What is the biggest mountain bike tech fail ever? No, it’s not the ever-increasing cost of bikes. But it is one of these five innovations that promised the world and crashed spectacularly.
From linkage forks and suspension stems through to planetary geared front derailleur killers, these flops cover the weird, not so wonderful – and just downright ugly and dangerous in some cases.
What do you think is the biggest mountain bike flop of all time? Let us know in the comments!
#MTB #Flops #WTF
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:22 Shimano Dual Control
01:45 Girvin Flexstem
03:00 URT Suspension Frames
04:49 Truvativ HammerSchmidt
06:43 Linkage Forks
08:22 Outro
Image Credit:
Mylesmerckel
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As much as there have been huge Tech wins in the MTV world over the last 35 years there have been some serious serious flops too you have to learn from your mistakes as the saying goes after all from Flappy paddle Brak levers to basically use the suspension systems
Here’s our top five what on Earth were they thinking empty B flops of all Time without wanting to Reign too much on shimano’s Parade it’s had its fair share of failures over the years but to me the biggest of all was their dual control shifters and Brake levers the idea in principle seems pretty sound enough the brand had enjoyed great success with the introduction of its
Shimano total integration more commonly known as STI Road levers back in 1990 these have been the blueprint ever since and are still in use to this day over 30 years later the issues came when in 2003 Shimano made the Bold move to adapt this to his XTR mountain bike group set cross
Pollination of Road and Mountain bite Tech isn’t unusual after all the now commonplace disc braks on road Bites come from the off-road world but in the case of dual control Shimano really really shouldn’t have bothered dual control was despised by many the levers were bulky fragile and locked you into
Using shimano’s own brake calipers and made shifting while braking virtually impossible Shimano was so intent on bringing them to the masses they bestowed them on pretty much every group set they made at the time time from Dior up to HTR and even to the gravity based Saint and shortlived Home Group sets
Thankfully duel control didn’t survive the move from 9 to 10 speed and praise the heavens they’re confined to the history books forever Riders have been looking to add Comfort to their mountain bikes for years when early suspension forks like the rock shocks rs1 were released but cost us more Fortune people naturally
Wanted to improve comfort and control without the as astronomical price enter the Gering Flex stem designed to offer a cheaper solution to suspension forks the flex stem offered around 1 in of travel depending on the stem length the longer the stem The More Travel you got from
Its eltima base design in theory it should have been okay to ride the bikes geometry would be preserved and you’d get additional Comfort all in the package that was lighter cheaper and a whole lot simpler than a suspension Fork perfect well not quite it did all of
Those things but the action of the bars moving up and down was offputting and as with alas is used in the forks of the time varying temperatures were not kind to them the Springs would go softer when it was hot and harder when the Mercury dropped as suspension fors got better
The flex then was consigned to the history books or was it while admittedly mainly aimed at the gravel crowd red shift connect and Cane Creek all offer modern versions of suspension stems what do you think are suspension stems worthy of a comeback let me know down in the comments
Back in the early days of for suspension mountain bike design Brands were coming up with more weird and wacky Contraptions than you can shake a sticker there was Castro’s twin shop bikes GT in their RTS LTS and STS cannoned out with the Super V and race only for from downhill bike the list
Just goes on and on then there were bikes that shared the same design that promised the world bikes like the track W frame Klein Mantra Ibis boting and many many more oh yes I’m talking about the joy that is the UR or unified rear triangle suspension design originally patented by John Castellano
The Urt design moved the bottom bracket from the front triangle to the rear triangle of the bike the idea being that this would create a sweet spot in suspension performance indeed that is what Castellano called the design and he licensed it to many Brands including Ibis Rocky Mountain and Schwin the fix
Chain length and transfer a rider weights the rear end of the bike would improve pedaling performance while suspension would still work at absorbing bumps when the rider was seated indeed out of the SLE pedaling performance was excellent and it was Supple when the rider was sat down however making the
Rider part of the unsprung mass when standing made things shall we say interesting on this ense it just didn’t really work well at all Klein’s manra was an extreme example of this the super high pivot design was simple and when seated offered good bump absorption making it a popular choice for
Long-distance Marathon Riders of the time on descents though a fist full of front brake would force the rider’s weight and the bottom bracket forward steepening the head angle and shortening the wheelbase not exactly a recipe for calm descending thankfully nowadays the Urt has largely gone the way of the dodo
And good riddit to it if we were to call out a wide range single chain ring drivetrain as a flop you’d probably wonder what on Earth we were banging on about pretty much any mountain bike wor the rubber around its tires these days has one of said drivetrains and the front derailer is
Nowhere to be seen however to get to where we are now we had shr’s first attempt to ditch the front derailer hammid and that was most definitely a flop with a big old capital F hammid ditched the front deia by having a small
22 or 24 to chain ring setup M it to a set of planetary gears teamed with the trigger shifter on The Handlebar this gave a 1:1 direct drive or an overdrive ratio of 1 to 1.1 six this equated to gearing of effectively a 2236 or 2438 to
Double crank set all without the need for a front derailer that tiny chain ring gave loads of ground clearance had a built-in bash guard and required no chain device surely this meant it was all things to all of humanity well not quite while it did have its advantages
As mentioned it also had some very very serious downsides there was a huge amount of drag when the overdrive was engaged there was also a large la like between when you stomp in the pedals and the chain ring engaging add to these are high overall weight as well as that
Smaller chain ring not sinking nicely with a lot of suspension designs and it wasn’t one for pedaling about on not only that but the tutive Howard of based bottom bracket was not a fan of adverse conditions you also needed a frame with isc3 or 05 mounts a special bottom
Bracket and ISC frame facing tool and proprietary just about everything it’s no wonder then that hammert died a quiet death and Shram turns his attention to its gamechanging dedicated one by Drive trains instead we’re extremely thankful it did but what do you think would Shram still be leading the charge if it had
Hammered home Hammer Schmid rather than abandoning it let us know in the Comments last but by no means least we have perhaps the most head turning Mountain by flop of all time linkage suspension forks linkage Forks have been around in the mountain bite world since the early 1990s is with research and those crazy bods at proex and gerin producing them as far back as
1991 perhaps more famously known is why it’s prst T1 perhaps one of the ugliest bikes of all time even today though some brands are still trying to crack the linkage Fork code most notably now defont brand trust had the message and Shout to Trail in Ino linkage forks and
There are plenty of others too but if so many people have tried it over a 30-year period why has the idea yet not had mainstream success well I would say one of the main ones are the polarizing looks and added complexity with additional bearings seals linkages and often proprietary Parts such as Hub
Standards they are incredibly complicated bits of Kit compared to a traditional Fork they are a whole lot of extra work for the end user when it comes to maintenance then there’s the looks Department I think the phrase a face only a mother could love was invented for the linkage suspension Fork to my
Eyes and those are many other others they are to quote a certain lad motor journalist absolutely gopping a lot of linkage fors were also crazily expensive trust shout Fork was nearly $2,000 far more than the most expensive fox or Rock shocks equivalent combine all that with the questional performance
Benefits and it means they’ve never really caught on and will likely spend eternity as a niche is saw so there are our top five MTB Tech flops did we miss any out what do you think is the biggest Tech failure of all time be sure to let
Us know in the comments subscribe to the channel if you aren’t already and if you want to learn more about some MTB Tech that we do actually like then check out this video
6 Comments
what is the biggest MTB flop of all time?
To me, the biggest flop is cycling is that we have prioritized racing performance over utility. It’s been 10yrs since I sold my car and bought a couple bikes, and while it was initially challenging for me, it’s now second nature for me to ride everywhere, including across the US. I think we are doing ourselves a disservice by manufacturing so many race spec bikes with eye-gauging prices, as opposed to seeing them as affordable vehicles for mobility.
The expression "Gone the way of the Dodo" itself should go the way of the Dodo! Don't you think?
Disc brakes on road bikes
I really used to like the dual control shifters!
When you make a video but 5 photo's would have sufficed.