some great posts. man, i miss the wacky old days of freaky frame designs.
Pictures of old and obscure suspension bikes
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I know B1s have been posted but this blacked out one looks really cool-
And a pic of the not old but decidedly different Wimmer-
And a pic of the not old but decidedly different Wimmer-
Can't forget the Bushido- 1987 and 10" of travel.
Didn't that have some prototype tires which would seal and self-inflate after a puncture? Or was that just a fairy tale?
Duh. I was looking for the details. Those kids were wicked smart.
That's the one I remember. A couple of my friends had those. They were good but also frustrating. I remember several trips out to Danbury or wherever to get new rear ends, as well as straightening the seatmast thingy pretty much every run. So frustrating when one of them would come coasting to the finish line with the seat stuck behind his knee.This frame is serial number "not for sale". It's from the first generation of 1997 team bikes.
Well Nico had Michelin's Le System which was designed to do what you describe.
Bike frames were always a side business for them. They decided to pull out of the business due to expenses and focus solely on their high end off road truck parts. They were really cool guys and did quality work. I'd love to see the reemerge someday.
edit: meant to quote The Joker. This response was intended to answer his question about PDC Racing.
edit: meant to quote The Joker. This response was intended to answer his question about PDC Racing.
did anyone ever figure out how le system worked?
The Michelin tires. A few of the old teams had them.
OK, Suspect Device delivered on the Profile Racing frame.
Next Challenge: Early 2000's, a couple of Americans (I think) living as ex-pats in Japan and had a graphics design firm that also designed a few bikes, including a very pretty DH bike. The brand name escapes me, but was Japanese sounding. Anyone remember?
Next Challenge: Early 2000's, a couple of Americans (I think) living as ex-pats in Japan and had a graphics design firm that also designed a few bikes, including a very pretty DH bike. The brand name escapes me, but was Japanese sounding. Anyone remember?
try me.yup but it's far too complicated to post here
The dirt bike / rally car version is called Bib-mousse. More details here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire_mousse
Apparently the weight penalty was too large for widespread use in MTB. Rob Warner briefly touched on it in Dirt mag (I think) a few years back.
Iron Horse raced the Profile bikes for the 2001 season. We started working with them around Interbike 2000 on geometry and suspension. The bike was designed by Dave Robicheaux and built down in Florida.Boom:
The had some "issues" with suspension interaction during braking.
The front triangles were 6061 and the swingarm/chainstays were essentially just really long Profile crankarms. The main pivot was a double set of Profile BB bearings, one set pressed into the swingarm, another set into the front triangle, that pivoted on the crank spindle. Super clean execution.
When we first tested the bike at November 00 Plattekill race (where I crashed by S10 pickup coincidentally), it was apparent that the geometry was way steep, the TT was too short, and the rear end suffered from horrible stiffening under braking. Ebbet won the race on it; probably b/c he wouldn't dare risk using his rear brake for fear of it becoming a hardtail w/ a 69 deg HT angle!
That winter Robi tweaked the geometry (66d on paper but they came in at like 64d), lengthened the TT, and added a floating brake arm. We received the race frames literally the Thurs before the April 01 P'kill race, built them up in the Hannah motel on Friday night...and soon found out that the floating brake arms were unusable. They were hollow, untreated, thin aluminum tubes and would flex under the most miniscule amount of braking. To actually ride/race the bikes thru the weekend we ended up ziptie & duct taping screwdrivers and allen wrenches to the brake arm.
By the May P'kill race we had received replacement steel brake arms and the bikes were pretty solid the remainder of the season. The bikes rode a straight line like a freight train. The BB was super low, the HT angle slack, and the CS really long; so they were perfect up on the old Mount Snow course.
Iron Horse had plans to work more closely w/ Profile to refine and develop versions of this bike under the IH brand but tragically Dave Robicheaux passed away in the summer of 01 in a paragliding accident. The project then just lost it's steam as aside from Robi, no one at Profile really seemed to know what to do with the bike.
Had Robi not passed away, would IH have needed to ring up _dw to Apollo 13 the company out of a VPP patent infringement and in process create dw-link?
-ska todd
I went digging into old old files, found this of the Profile DR-1:
cool story man. seriously. its nice to hear stories about Platty's heyday from people who were using it as a test bed like you guys were.
SC had already bought the patent from Outland around that time right? i think i got my V10 around May of '02
Wow.
Makes sense though, I wondered about that seatpost setup. Crazy looking bike.
My Apocalypse was an amazing bike. With modern geo/spacing for modern parts that bike would be killer. I had mine built up with a Shiver, then a 888 and fairly light modern parts. Because of the second shock, you couldn't really tweak the geo that much like you could with the Army.
The guys I ride with say that I was the fastest on that bike.
Wow, what a great find. I remember that year because it was the first year I sold out and started a "real job". Myles made some funny statement about an old guy coming out of nowhere to win the worlds. I believe I read the story in Velonews and was just impressed with the story of Herin. He was in his thirtees at the time.I was visiting a dealer near Milan on Wednesday and spied this beautiful piece of downhill history.
It's Corrado Herin's Sintesi Bazooka race bike from the 1998 season.
-ska todd
I wonder who made those bikes?? I make that statement b/c I have a 93 DBR with a similar look that rumor had it was made for Diamondback by Ferrachi. I'll try to post a pic of it, I don't believe I saw on in this thread and it's a pretty clean looking bike.
I remember that, and I still have my old MBi's at home. I'll try to remember to dig it out next time I visit my mum!And then there was the successor to the bazooka:
Major bonus points to anyone that can find pictures of the Colella Viper. Made by Louis Colella who Sintesi allegedly stole major aspects of the design from. I remember one of the big mags at the time (MBi?) had a test of the Viper. Retail was 8k pounds and it had some kind of gold coating on the brake rotors...
that is the best frame graphic i have ever seen!
great thread...brings me back to the days when i first got into dh
my first bike was a k2 (cant remember the model) with a noleen 6" fork and rear shock.. the shock went through the seat tube and it always blew..running tioga white tigers and some magura gustov brakes
then i "upgraded" to a Mnt Cycle Shockwave with Hanebrink front fork...fork was god awful...u had to lube it every ride..if it was too muddy it would completely lock out..sun double wide rims (even put a 24" in the back at one point)..frame was super noisy..no bearings..just bushings..50t chainring on an mrp world cup chaingide..running maxxis mobster tires..that was pre highroller
finally i got a stab primo with Stratos s8 fork..that was actually a fun bike..running a 3" gazalodi jr with about 15psi haha
wish i had pics..
my first bike was a k2 (cant remember the model) with a noleen 6" fork and rear shock.. the shock went through the seat tube and it always blew..running tioga white tigers and some magura gustov brakes
then i "upgraded" to a Mnt Cycle Shockwave with Hanebrink front fork...fork was god awful...u had to lube it every ride..if it was too muddy it would completely lock out..sun double wide rims (even put a 24" in the back at one point)..frame was super noisy..no bearings..just bushings..50t chainring on an mrp world cup chaingide..running maxxis mobster tires..that was pre highroller
finally i got a stab primo with Stratos s8 fork..that was actually a fun bike..running a 3" gazalodi jr with about 15psi haha
wish i had pics..
My 95 Nicolai Trombone Shock with 3G Urtho up front, STM chainguide and enough spacers for three bikes.
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Couple of my favorite old&obscure designs, probably all reposts
Honda, I remember hearing that the price was well into the 5 figures, and it was way ahead of it's time. If it were released today, it would fit right in with some of the latest and greatest.
Wanted one of these so bad when I was rocking the Super-V 400 back in 97/98ish, I know that's when I got the Super-V, forget exactly when this pile of insnaity came out. Remember the article in Mountainbike, and thinking how rad it was. It had it all, crazy linkages, jack-shafts, inverted fork whacky ecentric head-set, disc brakes, and most importantly a top-tube. Luckily before I could save up enough to buy a Headshock Moto for my Super-V they stopped making them haha, after bending a couple main-frames, i sold my disc ready rear triangle and bought a Kona. Smart decision on my part.
This was a little before my time, they were just being replaced by Weasels when I started riding
The Weasel was the first Foes I ever rode, game changer
another lust-worthy bike. When I was a kid just getting into mountain-biking (and before GT went to china) my brother and I rode our BMX bikes to the GT factory in Irvine and got to see these things being made. It was like seeing a space-shuttle on the assembly line. Extra points for having Spin wheels! This is another one I remember from the first couple issues of Mountainbike I ever got, there were pics of a chromed out GT on chrome Spins at a ski resort, studded tires, ready for snow-shredding.
Last, not really oddball, but it was my first dh/freeride bike. Not sure why i built it the way I did, 3.0 Nokians, Monster-T, Profile cranks, 36 hole double-wides, must have weighed like 80 pounds. I could plow through anything, but couldn't hardly "ride" it, it was just too damn heavy.
Still have my Monster T, not sure what to do with it. Way to heavy to actually use for riding purposes, maybe make a toilet paper holder or something.
Really wish I still had some of my old magazines, kept them for a long time, then finally tossed them mid-way through college. Some of the bikes they reviewed were just awesome! One day i'll own a Schwinn Home-grown.
Honda, I remember hearing that the price was well into the 5 figures, and it was way ahead of it's time. If it were released today, it would fit right in with some of the latest and greatest.
Wanted one of these so bad when I was rocking the Super-V 400 back in 97/98ish, I know that's when I got the Super-V, forget exactly when this pile of insnaity came out. Remember the article in Mountainbike, and thinking how rad it was. It had it all, crazy linkages, jack-shafts, inverted fork whacky ecentric head-set, disc brakes, and most importantly a top-tube. Luckily before I could save up enough to buy a Headshock Moto for my Super-V they stopped making them haha, after bending a couple main-frames, i sold my disc ready rear triangle and bought a Kona. Smart decision on my part.
This was a little before my time, they were just being replaced by Weasels when I started riding
The Weasel was the first Foes I ever rode, game changer
another lust-worthy bike. When I was a kid just getting into mountain-biking (and before GT went to china) my brother and I rode our BMX bikes to the GT factory in Irvine and got to see these things being made. It was like seeing a space-shuttle on the assembly line. Extra points for having Spin wheels! This is another one I remember from the first couple issues of Mountainbike I ever got, there were pics of a chromed out GT on chrome Spins at a ski resort, studded tires, ready for snow-shredding.
Last, not really oddball, but it was my first dh/freeride bike. Not sure why i built it the way I did, 3.0 Nokians, Monster-T, Profile cranks, 36 hole double-wides, must have weighed like 80 pounds. I could plow through anything, but couldn't hardly "ride" it, it was just too damn heavy.
Still have my Monster T, not sure what to do with it. Way to heavy to actually use for riding purposes, maybe make a toilet paper holder or something.
Really wish I still had some of my old magazines, kept them for a long time, then finally tossed them mid-way through college. Some of the bikes they reviewed were just awesome! One day i'll own a Schwinn Home-grown.
GOO I might be insane for saying this but that GT is AWESOME. I desperately want a bar bike like that, filled with retro "not quite valuable" goodies for taking the kids out and wobbling to the local bar stool.
That would totally be a 4 bar bike. Or more, depending on the night.
rn-01: rare, yes. obscure. no.
Some amazing pics here, and some great stories to go with them. I just got done reading and reminiscing through 67 pages. Just awesome. Brings back so many memories, most of which were just lusting after bikes I saw in magazines. Anyone know who made that CNC linkage fork that xy9ine posted? Been racking my brain trying to remember who made that. Was it Profile?
http://smg.photobucket.com/user/xy9ine/media/237226954_y3ovr-O.jpg.html
http://smg.photobucket.com/user/xy9ine/media/237226954_y3ovr-O.jpg.html
I know Outland and "summit racing" made one. I'll try and dig through my mags for that one, I think it was IB 1998.
Hey Griswold! Where do you think you're going to put a "seat" that big?
Never saw this crazy G-boxx beast before. TLKD bikes from '09.
