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Hello w00dy, Thanks for the comments on the marketing. Everyone I know tells me that is my worst talent, so I appreciate the props for the work I've put in. As for the zany scientist part, zany is a bit subjective, but my background and career pretty much qualify for scientist, even if in somewhat unusual scientific realms. If you're really interested and not just an internet hater, allow me to market, www.brianberthold.com Your love of my marketing aside, your rant about the Tantrum Missing Link is a bit misplaced. I believe you might be confused, there is no "area"...

You'd be surprised how much air shock "stiction" is a product of compression damping. Coil shocks have compression damping too, of course, but acting on a much smaller seal surface area. You could probably get a small improvement in small bump sensitivity with a coil shock, but, and this is big, the leverage ration and how it changes, was specifically designed to take advantage of a low volume air shock rising rate. A coil shock would be difficult to match. Just for fun, I took all of the damping out of an air shock. There is no way you would...

Axa, we're trying a few different options on cable routing, including DT. The reality seems to be that nobody really likes it from a practicality point of view. It would be nice to cleanly offer both. The shock mount isn't a problem, the DT is wide enough. One set of the internal guides in the top tube can potentially be used for the rear derailleur. It could then ride on top of the SS, or inside.

thanks axa. And I apologize for the rudimentary state of the website. We will have production bikes in April and the website will be a work in progress in the meantime. Expect a lot more pictures, action videos, etc. Hopefully it will all make it easier to understand. But nothing tells it like the ride, so maybe a few sneak peak test rides might appear here and there?

hi Aginato, There is a critical difference here as to how the suspension responds to chain, bump and braking forces. ALL other suspension designs (excluding "brain" type shocks), rely on some form of anti-squat produced by a relatively high pivot (whether virtual or real). This anti-squat force acts through the chain tension to pull the wheel forward and resist rotation of the links into the travel. The "missing link" on the Tantrum modifies the force on the shock by stiffening it due to chain and pedaling force, as well as SOFTENING it due to bump and brake force. So the...

hamncheez is mostly correct. The funny link (missing link) keeps the bike higher in the travel when on the gas, to the extreme of riding at zero sag during a max climb effort. You could never use the rates we use on this bike with a conventional suspension, as it would indeed wallow. It's important to note that the "falling rate" occurs partly due to the assist in shock compression (due to bumps) from the missing link, therefore, no bumps equal no falling rate. make sense? some?