Suspension Frame's -- Anyone care to disgree or not

colintrav
colintrav Posts: 1,074
edited October 2009 in MTB general
99 percent all have the same frame design off course the standard frame design has been used before Suspension frame became all the rage and must have's , but there comes a time when buying a bike it must have ORIGINALITY ..

Call me picky etc etc but it's not hard to find 5 bikes on the market that have all the same frame ...

It's like buying a pair of jeans item the only difference is the name .. and price yet the frame remains the same ..
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Comments

  • nicklouse
    nicklouse Posts: 50,675
    colintrav wrote:

    Call me picky etc etc but it's not hard to find 5 bikes on the market that have all the same frame ...

    go on then find 5 brands with the same sus frame.
    "Do not follow where the path may lead, Go instead where there is no path, and Leave a Trail."
    Parktools :?:SheldonBrown
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    Yep, I'll challenge you too to find 5 identical full suss frames with different names.

    Infact, lets say 3.
  • Sarnian
    Sarnian Posts: 1,451
    Would you go as far as say 2
    It's not a ornament, so ride It
  • nicklouse
    nicklouse Posts: 50,675
    HT now that would be easy.
    "Do not follow where the path may lead, Go instead where there is no path, and Leave a Trail."
    Parktools :?:SheldonBrown
  • Sarnian
    Sarnian Posts: 1,451
    nicklouse wrote:
    HT now that would be easy.

    Very true, I have had a brand x and a dirty Jo, I swear they are the same frame.
    It's not a ornament, so ride It
  • I got my stumpy elite 08 on the basis that they had "perfected" full suss and were at the engineering end game. Lo and behold the stumpy 10 has the rear shock in line with the top-tube rather than the seat tube.

    Full sussers now are like airplanes in the 1910s-20s, you've got a smorgasbord of various designs which all look radically different. I don't see it maturing into conformity for many years to come.
  • Saw the same thing with MX/Enduro motorcycles in the late 70's/early 80's when single shock swingarms became the norm
    Honda had "ProLink", Yamaha "Monocross/MonoX", Suzuki "Full Floater" and Kawasaki had "Unitrak"
    In essence 4 unique designs trying to achieve the same thing. Later on the unique designs all took on a similar look, however there were fundamental differences in linkages, angles and so forth. From distance they looked the same, up close and personal they were unique in their own ways.

    I think due to the design of any FS mountain bike you will are limited by engineering design restrictions due to space limitations, drivetrain requirements and weight reduction.
    That's where it goes from being clever to sheer genius. All those bikes may look the same from far but rest assured they are anything but that.
  • Northwind
    Northwind Posts: 14,675
    Newsflash, frames that look similiar can be completely different, a couple of mm here or there can make a big difference to how the suspension actually performs even on a single pivot, then once you add in linkages etc it all gets very very complicated. Yet they all look fairly similiar at the end of the day.
    Uncompromising extremist
  • lesz42
    lesz42 Posts: 690
    OMG
    Giant Trance X0 (08) Reverb, Hope Hoops 5.1D, XT brakes, RQ BC, Works Components headset 1.5
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    I kind of see whre he's getting the idea from, but as other have said, a few degrees here and there can make all the difference.

    I mean similar bikes...
    Orange 5
    SantaCruz Heckler
    old Marins
    etc
    etc

    and then you have the specialized bikes, and all the bikes that have licenced the FSR system, such as Norco, RAM, etc.
  • P-Jay
    P-Jay Posts: 1,478
    edited October 2009
    I'm not so sure about that!

    FSR, D W Link, Faux Bar and even boring old single pivot, single pivot with a linkage at the end like Rowen Sorells 224, the however the Evil Rvolt works. Crazy things with two shocks, magic link, spring jobs on Konas, I drive with the BB on the swing arm and that mad thing based on a tank design. I may have duplicated a few there, but there's loads???
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    faux bar, as found on konas, is just a single pivot swingarm, believe it or not.
  • 77ric
    77ric Posts: 601
    nicklouse wrote:
    colintrav wrote:

    Call me picky etc etc but it's not hard to find 5 bikes on the market that have all the same frame ...

    go on then find 5 brands with the same sus frame.
    supersonic wrote:
    Yep, I'll challenge you too to find 5 identical full suss frames with different names.

    Infact, lets say 3.

    1. trax

    2. barrosa

    3. scorpion

    4. muddyfox

    5. british eagle

    so what do i win?
    :lol:
    Fancy a brew?
  • nicklouse
    nicklouse Posts: 50,675
    77ric wrote:
    so what do i win?
    :lol:
    nothing :wink:

    they are similar but not the same.

    and i would not really call them Full sus MTBs.
    "Do not follow where the path may lead, Go instead where there is no path, and Leave a Trail."
    Parktools :?:SheldonBrown
  • Northwind
    Northwind Posts: 14,675
    You can see the differences between those at a glance :?
    Uncompromising extremist
  • 77ric
    77ric Posts: 601
    nicklouse wrote:
    77ric wrote:
    so what do i win?
    :lol:
    nothing :wink:

    they are similar but not the same.

    and i would not really call them Full sus MTBs.

    i don't win anything? :cry: well thats a shit challenge :cry:

    similar? bloody identical as far as the general public are concerned. and not full sus? squishes at the front and back, granted it's by a handful of millimeteres, but none the less full sus, just the bike snob in you showing me thinks :lol: :P

    MTBs? well yeah probably got me on that one, they'd probably disintegrate if they got within 3 miles of a mountain.
    Fancy a brew?
  • Northwind
    Northwind Posts: 14,675
    77ric wrote:
    similar? bloody identical as far as the general public are concerned.

    The general public can't tell the difference between an Apollo and a Five Pro. Doesn't mean they're the same.
    Uncompromising extremist
  • wordnumb
    wordnumb Posts: 847
    Northwind wrote:
    The general public can't tell the difference between an Apollo and a Five Pro.

    Sure they can - Apollo sounds faster and you can buy it from a supermarket thus getting points on your loyalty card. Must be good, plenty of people buy them.
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    Lol, I'd give the man a pint for even looking all those bikes up!

    There is a lot of BS in FS designs, but the frames are different. They all claim and preach the same old stuff - not effected by chain forces (if true it would bob), don't bob (if true they use chain forces), no pedal kickback, neutral under braking etc etc.

    Some do stuff better than others. Most designs are a compromise, and one compromise is the rider - we all ride different. Test, see what works.

    But back to the OP...

    They ain't all the same.
  • dave_hill
    dave_hill Posts: 3,877
    Given the number of suspension designs there are in the MTB world, it makes you wonder why there isn't the same disparity in motorcycle suspension design?

    I'm not saying that they're all identical, becasue they aren't but they all follow similar design paths and methodology.
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    JayPic
  • P-Jay
    P-Jay Posts: 1,478
    Anyone what type of system I have on my Cove Shocker?? I think it's blackmagic, but it's probaby a DW Link.

    Something that heavy, and that soft shouldn't pedal that well out of bends, it's day and night better than the FSR rear I had on my A-Line, it felt like I had 14ft of lack chain on that, it would jerk and buck over high speed impacts and bottom out on big stuff whatever spring rate or rebound setting I used.
  • colintrav
    colintrav Posts: 1,074
    Good replies so far ...
  • frogstomp
    frogstomp Posts: 412
    All of those bikes listed are at the, shall we say, 'ridiculously cheap' (<£250) end of the mountain bike (not just FS!) market so it's inevitable that there is a high degree of similarity between the designs - it's the same in any low-end market : use the design that's cheapest and easiest to manufacture.
  • MacAndCheese
    MacAndCheese Posts: 1,944
    Ok, this thread gave me a bit of an Idea for a bit of a Friday afternoon game, with a bit photoshop in my lunchbreak, can any of you bike geeks out there identify the following four similar looking bike with decals and colours removed??

    BIKE 1
    BIKE1.jpg

    BIKE 2
    BIKE2.jpg

    BIKE 3
    BIKE3.jpg

    BIKE 4
    BIKE4.jpg
    Santa Cruz Chameleon
    Orange Alpine 160
  • ride_whenever
    ride_whenever Posts: 13,279
    Cannot identify them, but they will all ride fairly differently, for a start two are faux-bar and two have horst links (i think, but the pics are pretty small) and the position and lengths of the linkage are pretty different.
  • MacAndCheese
    MacAndCheese Posts: 1,944
    Yes, knowing what the bikes are they will certainly ride very differently! Just a bit of fun as they all look slightly similar. :)
    Santa Cruz Chameleon
    Orange Alpine 160
  • jairaj
    jairaj Posts: 3,009
    can any of you bike geeks out there identify the following four similar looking bike with decals and colours removed??

    i'll have a go:

    1) some sort of Kona?
    2) Norco faze?
    3) Boardman FS
    4) Felt something ?

    where do I collect my prize? 8)
  • MacAndCheese
    MacAndCheese Posts: 1,944
    Correct on the bordman, rest are wrong, there is a kona in there though!
    Santa Cruz Chameleon
    Orange Alpine 160
  • xtreem
    xtreem Posts: 2,965
    Bike No.2 Kona Dawg?
    It's the ugliest, hard to miss.
  • colintrav
    colintrav Posts: 1,074
    1 - specialized
    2 orange
    4 boardman
    4 - kona