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New hope tech 4 lever starting to appear, claimed 30% more power over the previous tech 3, same calliper though.
captain23 (6 hours ago)
I believe that this is open to interpretation as the entire section of innovation is prefaced by the sentence: "Except in mountain bike racing, no technical innovation regarding anything used...." and I know that the UCI sees MTB as a testing ground for new product innovation, hence no Commissaire or UCI staff has ever asked us if our bikes are prototypes or on sale publicly. All of this is pretty beside the point as Neko's frames will be for sale once he settles on the final design though, so we can end this speculation about whether it's legal under UCI rules or not.
he also mentioned that he has a trademark filing submitted for a name, but doesn't want to say anything at least until its approved.
Mongoose and Schwinn used something similar ~15 years ago too. It's not URT. But I think there's a reason why GT dropped the design as soon as the fsr patent expired. Along with Mongoose.
EDIT: just now looked at the Kickstarter... Holy cow, it is an URT!! Color me flabbergasted. Turns out "those that don't know the history are destined to repeat it" is true...
(with the links down there I was sure the BB was on a separate link to the rear triangle)
The guy has never ridden the design and filed a patent for a new iteration of a horrible idea.
The idea of having a Kickstarter to fund development is... Interesting. I think it's quite well known that the successful projects are those, where you finance production and sell the actual product. Selling hopes and dreams turns out isn't as successful. Even selling hopes and dreams of buying a product once its developed. Here you're just giving your money away for the development with nothing to gain really?
That shouldn't take $90k...
The gist of it, its not just a welder. You also need a lot of other components, like headtubes, dropouts, rocker links, pivot locations, etc. It's not just the tubes and a welder. With a hardtail you can buy all the components, so you need to "just" add a frame jig and you're set. Standard frame jigs don't work for a full suspension bike as pivot points are not covered. Plus you need separate jigs for the rear components (chainstays and seatstays or rear triangle, depending on the frame design). Plus you need a lot of machines (lathes and mills) to produce the parts I mentioned before. And to finish off the frame too.
That's on the production side and it makes sense to find someone who can do that quickly and has the tools, it's better to pay someone like that.
If you're interested in suspension design, it makes sense to have that design made by someone who knows what they are doing in order to make the frame strong enough. If you're a beginner, you have no idea what kind of tubes will be strong enough. You could run simulations to be more sure of that, but you need the external loads defined well enough. I'm guessing that's sort of a trade secret for the brands that have this kind of info. So you don't have the data to run any meaningful simulations as well.
If I was developing a suspension system, I'd be finding someone that made me the frame. Just like Neko did. Focus on what you think you will be best at and don't put too much on your plate. Complicate things later, only after you are on top of the first set of things - develop suspension, make protos, acquire or measure loads, optimize design, have it manufactured in series (if that is the goal).
Many companies in Asia make frames these days, I think the main differentiator these days is the suspension design and geometry of the frame (then the spec sheet and price of the bike).
Maybe would be OK for an XC bike but nothing more. Also strange that they essentially admit that the people funding this will get nothing back, they might offer some for sale to Kickstarter backers but they want to license or sell the patent.
Extremely digressive (more than -100% progressive)
Low anti squat
High anti rise
A surprising amount of pedal kickback for a URT (likely due to the rearward axle path winding up the chain)
Going to give it a solid 3 bananas out of 10 for frame stiffness though. For everyone who loves the word "compliance" I think its a no-brainer design.