipment to help you with your road machine, but were really focused on being experts with off road riding. They also had a cool Tom Ritchey original frame hanging from the ceiling:
Ritchey headquarters is only a stone's throw away from the shop.

Ride Test - Maverick ML8

Last weekend, I got the chance to test ride some bikes as part of the Passion Trail Bikes fall bike demo. Very good shop, more on that to come. I'm not the most experienced dual suspension rider, owning a hard tail Niner myself. However, I did own a Gary Fisher Cake 3 for some time. I ended up selling it because the flexible frame deflected under breaking loads and felt imprecise during hard cornering. I just checked the web site, apparently Gary doesn't make it any more. It had the features I wanted, just not the performance. Anyway, on to the review.

We took the bikes to Water Dog Lake park which is steep, loose, rocky and semi urban. Good for teenagers with a desire to smash themselves against dirt, or people looking for a quick, fun experience. There's a half buried jalopy car in one of the ravines that you can rider over.

The first bike I tested was a size large Maverick ML8 and was set up for me by the owner of the shop himself who explained the suspension system and Speedball R seatpost. The bike was fitted with an DUC32 fork. Once under way on the trail, I noticed a few things:
-The suspension put power to the ground very well, somewhat making up for the weight penalty during climbs
-The linkage changed the distance from my saddle to my pedal, an unnerving feeling coming from a hard tail
-Speedball seatpost goes forward, rather than straight down, due to the slack seat tube angle. It was still a fabulous trick, and allowed me to motor down downhills like a dirt biker
-The suspension tended to 'squat' the bike under load. This might have been the "Parallel Path Technology" suspension I was feeling.
-The combination of squatting suspension, lowered seat height (due to Speedball) and ability to bomb downhills resulted in me dropping my heels while pedalling, causing the inside heel to strike the ground on some turns. No harm, but it did scare me for a quick second.
-The Shimano XTR Dual Control shifters worked like a dream. The rear derailler direction was chosen such that both levers went "up for uphills" and "down for downhills". Very intuitive, very fast, worked very well.
-Although I didn't need to adjust the suspension, the controls seemed straightforward enough that I didn't have to read a manual to figure them out.

It would have been interesting to try the Durance model as it looks more my speed. I think that if I were the kind of guy who spent a lot of time mountain biking at ski areas, or went on really long, rocky rides, I would appreciate the incredible suspension and rideability of the ML8. I am, however, a water bottle user so the lack of easy water bottle placement was a bit of a nag, but probably not enough to prevent someone from buying the frame. Speaking of which, if you are interested in owning one, I couldn't talk you out of it.

Correction to Wikipedia

According to my favorite web encyclopedia's entry on bicycle suspension, full suspension first appeared on mountain bikes in the early nineties. A trip to the MOAH Vintage Vehicle Gala in Palo Alto, CA this weekend proved otherwise. I snapped these pictures of a vintage orange "MOTO-CYCLE" single speed double-boinger with front fender, year of manufacture unknown.

$12k bike with $200 engineering

According to Velonews, Scott bikes will sell the 'Genius' Limited mountain bike in the US in 2009 for $11,500. Further reading indicates that there was a patent dispute with Specialized over suspension design. So this is how they got around the patent?


It looks like the rear wheel is going to throw junk right into the shock and shock pivot. Is this some lawyer's idea of a good work-around? Or does Scott like to play in the mud?

Picture from http://velonews.com/photo/77550

The beam bike - people seem to love these things

I snapped this photo at the 2008 Cat's Hill Criterium in Los Gatos, CA. This fellow and I were watching the men's 1-2 racers top out on the hill. Myself having ridden there on my steel frame road bike and himself having ridden there on the beam bike. I interviewed him. He told me that the mega downtube was welded aluminum and that the beam was titanium. He said that the guy who makes the bikes welds up custom beams given the weight of the rider, to give the right amount of flex. The owner said that he never notices the flex, but that people riding behind him see him bouncing down the road. Says it's great for his back. The frame is probably stiff as hell laterally, since it's a giant aluminum box beam, and vertically compliant, since your sitting on a diving board, only, it's probably illegal to race on. Why? Because Merkx didn't use one, that's why. Besides not having a good place to put water bottles (same problem with most dual suspension MTB's), or mount a rack (which very few factory bikes are set up for these days anyway), there's no reason why people shouldn't be racing and riding on beam or "Y" bikes. There's a whole set of nerds out there who are devoted to the Trek Y-Foil.

Photo pilfered from http://johno.myiglou.com/yfoil.html

Well, the industry is probably too wrapped up in the "Race it on Sunday, sell it on Monday" mentality where they are afraid to manufacture (and the stores are afraid to carry) models that don't look like what the pros ride. Hence full suspension Magna mountain bikes. Truth is, except for one or two models at the top end (Specialized Roubaix SL and Tarmac SL, or Orbea Orca for example), 99% of the bikes a big company makes will never see action in a sanctioned race. I'm not crazy for liking the idea of road frames with passive suspension. Or, if I am, I have good company:

• Sheldon Brown on sprung saddles
• Craig Calfee on suspended road frames

Ok, so you say the last two opinions come from eccentric bike nuts. What about this:

• Cervélo RS
• Specialized Roubaix

Regardless of where you fall on the issue, you can't deny that the Titanflex in the picture above has serious style. Check out those gold wrapped handlebars, those Shimano components and Campy front wheel. Those fiber rear spokes. This man is a collector, and godspeed to him and his flexy, aero bike.