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That proto frame goes way back. I shot this photo of it in the early fall of 2023. Sorry for poor quality. The obvious heel rub and linkage swap-out (on your more current photo) shows it's seen a lot of hours. The guy riding it started working for a different bike company, so he may have offloaded this one to another industry friend. At the time, I was thinking it was maybe a Diamondback prototype that got canceled/never saw the light of day. He was fairly open with it; it was spotted at local Seattle area watering hole(s), etc.
Does this guy never drink water on a ride
or like me wants water and not trail debris with it so uses a camelback or similar
my bottle holder is only there to hold the range extender occasionally
You just described half of why I have Fidlock bottles.
I also have a Cambelback...but Fidlock works really well (and has a lid).
It was part tongue in cheek part serious answer. Ibis let me down massively in the past and I will never miss the opportunity to diss them. That said, my Mojo HD and HD-R were both devouring the double-row bearings in the lower link. You got 3-6 months or riding out of them, then replacement was required.
Noken? Factory version?
Could it be a salsa proto ?
-cable ports and frame layup look similar to carbon cassidy/blackthorn
- salsa has previously used split pivot so a jump to another DW system wouldn’t be a huge leap
Whilst i used to trashing bearings on my ibis, I was more disappointed when the main pivot de-bonded from the frame
The cable entry design at the headtube, lack of in frame storage, and the overcomplicated pivot/link situation at the bottom bracket, all lead me to suspect Yeti.
I feel like Yeti needs something complicated like dw6 or switchfinity is to convince people they are buying the premium suspension option. Meanwhile, suspension designs from 30 years keep winning every DH world cup
Look at the chainstay – it looks nothing like any Yeti ever made: squared-off, sharp edges. And the cable port? On Yetis from the past few years, those are screwed in.
Do you guys throwing out these opinions actually look at bikes?
As others have shared in this thread, the unknown six bar bike was spotted all the way back in 2023, before the newest Yeti bikes with the latest cable ports launched. To my eyes, the cable ports on that new mystery prototype are a dead ringer for those old SB165 cable ports.
SARCASM MODE ENGAGED: Did you even read the thread before posting? Disappointing.
Back in 2023... so a year after the SB160 was released with the updated cable port.
Saying the two below look similar is wild. Zero resemblance. Might as well compare a rotisserie chicken to a cassette.
Somedays I still pine for a team of robots to kill my face.... One of these days.
Yeah if that's a yeti then they threw out their entire design language for that frame...
Which has been consistent for well over a decade by this point.
I'd argue that seat tube/top tube juncture and the elbow where the chainstay meets the bb is entirely consistent with Yeti's design language, just reconceptualized around a different suspension design. The rocker link and seat stay bridge don't stray far from the current DH bike. It's been out a few years now so no secret anymore, but I saw an aluminum test mule for their ebike platform way back in 2017 that looked a lot like this.
Given that pic is from 2023 it's anyone's guess if it's something they pursued any further after refining the DH bike. The fact it's painted white makes me wonder if it's a really early proto that someone just kept riding regardless. Carbon frame samples often get a thin layer of white paint in part because it's easier to see cracks and such.
There is also their six-bar patent from 2020.
That it's at least a Yeti concept in the later stages of development seems like a pretty good guess to me
I don't remember all the Yeti 6 bar patents but I think most of them (if not all) used a 4bar to emulate a linear path in order to replace the switch infinity slider. Like the one in your image. This one uses a scissor link which is effectively close to a Chebyshev link which is basically a single sided Watt link. And some patents used a Watt link too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt%27s_linkage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chebyshev_linkage
A water bottle *is* a range extender.
And it gives you more range than any battery 😜
doesn't look too far off
See. This is how it happens. All these names and links are how Crab sows contempt and discord amongst the masses. An NSA psyop has nothing on Crab
What throws me off is the double shear interface between the SS-Rocker, usually the bearings get put in the Rocker and the SS has the overlap, but this frame has it the other way around. No brand I know does it this way, I think if we find who does this with their rockers, we find the brand behind the proto.
So... It's a Specialized?
I should have emphasised the vertical shock layout to be fair. Does this pre-date the UBB layout they were doing or nah?
I don’t know if you guys have ever owned a banshee but they’re pretty poor quality frames unfortunately. I had some of my closest friends ride them and they kept breaking chain stays, hardware kept coming loose and snapping pivots. Warranty was good, but it happened so many times that they had gotten rid of them for something else. seems to be from today, but they did feel a little bit too high a little bit to steep head to angle wise. But who knows with aluminum bikes as they are usually pretty far off of what their numbers suggest
Can’t tell if sarcasm
Specialized does this sometimes. They did it on the Enduro, but put the bearings in the rocker for the Stumpjumper Evo and now have the bearings in the SS again for the Stumpjumper 15. Current Norco Sight does have the bearings in the SS, too.
Might need to take a look at it again then
Figured it out
I bow humbly in front of your greatness. Clearly you are the all knowing expert.
Will you kindly grace this ignorant peasant with your wisdom on what bike company created the prototype?
🍿