Suspension Of Disbelief

I've never owned a full-suspension bike.  My Jamis Dakota and Bontrager Race Lite mountain bikes had telescoping front forks, but no suspension built into the frame.  Perhaps if I had kept with mountain biking longer than I did (I stopped about 15 years ago), I might have such a setup now.

These days, my suspension consists of the sprung saddle on my Fuji commuter/beater--and my joints.

Folks like Jan Heine will tell you that you don't need suspension if you ride the right tires.  He's right:

Boosting An "Innovation"

Although I remained, first and foremost, a road cyclist, I did a pretty fair amount of mountain biking during the '90's.

It seemed that every week, someone or another was coming up with an "innovation".  Many of them were in the area of suspension:  springs, elastomers, even air- and water-filled cartridges were employed in telescoping front forks as well as suspension systems on the rear of the frame.  And, of course, there were seatposts and even stems with suspension devices built in. E-bay is full of such stuff.

Some of those "innovations" have evolved and exist today. Others, thankfully, have been relegated to the dustbin of history, to paraphrase Marx.  (Karl or Groucho--take your pick!)  Among the latter category are almost any suspension system that relied on elastomers (as well as a few other components, such as clipless pedals, that substituted them for springs) as well as U-brakes and the lamented or lamentable (depending on your point of view) Tioga Disc Drive.

Now, as I have said in earlier posts, these "innovations", and just about every other I've seen in four decades of cycling, had been done before--in most cases, long before--they were introduced as the latest new thing.  Suspension systems of one kind or another have been around for as long as anything we would now recognize as a bicycle, as have alternatives (or things that aspired to be such) to conventional spoking for wheels.  Other "innovations" that weren't new when they were introduced include indexed shifting and hubs with integrated cog carriers--or, for that matter, just about any alternative to screwed-on freewheels that's come along.  

Another "great new" idea that came along during my mountain bike days was the "brake booster".

  


Until Shimano introduced linear-pull, or "V", brakes in 1996, mountain bikes used cantilever brakes, which mount to brazed-on bosses.  "Cantis" had been used on touring bikes and tandems for decades before that, but some mountain bikers--especially in the then-nascent subgenre of downhill riding--complained about their flexiness, fussiness and propensity for collecting mud.  The booster was an attempt to address that first complaint.  

Even after "V" brakes were introduced, some riders continued to use "boosters".  While "V"s are simpler to set up and adjust (on some bikes, anyway), they still shared the same problem with cantis:  They mounted on bosses that were rather small.  That is where most of the flex--and, in a few cases, breakage--occurred, especially with the hard,sudden braking that's so often a part of off-road riding. 

While some riders had legitimate use for boosters, I suspect others used them as fashion statements, as the boosters--like so many other mountain bike parts and accessories of that time--were available in a rainbow of colors.

Or, if you cared more about weight than color, you could get your booster in titanum:

To me, titanium boosters never made sense because, as strong as titanium is, it's more flexible than steel or aluminum alloy.  But, if you had other titanium parts--or a titanium frame--you didn't want anything that clashed!

As with so many other "innovations", brake boosters weren't an innovation.  Indeed, back in the 1960s and 1970's, Spence Wolf was making them for the center-pull brakes found on most touring bikes of that time:

Yes, he is the same Spence Wolf I mentioned a few days ago:  the one who retrofitted Campagnolo Nuovo Record derailleurs with extra-long cages he made.  He founded Cupertino Bike Shop in the 1950s and presided over it for a quarter-century.  He was main importer and vendor of Alex Singer frames in the US, and he and "Fritz" Kuhn of Kopp's Cycles were probably the leading Cinelli dealers.

I suspect that most of the mountain bikers with whom I rode--indeed, most mountain bikers--had no idea of who Spence Wolf was, let alone that he was responsible for one of the "new" ideas some of them adopted!

Suspending Disbelief

I started mountain biking right around the time suspension front forks were becoming a standard feature of serious off-road machines.  Back then, it seemed that designs were changing every week, and that if you bought a Rock Shox Mag 20, or a Marzocchi or Manitou telescoping fork, a year later you could get something lighter, more durable and with more travel--whether from those brands or one of the new marquees that seemed to appear every month.

Suspension (telescoping) fork advert, September 1992

  

By the time I stopped mountain biking and sold my Bontrager Race Lite, in 2001, new suspension forks bore little resemblance to the ones I saw and rode nearly a decade earlier.  Moreover, bikes with suspension in the rear of the frame had become commonplace, with designs that changed as rapidly as fork designs had been changing.

Even with all of that design evolution, there were some ideas that, apparently, no one ever considered.  Can you imagine how mountain bikes--and mountain biking--would be different if the first suspension system looked something like this?:

To be honest, I'm not sure I'd want to ride such a bike, especially on rocky ground.  I'd guess that even when I was skinnier and more flexible than I am now, I wouldn't have been able to keep my feet on the pedals for very long.


 



 


Then again, maybe the bike isn't made for spinners or sprinters.  It's called a "Flying Bike" because, I believe, it's made for riders to pedal for a few rotations before lifting their feet and "flying".  But I have to wonder whether it would feel like flying if the bike is bouncing through potholes and over rocks.

If you think the "flying bike" is weird, check this out:

 Can you imagine what mountain bikes would be like today if that had become the paradigm for suspension?

Starstruck? No, A Moonshock!

Bicycle suspension--at least in forms we would recognize today--first started to appear, mainly on mountain bikes, a bit more than a quarter-century ago.

Those early attempts to make bikes more stable as their riders bounced them over rocks and rumbled along singletrack consisted of hinged handlebar stems with springs in them, seatposts that were like pogo sticks and "telescoping" forks.  That latter system--first popularized by Rock Shox--would become one of the standard ways of suspending bikes.  The other--suspension built into the rear of the frame--would come a few years later.

Most riders at the time thought all of those attempts to absorb shock were new innovations.  Of course, they weren't old enough to have been reading American Bicycling (the forerunner of Bicycling) when it featured Dan Henry's homemade suspension system on his French constructeur bike.  And, at the time, even I (a professor who's supposed to know everything, ha-ha) didn't realize that bicycles have been built with suspension for almost as long as bicycles have been built.  What is the pneumatic tire--one of the most important technological innovations of all time--but one of the first, and one of the most enduring, forms of suspension?

Even with such knowledge, I was a little surprised to come across this 1975 Redline Moonshock BMX bike:

Only five or six bikes like this one were ever made, according to the Classic Cycles website. In the then-nascent sport of BMX racing, bikes were designed to consciously emulate their motorized counterparts.  That makes sense when you realize that, at the time, most BMXers were pubescent boys who, like lots of other kids, pretended they were on motorcycles or in racing cars as they plowed along paths and jumped ramps and mounds.  

Note the year:  1975.  Schwinn had ended production of their "Krate" series, which probably best exemplified "muscle" bikes that echoed the "muscle" cars of that era.  If those bikes weren't at least partially responsible for the birth of BMX, it's still not merely a coincidence that kids started "revving" bikes with slick fat tires and "banana" seats during that time.  

It was also during that time--at least, according to the accounts I've read and heard--that Tom Ritchey, Gary Fisher, Joe Breeze and their friends were bombing down Northern California fire trails in Schwinn baloon-tired bikes made before they were born. 

Why do I mention that?  Well, the first problem that most of those proto-mountain bikers discovered had to do with one of Newton's laws--best expressed (at least for mathematically-challenged people like me) by a Blood Sweat and Tears lyric.  What goes up must come down--but what comes down can't always be brought back up, especially if it weighs 60 pounds and has only one gear.  So, according to lore, in 1975 (or thereabouts), Gary Fisher outfitted one of those balloon-tired bombers with derailleurs and multiple gears.

Apparently, some BMX bike designers thought absorbing shock to make the bike steadier was a greater priority.  Mountain bike designers wouldn't come to the same conclusion for another decade and a half.

Not surprisingly, the Moonshock BMX bike shared a couple of unfortunate traits with early suspended mountain bikes.  They were slow, basically for the same reasons.  For one thing, they were heavy--although, in fairness, the Moonshock had the greater weight penalty because of its tanklike gussetted steel frame, wide rims and tires.  (By the time mountain bike suspension was developed, relatively light frames, tires and rims were available.)  But, more important, the springiness of both kinds of bikes absorbed much of their riders' energies.  Thus, the few kids who rode the Mongoose, much like mountain bikers nearly a generation later, found ways to lock out their suspension systems.  That left them riding almost-rigid bikes that were several pounds heavier than their non-suspended counterparts.

It seems that the idea of suspension on mountain bikes died with the production of the Moonshock, or not long after.  Apparently, BMX riders felt that it was more important for their bikes to withstand the pounding they would take.  And, because BMX frames and wheels are smaller than their mountain or road counterparts, it's possible to use relatively thick gauges of steel, with reinforcements, and end up with a bike that isn't terribly heavy.

On the other hand, it's all but impossible to buy a new mountain bike (or any made in the past fifteen years or so) that doesn't have suspension in the front fork, rear triangle or both.  Best of all, many new systems seem to have some way of locking them out--or regulating the firmess or softness of the ride--built into them.  And a typical suspension fork of today is a good deal lighter than the Rock Shox Judy fork--top-of-the-line in its time--I rode on my old Bontrager Race Lite.

His Spirit of Innovation Wasn't Suspended

The other day, I wrote about some bicycle suspension systems that were patented nearly a century before Rock Shox or Girvin Flex Stems came bouncing down the trails.

It's not as if the idea of cushioning the ride and rider died with the fin de siecle Bike Boom.  Indeed, some of you rode balloon-tired Schwinn, Columbia, J.C. Higgins or other bikes with a big spring in front of your handlebars.  That spring was attached to a bars that were, in turn, attached to the front fork.  How much that actually absorbed shock, I don't know.  I have long thought that they--like the "banana" seat struts attached to shock absorbers on bikes like the Schwinn "Krates"--were really intended to enable kids' fantasies of riding a "chopper" on the flats of Daytona.

Around the time that boys (and, on occasion, girls) were tearing up and down driveways and cul-de-sacs, one of the few American adults riding at the time was thinking about real, functional suspension for bicycles.  Having been one of the first commercial pilots (for American Airlines), he no doubt saw the value in keeping his bike stable and upright (the real purpose for suspension on cars and motorcycles) in turbulent conditions.

If you've on any kind of organized bike ride for, say, the past half-century, you have heard his name.  More precisely, you have followed his directions.



Yes, there was a real, live Dan Henry behind the "Dan Henry arrows".  While he is best remembered for his system of road symbols, his most interesting contributions to cycling may well be in the ways he made his bikes more comfortable and stable.  



I remember reading about Dan Henry's bicycle in an issue of American Cycling, the magazine that became Bicycling!  As I recall, the bike was a Rene Herse or Alex Singer--or that of some other prestigious French builder.  He made the mechanisms himself from springs and bar stock he obtained in auto-repair shops.  Again, if memory serves, he said that this system allowed him to ride the lightest tubuar tires and rims under nearly all conditions without getting flats or dinging his rims.

(Interestingly, he would later convince Clement to make tubular tires with butyl tubes, which are more durable and retain air longer than the latex tubes commonly found in high-quality tubulars.)

Another part of his "suspension system", if you will, was something he made himself--from a pair of handlebars, a tandem "stoker" stem and some canvas webbing.  

It seems that every decade or so, someone re-invents this saddle.  When I first became a dedicated cyclist (around the time I found that copy of American Bicyclist in the local library), a similar saddle called the "Bummer" was advertised in Bicycling!  I think one of the magazine's editors test-rode it, probably unaware of his perch's provenance.  

Perhaps it's not surprising to know that Dan Henry was also one of the early proponents of recumbent bicycles, and that he designed and rode such a machine.  I guess he was one of the first cyclists to see that high performance and all-day comfort needn't be mutually exclusive--and, as an engineer and pilot, was one of the first modern cyclists to have the background and skills to realize such a vision.

He died nearly four years ago, just short of 99 years old, riding almost to the end.  I wonder what he thought of some of the suspension designs--especially for downhill bikes--that have come along.

They Didn't Come As A Shock Then...

Writing recently about "path racers" and the mountain bike experiences of my youth got me to thinking of just what it means to be a "mountain" or "path" rider--and what makes bikes suitable for those kinds of riding.

I also got to thinking about how and when those kinds of riding came to be seen as distinctive from other kinds of riding, and how the terms to describe them came to be.

It seems to me that those kinds of cycling and bikes--as well as cyclo-cross and bicycle motocross (BMX) evolved as specialties within cycling because of paved roads. 

Think about it:  In the early days of cycling, there were few paved roads.  And the few paved roads had gravel, cobblestone or granite sett (a.k.a. Belgian Block) surfaces. Thus, most of the time, cyclists were riding under conditions that, today, we would equate with off-road or cyclo-cross--or what the Brits would call "rough stuff".

If you are a mountain or cyclo-cross rider, try to think of what your rides would be like with solid rubber tires--or no tires at all. In other words, think  of what it would be like to ride your favorite trail on bare wood or metal rims. That is, I believe, what normal riding conditions would have been like for most cyclists before the pneumatic tire was invented in the late 1880's.

And to think cyclists rode, not only without the cushioning of air-filled tires, but on front wheels that were almost as tall as the riders themselves!

So, really, it's not surprising that there were attempts to incorporate suspension into bicycles. 

This Blackledge bicycle, patented in 1890, uses a spring in the fork assembly to soften the blows from the rough roads of the day.  It seems that ever since the "safety" bicycle (two wheels of more or less equal size) was invented, attempts to incorporate suspension into bicycles began with the front fork.  For one thing, we feel road shock first at the front.  For another, shock to the front is more likely to upset our balance or momentum--and cause crashes-- than shock at the rear.

This Tillinghast bicycle, patented the following year, has another interesting front suspension system as well as a unique kickstand built into the pedals:

Still, attempts to soften the ride--and make the bike more stable on rough surfaces--weren't limited to tinkering with the front end.  Here is a drawing submitted by Fernand Clement for the suspension bike he patented in 1892:

Here is another early rear suspension system on a J.H. Mathews bicycle, patented in 1891:

Hmm...Wouldn't it be fun to envision Messrs. Blackledge, Tillinghast, Clement and Mathews showing up at Tamalpais a century after they created these bikes...but just before Rock Shox, Marzocchi, Manitou came along?

They Have Been Done; They Will Be Done Again

Who made the first dual-suspension folding bike?

No, it wasn't Dahon.   Nor was it Montague.  Even Moulton's double-shock folder has antecedents.

We may not ever know for sure who made the very first bike of this type.  I did find out, though,that one was made 100 years ago by a company that's still making bikes.

Perhaps not surprisingly, it was developed for use in war.  Some of the earliest foldable or collapsible bikes were made for soldiers to carry on their backs. Some, like the one I'm about to mention, even had mounts for guns or rifles.

In 1915, all of the major European powers were embroiled in World War I.  Some of the best-known developments of that conflict are the machine gun (which is said to have inspired the ratcheting freewheel) and chemical weaponry.  It may also have spawned bicycles with suspension and some of the earliest foldable bikes.

Bianchi Dual-Suspension Folding Bike, 1915

A bike that could both bounce and fold was created for the Italian Army by--you guessed it--Bianchi.  The company claims that it was the first of its type.  That may well be true, but it's always difficult to say that anything was a "first" in cycling because so many designs simply disappeared without a trace only to be resurrected, sometimes by "inventors" who had no idea of their previous existence.

Still, I don't think folks at Bianchi are stretching the truth very much, if at all, when they say the dual-suspension folding bike they created for the Italian Army in 1915 was the first of its kind. There don't seem to be any records of bikes with dual suspension or folding bikes much before that date. Also, it's hard to imagine that the technology of the 19th Century--in bikes as well as manufacturing techniques--could have made suspended or folding bikes practical or widely available much before that date.

Whether or not it was the first bike of its kind, it's yet another example of how this passage from Ecclesiastes applies to the bicycle world:

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun. 

Is The Old New? Or Is The New Old?

The book of Ecclesiastes tells us "there is nothing new under the sun".

That is no doubt true of the bicycle world, especially when it comes to "innovations".

I many not be very old. (At least, that's what I tell myself.) But when younger cyclists during the '80's treated newfangled aluminum frames with awe, as their counterparts would for titanium and carbon fiber frames a decade later, I could say "Been there, done that!"

When I was first becoming an active cyclist--and learning about different kinds of bikes--during the 1970's, frames were being made from all of those materials. Now, they weren't mass market:  In constant dollars, they were far more expensive, and even more exotic, than the ones made today.  !"

But aluminum frames were of the "screwed and glued" variety made by ALAN in Italy and, later, by Vitus in France.  Carbon fiber frames were similarly constructed:  the tubes were bolted and bonded into aluminum lugs.  And titanium frames, like those from Speedwell in England, were constructed in much the same manner as fillet-brazed steel frames.

Speedwell's construction, similar to those employed by rival titanium bike-maker Teledyne, were meticulous and sound.  However, the metal used was almost pure titanuium, which resulted in a bike that was neither stiff nor strudy.  No one realized that titanium had to be alloyed.

As for aluminum, everyone involved in building bikes knew enough not to use the metal in its pure form, mainly becuse aluminum alloy components had been in use for decades.  What they didn't realize, until the Klein bicycle was designed, was that they had to increase the diameter of the tubes to get anything like the stiffness of a good steel bike.

And there was even more to learn about using carbon fiber, and the molding technologies used now were two decades away.

Although I had witnessed earlier incarnations of those kinds of bikes during my youth, I didn't realize then that aluminum and titanium frames were built during the 1890's.  They weren't as widely-used as those of iron or steel--or even wood.  But it's still instructive to note that the technologies, in their rudimentary forms, existed then.

It was also interesting to find out--as I did, just recently--that two other "innovations" associated with the last quarter-century or so actually have as long a history as that of frames made from "exotic" materials.



Believe it or not, there were patents for suspension systems and aerodynamic bars in the 1880's and 1890's.  Any attempt to cushion the ride was bound to get a reception from somebody, as the high-wheelers and "boneshakers" of the time gave even harsher rides than modern time-trial bikes with the most extreme geometries.  Also, most roads of the time were unpaved.

But it seems that less effort was put into developing suspension systems once Dr. Dunlop invented the pneumatic tire.  It not only made bikes faster than they were before, it also gave a "floating on air" sensation, as at least one rider reported.  

As for aero bars:  Well, this pair was developed more for comfort:  It gave riders an extra hand position as well as a place to rest their arms.  A few riders have told me they rode aero bars for that reason alone, and it was one of the benefits of the "cowhorn" bars I rode on my old (Italian) Bianchi track bike.

There was another reason why aerodynamic bars were developed.  To be precise, there's a reason why two men in particular--brothers--came up with their version of them.

You might have guessed that the fraternal pair were Orville and Wilbur Wright.  Yes, they used their bars in attempts to measure air drag and wind resistance, two very important considerations in their development of their gossamer-winged wonder.

All of the above illustrations came from Roads Were Not Built for Cars.

Krof

For the past few days, I've had a relapse of the respiratory illness I had during the winter.  So, I was off the bikes and generally out of commission.

I finally got out today, to go to the store.  Along the way, I saw a bike that normally wouldn't capture my attention:  one of the many department-store "mountain" bikes you see parked on the street.  However, something struck me as odd about this one:

Did you notice what was off?  Here's a shot that might give you a clue:

Did you notice that the brakes are mounted to the rear of the fork?  That was the first thing that tipped me off to something else that's wasn't quite right:  Look at the angle of the fork legs.

Yes, the fork is mounted backward.  Was it deliberately installed that way by some kid who wanted to make his bike "different"?  I don't know whether that's more or less disturbing than the other probable explanation:  Whoever assembled the bike simply didn't know any better.  

Look at how far the front wheel is from the rest of the bike:

It's not merely an aesthetic concern, however. I simply cannot imagine how the bike rides with the fork in such a position.  I would expect the shopping carts in the local supermarket to have quicker, more responsive and more accurate steering than the bike with a fork mounted that way.  In fact, with such handling, I'd be afraid to ride the bike, especially in traffic.

I wonder whether the bike's rider notices anything odd or unusual about the ride.  Perhaps he or she has never ridden anything else and so has no basis for comparison.  Perhaps  this person thinks that bikes normally handle like that one.

Now that's a scary thought--at least to me.

A Softshot Slingride

Today I saw someone riding a bike I hadn't seen in a long time.  Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me and I couldn't get my cell phone out of my bag quickly enough.  Fortunately, it was easy enough to find a photo of it on the web:

Production of Softride bicycles seems to have begun during the late 1980's.  Apparently, they're still being made.  Although I haven't seen one on the road recently, I understand they're still popular with triathaloners. 


Softride bicycles appeared around the same time that Rock Shox forks first came onto the market, and other then-radical bicycle designs were being developed. 


Nearly all other bikes with suspension are designed to suspend the bike.  This makes sense when you realize that modern suspension systems were first developed mainly for mountain bikes.  Someone who's hopping over creeks or "jumping" from a rock face doesn't expect to be comfortable upon landing.  However, he or she wants the bike to remain as stable as possible, as this is the best way to keep the bike moving forward and prevent an accident.  


At least, I came to that conclusion from my own experiences of off-road riding. 


On the other hand, according to the designers of Softride, their stated goal was to "suspend the rider, not the bike."  Now, I'll admit that my time on a Softride was very limited and I thought it was uncomfortably bouncy.  However, other riders seemed to master it, or simply became accustomed to the sensation.  If they did, I can see why some liked it:  The shocks incurred on the road aren't nearly as great as one experiences in the woods and mountains.  Plus, road riders tend to spend more time and ride longer distances on their bikes.  So some might like a cushier bike. And, I suppose triathaloners might like the comfort of such a bike because they have to switch, sometimes abruptly, from the swimming or running segment to the cycling part of the race.


Around the same time Softride bikes made their appearance, an old riding buddy took to both the roads on a bike like this one:

This was yet another approach to suspension.  My old riding buddy, an engineering school dropout, once explained the principle behind it for me. I've since forgotten how it's supposed to work--or maybe I never understood it in the first place.  But he swore by Slingshots:  He had a mountain as well as a road version. 



I rode his bikes a few times.  While I wasn't entirely convinced by them, they made more sense to me than Softrides ever did.  


It's been at least a dozen years since I've ridden a Slingshot (or, for that matter, a Softride).  So, please forgive me if my memory is faulty and my description of the ride is less-than-detailed.  

People who have driven the Citroen GS or its descendants remark upon the fluid tautness of its suspension.  I have only ridden in such a car, but I could feel the difference between it and the "springier" suspension of American cars. The Slingshot's suspension felt something like the hydropneumatic system of a Citroen, on steroids.  


I might actually buy a Slingshot if I were going to have a barn full of bikes. (They're still being made, as they were back in the '90's, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.) But being limited to four bikes (still more than most people have, I know!), I am leery about paying full price for such a radical bike.


If I were a collector, I'd probably have at least one Slingshot and a Softride.  What I'd really like, though, is for Slingshot and Softride to collaborate on a mixte frame!