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Come on folks, it literally has the same laser etching on the rocker hardware as the Chilcotin. 100% Knolly
thats my (totally unsubstantiated) idea too.
compared to a normal bike, a bit of a loss, but compared to a "regular" high pivot where you have the 2 potential issues of
-chain under max tension being dragged over the top idler
-terrible chain wrap on the bottom of the chain ring
plus sometimes the use of guides etc like on the first gen forbiddens.
the first chain - smaller one from bb to pivot - what are we calling this? - is about 20% of the length of a normal chain, and has a perfect chinline so you probably won't have issues with it stretching over the life of the bike.
the second/main chain is going to be under more tension than a regular bike due to smaller drive ring, but has good chain wrap over what looks like a very tall profile NW ring.
I don't disagree with your maths, but what makes you think they're being designed to the same maximum strength?
A quality 31.8mm bar has excessive strength for mountain biking. There's plenty of headroom there to design with stiffness as your criteria rather than strength (or weight).
I'd assume designing blindly to strength is what made early (Easton I think?) 35mm bars so awful, and birthed the negative perception of them that's still going ~15 years later.
Looks like the bike I saw at Highland in NH and posted in the 2025 thread a few months ago. I think somebody else also saw it elsewhere in that thread.
What is excessive strength?
Just a prototype so there's still time for them to make it real ugly.
Atherton just announced pre-sale for their e-bike. Made around the s170 with an Avinox motor.
Wish they gave us a 10mm chip instead of just a 5mm chip. Can someone make one for us? Looking @CascadeComponents
Knolly and DW both love short chainstays match made in heaven
The part is stronger than it needs to be for the loads it sees in use. Whether that's yield or ultimate strength.
Not necessarily the same as excess fatigue life. Or crash durability.
I’ve heard on good word that that’s not a pivot. Where did you hear that it was a pivot?
If you want to maximize flexibility then you’ll be working to the maximum allowable stress. For a given use case that is the same regardless of bar diameter. You’d could decrease wall thickness of the 35 mm OD cross section to increase deflection but then you’d drop below that maximum allowable stress. Alternatively you could make the 31.8 mm bar thicker, but then you’ve arguably changed the use case for those bars and it’s no longer apples to apples.
New Forbidden Ti hardtails.
"The battery is fully housed inside the downtube for protection and clean design."
Impressive that they managed to fit a battery inside of the downtube. I'm curious if it is a stock 600w/800w avinox battery or if they needed to design their own.
Wasn't expecting that
I think they just masked off the bottom part of the downtube in that teaser photo, so it looks smaller.
Though the avinox Crestline I am looking at is pretty slender compared to the beluga downtube of the specialized levo.
I agree with you there you could probably push flex further on 31.8 vs 35mm while retaining safety.
Maybe this is for 'handlebar stiffness rumours & innovation', but my point was there headroom to play with in terms of strength (no brand is likely at the limit of stiffness you're describing).
You could make a more flexible 31.8mm handlebar than what's on the market, which is still safe to ride if you wanted to. It'd ride like trash, but you could do it. The whole point of going to 35mm is to reduce the wall thickness anyway (aesthetics ignored) to save weight - you just get that benefit from the larger tubes' second moment of area.
There is no reason for every brand who makes 31.8 & 35mm bars to not match their stiffness across both sizes, at least within a ballpark while still meeting strength/fatigue testing targets.
The ability to reverse engineer a 35mm bar to perform as well as a good 31.8 bar doesn't justify doing it in the first place however 🙂
Yea, not a Pivot.
IIRC there are iso standards for handlebar strength, but I'm too lazy to go digging them up.
ISO 4210, yes - this covers the whole bike but has a dedicated section for cockpit stuff.
JM cycles, a retirement project?
Are you friends with Dave Weagle now or are you testing a bike for a different friend?
Sizing in 10mm reach increments, spanning 110mm of reach, yet the chainstays only grow 10mm...
F/C from 1.74 to 1.98... "perfect fit" Atherton, never change
ENHANCE!
Fair, I didn't see other photos or feel like firing up Lightroom. Just saw the slight fade at the bottom, so figured it could be a bit bigger than what was teased.
oh shit is it the new Slayer????????? RM comeback?
edit: I know JM isn't on Rocky but a boy can dream
As pictured that looks impressively slender
theres a funny quote just posted today on the red site: "it has size growing chainstays, so that means if you ONLY stand with all your weight on your feet, the balance is XX%"(not fully word for word but close enough)
This reminded me of below, which i got told at a WC last year by a team manager.
'riders who swing off the back because they are scared will end up with understeer' - will love long rear centres
'riders who attack the Front, Usally better riders who want to go really fast/racers' - will love short rear centres.
As someone who loves both... different riding styles get the most from either setup one isnt "better than the other"
anyway back to rumor's before the long centre cowboys get upset again.
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