"Jon Bond" <
[email protected]> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:[email protected]...
>> If I waited two years every time a new technology came out, I'd still be
> shying away from 100mm forks, adjustable travel, fox forks (which I don't use, but if I wasn't
> sponsored by Marzocchi I'd seriously consider), any
of
> the stable platform technologies (IE Epic, 5th element, manitou SPV)...
why
> wait? BTW, VPP is not new technology - search for Outland bicycles. They supposedly rode
> really nice until they broke - fault of the engineering of the bike itself, not the suspension
> system. Santa Cruz actually wanted to release teh blur earlier, but decided to iron out as
> many bugs as they
could
> find before they put it out to market - not many companies will do that.
>
The Epic is new and old. The LRS (Bergwerk) rear triangle is a modified four bar system and has
been around for a couple of years. The brain shock on the Epic is new. It is not that smart and
as a whole, the Epic is a lesser bike than the Bergwerk that it is based on. It is great for
racers, but given that Specialized replaced the FSR with it, I do not think they had intended to
have only a bike for racers. Progressive has been building motorcycle shocks for years. The 5th
element is not really that new. My father rides a Honda Valkyre with something from progressive
akin to a 5th element.
I have a 100mm Fox on my current ride, so you got me there.
What I am saying is that often (but not always) things come to market before they are mature. There
is only so much testing that the engineers can do and a user will eventually do something that was
not in the QA testlist. The Superlight has had many small improvements since it was introduced.
Lastly, why did nobody pick up on VPP when Outland did it? It would not have been expensive to
licence VPP from Outland. Or the parents could have been picked up for a song. Good suspension
designs get copied. Four bar: Specialized, Kestrel, Intense, Steppenwolf, yada, yada. LRS: Bergwerk,
Meridia (sp?), Specialized. Single pivot: yada, yada
> There's a reason you don't see many URT bikes anymore - they actually bob quite a lot, besides
> being nasty. Also, don't try to say that bob is totally a rider problem. There's rotational
> acceleration, torque, and all sorts of factors that determine which way the rear wheel moves under
power.
> Yes, if you've got a bad enough spin, any bike will bob, but there's a reason some bikes bob a
> hell of a lot more in some gears than others.
>
I commute 20km a day on a URT (Katarga Proto Winner) bike and I used to ride trails with it. I have
no problems with bob on that bike. I can even get out of the saddle and it is almost hardtail like.
The pivot is just forward of the BB (Ala Maverick/Palomino). I never rode an extreme URT design such
a Mantra, so I can't comment about them.
The big downside of URT is that when you stand (say over rough ground), you are standing on the
swingarm. They are not very active.
> yes, I can - "kickback does not affect the blur". The suspension moves
the
> rear wheel in a very slightly s-curved path. When there is tension on the chain in the sag
> position, it tends to move the rear wheel down the
slope -
> in other words, into the middle of the small curve at the bottom. This keeps the bike from bobbing
> (much) from the sag position. The relatively slow speed compression will not push the bike far
> enough past this point
to
> go into the main stroke of the shock. Higher speed compressions from terrain push the bike out of
> this range enough to get into the main part
of
> the stroke, which is very similar in geometry to many four bar systems,
and
> actually fairly conventional if taken alone. The difference between teh
two
> types of compressions is also what allows shocks like the 5th element to work.
>
How much of that is VPP and how much is shock. I would like to compare a Blur and a four bar bike
side by side; both with 5E shocks.
> As a relatively small company, Santa Cruz constantly upgrades parts.
There
> aren't specific model years, persay, unless they're planning a major redesign. Therefore, the
> current version is probably 1.2, or 1.3. A
bunch
> of other "boutique" brands do the same.
Actually almost all manufacturers tweak the design. The Superlight is greatly improved. The last
FSRs were a far cry from the first.
>
> And yes, I'm extremely biased, having one sitting in my room (but still
not
> built up, argh!). I said consider it, and then gave examples of other
bikes
> to try. The Blur is definitely not the be-all-end-all of mountain bikes - what fun would that be?
> However, its a new design, in his price range,
that
> many many many people, including myself, find very attractive. Don't buy ANY bike without a test
> ride though - one man's heaven is another man's hell.
For all of my bitching, I might very well have bought one if they had had test bikes available over
here. I called SC Europe and they had two. One was with a bike magazine and the other was in Berlin.
I was not going all the way to Berlin to test ride a bike. I was never able to test ride one and
then I got to thinking about all of the ways it could be overhyped.
So take me with a grain of salt.
-Dave
