Best style of suspension?

[merckx]

don't forget the original! gary fisher RS-1 !

 

[MikeD]

Oh aye, I had actually forgotten about that one

Bushido (1987):

 

[merckx]

ah the good ol bushido. how mad does that rig look! looks like it has 3 foot of travel!

 

[MikeD]

Was meant to be 12in, I think. I'm not convinced that you'd get that out of the back without the tyre clouting the seat tube

 

[Whatleymeister]

Virtual Pivot Point ; interesting idea.

This is a peach of a thread, with some really interesting thoughts flying around. However, I am pretty sure that Santa Cruz also did the VPP. Wikipedia has an interesting read on rear suspension (yeah yeah, I know, Wikipedia la de da ) which actually states that Santa Cruz in actually fact own the VPP design but it is licenced to Intense, though three of the original patents lie with Outland Cycles.

Anyway, not wanting to move to far from topic, I am liking the uniqueness of your designs, I am very interested to see how it turns out as a finished product

 

[titch__16]

That Bushido looks insane Do you have on pics of the rear pivot?

And VPP is the weird one that was mentioned before that doesn't look like it should be able to hold itself together. Even now that I've seen the movement diagrams, I don't actually understand it.

 

[MikeD]

There's a non-drive-side Bushido pic knocking around on MTBR.com somewhere, you might have to be logged in to see it. Or Google for "Bushido bike" and click "Images"

VPP is structurally pretty straightforward. The whole rear triangle is rigid, with no pivots in it. It's connected to the main triangle with two short linkages. How exactly those rotate is what makes it a VPP in the trademark/patent sense -- lots of other designs (Giant Maestro is a prominent example) are structurally similar but things are in different places/rotate different ways and are therefore different enough to not get sued

And yes, Outland came up with VPP originally although Santa Cruz is the most prominent user these days.

 

[kampos]

@ MikeD and merckx ; I stand corrected ( said the man in the orthopaedic shoes) ; never seen any of those frames except maybe a pic of the RS-1 from an old book -- didn't clock it as being concentric! So real thanks for proving me wrong ; it is only by learning that we can improve.
@ poor titch ; I have to apologise if I have helped take this thread off your original tack ; but discussion like this might hopefully help you in the long run -- hope so anyway

 

[titch__16]

I have to apologise if I have helped take this thread off your original tack

The thread is called 'Best style of suspension?' and you are all simply discussing If anything I'm the off topic one

 

[MikeD]

said the man in the orthopaedic shoes