With all of these oranges, I can make orange juice.
Hey Jm_, can we see a few riding vids of you? You seem to know a lot about bike suspension design, especially in regards to traction and acceleration (which are most important in racing to my knowledge)... I get the drift you must have a lot more real world experience than some of us here.
Just off the top of my head several come to mind: Cannondale, Morewood, Santa Cruz, Haro, and there are more out there....all have used similar designs and as far as I can tell all were quite popular. I won't go as far as to say they were exactly the same because one pivot may be a millimeter higher or more forward or whatever but they are pretty damn similar.
Heck, I don't know what I am trying to prove. You seem to be the expert anyway.
Its not worth my effort on this silliness but here goes:
Look at the pivot on Orange, Morewood, Evil, Commencal etc...
Bikes that are tearing it up on the world cup circuit. Their main pivots are all extremely close in location, with or without linkages. The reason is simple.
World cup DHers and their frame designers and engineers have figured out this setup kicks ass for railing down rough dh courses. Ask Gee if he "stiffened up" and "lost traction" last year when he won worlds.
I have been lucky enough to own and race all kinds of dh bikes over the years. Bikes like the Turner DHR which is a low pivot bike with a moto link,
and Demo 8's which have a fairly similar axle path. But my regular ole single pivot Morewood Izimu is my favorite of the bunch so far. The handling is perfect, and with my double barrel on there, the suspension just rails over the rough stuff.
Their pivot location is dead on for downhill racing.
But if you'll notice, the pivot location is not in the same place for their trail bikes. The pivot on my shova st is down even with the middle ring.
Different positions for different applications, and both work very well for their intended use.
You take your logic and reasoning and you go away!
Forgive my ignorance, but what is wrong with a progressive susp rate? I always thought it was better becasue you got a supple design for small stuff without blowing all the way through the travel on the bigger stuff.
consider yourself forgiven n00b.
linear suspension is omgwtfbbquhmazinglolcatswaibeturtheneverythingelserofltkthx and progressive suspension is for huckers.
So out of those, how many are current? Are we racing santa cruz super 8s or something?
Yeah, most of those with significantly lower pivots compared to the orange, in any case, no I'm not going to ask a racer if he "stiffened up" or whatever. If we judge by what a racer rides, we should be riding SC VPP like peaty right? Pretty dumb to resort to the "well racer x won on y bike", because that's not what we are talking about.
Jm_, you may have a decent head for suspension dynamics, but good lord you're a self-righteous prick.
On the Transcend front, is it possible, just possible, that both suspension and Transcend's taste have evolved over a 5 year period? What may have made sense when bike geometries, shock performance, and understanding of linkages were all over the map may not make as much sense today.
On pivot placement, is it possible, just possible, that different people have different riding styles and different courses have different needs? Where some folks may prioritize pedaling performance others may prioritize rearward wheelpath or a constant wheelbase under compression? Orange lowered the pivot pretty significantly on the 224 vs the 223, so it's not like they're stuck in 2000 and unwilling to change. I don't hear too many people complaining about the new Bullit, do you? It's a structurally efficient, simple design that does have some advantages and some tradeoffs, and is a perfectly reasonable solution.
If you want a pat on the back for being right 4 years ago when you critiqued the design, you're looking in the wrong place.
On the Transcend front, is it possible, just possible, that both suspension and Transcend's taste have evolved over a 5 year period? What may have made sense when bike geometries, shock performance, and understanding of linkages were all over the map may not make as much sense today.
On pivot placement, is it possible, just possible, that different people have different riding styles and different courses have different needs? Where some folks may prioritize pedaling performance others may prioritize rearward wheelpath or a constant wheelbase under compression? Orange lowered the pivot pretty significantly on the 224 vs the 223, so it's not like they're stuck in 2000 and unwilling to change. I don't hear too many people complaining about the new Bullit, do you? It's a structurally efficient, simple design that does have some advantages and some tradeoffs, and is a perfectly reasonable solution.
If you want a pat on the back for being right 4 years ago when you critiqued the design, you're looking in the wrong place.
Check out minute 3:15 - you'll see how much "traction" Fraser lost due to the pivot placement 
http://www.pinkbike.com/video/74591/
http://www.pinkbike.com/video/74591/
Really? That's what you came up with? There are current, as in 2008 and 2009, frames that are very similar to this. We don't have to go all the way back to the Super 8 to see this. All of those companies previously mentioned are still making bikes with a similar pivot location. I bet if you where out riding your bike once in a while you might actually see a couple. If you want to limit the field specifically to "race" oriented frames you could certainly cut the field in half or more but they still exist.
I guess the engineers at Specialized are all dumb since they are using a design that is more than a decade old now. SC and Intense must suck too. The VPP was designed over a decade ago as well by Outland.
I love how some guys are pros at identifying how things are wrong or won't work or are broke but can't offer up a solution. Design something better, let's see it.
My TLD D2 was hookin' up real good in the gravel...Check out minute 3:15 - you'll see how much "traction" Fraser lost due to the pivot placement
http://www.pinkbike.com/video/74591/
something's gotta stick, one way or another.
Hey JM could you please tell us all what your current downhill race set up is an say your 2 previous rides??? Just to show us where you seem to get all this 1st hand knowledge from
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In all honesty it doesn't take much, especially trying to pedal over small square edges on a bike that basically locks out under pedaling (my DHR did this BAD with a 38t ring). Not that it's a key thing for a DH bike, at all, but the few times I was on longer descents with flat rolling bits full of embedded granite and roots, it made those a real PITA to keep speed through when the back end would yank the bike to a dead stop as you were trying to accelerate.
That "powerhouse" chain tension would probably twist and snap the Ellsworth chainstay yoke.
Yeah it happens sometimes but not really often and it relies on so many other things than just the pivot placement. If you pedal smoothly even if you loose traction once a while I doubt you will lose much time.
I still hate the pressure some ppl put on pedaling efficency in dh. It is important but as long as it is not horrible (which it isn't for 90% of bikes) it's not an issue and I'd gladly sacrafice it for cornering traction, better weight distributioon and geo.
BTW. I think I didn't pass the powerhouse test as I own one Ellsworth (though it's a xc bike
)