Muddy Fox Interactive!

The History Man":1ns264dr said:

Saw notification and came for a look as I have a MF FS.

Not another poxy argument about bugger all. I must say getting fed up with all this all over the place. Humorous banter is one thing, but this isn't.

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I don't believe that this is either off-topic or an argument. Dave is just explaining his designs in relation to other interconnected suspension designs. And I don't see anything wrong with that or in me asking Dave for clarification. And I also appreciate that Dave has taken the time to reply. I personally love counter-intuitive ideas and see this as an opportunity to learn something.

May I suggest that if you are looking for "Humorous banter", then a thread about an innovative suspension bicycle may not actually be the best place to look.

Whatever. Carry on excluding the majority with your attitude. Thread was about a rebuild. Got any positive comments on that?

The History Man":f44z9l2t said:

Whatever. Carry on excluding the majority with your attitude. Thread was about a rebuild. Got any positive comments on that?

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Only that they could rename it "Muddy Fox Interactive" Rebuild!

A mate has just finished his and has fitted grease nipples to all the pivots to save on maintenance.

This thread had turned into two obviously knowledgable people discussing suspension design. One of which designed a very unique bike. The origional thread hadn't been updated in three years.
When else are you going to be able to listen to the designer of the Muddy Fox Intereactive talking about it?!

Re: Muddy Fox Intereactive!

No call to be so mean-spirited, 'History Man'. Four posts in nearly three years is hardly hogging the limelight. Some would like to learn more about half a century of (mis-directed) suspension design, and the story has intimate connections with cars and motorcycles. It's not "bugger all" or "banter". This is all purely factual.

http://road.cc/content/news/71869-dr-al ... es-aged-92

Moulton's 'F' frame was raced back in the '60s and most riders chose to tighten up the front suspension, which kinda defeats the object of having it!

I competed in road races on the tubular space-frame version in the '80s and that confirmed my view that independent suspension would never work. Current mountain bikes FAIL on response efficiency. How many riders prefer a hard-tail for racing and stiffen up the front fork, so it doesn't pogo?

So, a bicycle-specific design could have been adopted when MTBs first moved into full suspension, but nobody understood the need, not even Alex Moulton. He could see that my road-racing prototypes worked (they were raced without damping), but he suffered from the same 'not-invented-here' syndrome that caused industry to dismiss his ideas twenty years before.

You can imagine what his reaction would have been to the suggestion that his car suspension (Mini etc.) needed a radical revamp to make it work properly!

Even Harris Performance dreamt up several 'reasons' why an interconnected single-spring design was too 'difficult' to incorporate into a motorbike!

Don't blame me for MF's mistakes. Stay cool.

My apologies. I have no wish to cause offence.

Re: Muddy Fox Intereactive!

Dave2020":1uert24o said:

...Some would like to learn more about half a century of (mis-directed) suspension design, and the story has intimate connections with cars and motorcycles....

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Definitely.
And you will not get to the bottom of a topic like this through dumbing down so that absolutely everyone can understand everything. The best you can do is to explain the principles, so that with a little homework, non-specialists can be included in the discussions.

Dave2020":1uert24o said:

I competed in road races on the tubular space-frame version in the '80s and that confirmed my view that independent suspension would never work. Current mountain bikes FAIL on response efficiency. How many riders prefer a hard-tail for racing and stiffen up the front fork, so it doesn't pogo?

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Likewise, I bought a Moulton AM7 back in 1986. Though the concept of small wheels and suspension was good the limitations of putting motorbike suspension on a bicycle were very apparent: Frightening front end dive when braking. And the sapping of energy on hill climbs. It was back then that I started to analyse the physics involved. It was then that I first realised that bicycles would require suspension systems designed specifically to address these issues.

Dave2020":1uert24o said:

So, a bicycle-specific design could have been adopted when MTBs first moved into full suspension, but nobody understood the need, not even Alex Moulton. He could see that my road-racing prototypes worked (they were raced without damping), but he suffered from the same 'not-invented-here' syndrome that caused industry to dismiss his ideas twenty years before.

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Despite being innovative in his use of structures and spring design, for some reason Moulton could not see the limitations of his suspensions. But when I first saw an article on Dave's interconnected road bike it immediately made perfect sense as it could prevent a bicycle with suspension from behaving like a rocking horse. I still have the cutting of that magazine article somewhere.

This thread - much as I'm enjoying it - needs pictures! Well, diagrams perhaps, broken down to the basic physics of the situation. Sure plenty of us are lurking and very interested, in both the motorbike and car side of things as well.

Are your designs documented online anywhere Dave?

Re:

Dave2020":2452hjwn said:

MF were going to run with the original design, but decided they wouldn't pay the invoices from Harris Performance Products, which kinda destroyed any working relationship, so they couldn't deliver what the brochure promised.

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Sounds like a bunch of sharks who don't understand that building a human-powered vehicle which weighs around 10kg capable of carrying an 80kg rider at speed over most terrains and not malfunction isn't just a question of getting more sellotape and shouting at the factory workers to "work harder".