Much as I love my own, it would appear that there have been no threads started on Orange Fives for at twenty four hours – maybe more!

This situation is completely unacceptable, and must be addressed – NOW

The only full susser I really fancy owning, and I will one day, once they start pricing it like a bicycle and not a piece of exotic Yorkshire jewellery 😀

Tha' knows.

+1 once top tubee they get rid of the awful looking kinked

"Rusty Spanner – Member
The only full susser I really fancy owning, and I will one day, once they start pricing it like a bicycle and not a piece of exotic Yorkshire jewellery

Tha' knows. "

me too!

yep there pretty sweet.

Just finished building mine last night!! Managed to get a 2008 frame in good nick off eBay and stripped my P7 pro 2010 frame to make what is basically a five pro. My first ever build and my first full suss bike – led by YouTube and park tools website – a hell of a lot easier than I expected – but only have ridden it up and down the street – it could fall to be bits 😉

Thee used to av one though knows ,reet good pushiron ,built int Fax by blokes not bloody robots

Over priced tat.

you do realise that due to the single-pivot design, using the back brake turns it into a hardtail?

(cue someone telling me to brake less, cue me inviting them to come and say that at wharncliffe)

£1300 is a lot of money for a hardtail…

lol i luv my orange 5 pro but it needs some kind of 'onboard bouyancy' for this rediculus weather we are encounting at the mo..lol

Did you read that in MBUK or do you just believe Spesh's marketing, ahwiles? 🙄

of course braking does have an effect, just as it does on four bars. Some bikes will be affected more than others but none become a hardtail.

clubber: i've ridden one.

i've ridden several.

i also design / ride / race my own frames (i pay someone else to do the welding). i'm an engineer and brake-lock is something i've been studying for years.

Ellsworth are about as good as it gets for a 'neutral braking' design, kona are even better if you get the brake arm thing, and the trek ABP design is nothing more than a very clever way of side-stepping the specialized patent.

single-pivot designs have their strengths, but 'neutral-under-braking' isn't one of them.

(anyway, you fell for my troll, so i win a point!)

one of mine – also made in yorkshire, by men in sheds

(parallelogram designs like mine are totally neutral under braking)

I have one and wouldn't change it for the world. 1 set of bearings, it rides everything i want to from dh & dirtjumps to full on xc/trail center rides.
I've seen alot of people say they are over priced…they are made in the UK on a small scale which costs a huge amount more. Brands such as Lappierre, Commencal etc are making their frames in Taiwan and in some cases charging more but i don't see many complaining bout the price of those?
To anyone thinking about buying one, they are worth the dosh! They are also one of the few frames that hold their value well.

(parallelogram designs like mine are totally neutral under braking)

and looks bowfing, sorry im sure it works well but you need to employ some marketing bods and get some uber graphics to obscure how painful that is to the eyes.

i wont mention the wall.

ahwiles very intresting but looks pretty complecated at the rear.
Is this due to your expierances of testing?
Whats it like for side loading over excessive speed and sharp skid turns.

Have you considered curving the bottom of the seat
tubing and then attaching the rocker braket to the Down Tube?

Hmmm looks both stiff and joy to maintain!

I find a Five fine under breaking also but what would I know… I swear people look for problems that don't exist.

Could'nt agree more with the above really Has why is
Single pivot bikes still making top reviews.
Cant see why to over complecate things
to expensive to up keep and maintaine.

one of mine – also made in yorkshire, by men in sheds

(parallelogram designs like mine are totally neutral under braking)

Looks like it'd jack badly under braking…

Orange look very expensive. Its not just UK production its the whole 6061 T6 process. Expensive but must have a big impact on reliability and durability

I ride my five in wharncliffe. Quickest xc bike I have had when it comes to the downhills. Maybe I should saw up a couple of dmr frames and weld them to my bike ala the wiles abortion. Might make me quicker. Or it might just be heavy, ugly, over complicated and slow.

i had really bad brake jack with my 5

but i did'nt get on with it at all

bottom bracket was too low, a 5" head tube on a small frame is terrible

oh and an uneven rear wheel, in fact my mate sent his back to rectify this and they just twisted the rear end and re-sprayed it

Rear end locking under braking isn't really that much of an issue, especially on a 5, when you consider that you only ever notice it on fast Alpine style descents going into braking bumps (pretty much the braking extremes for most MTB's).

I've had loads of single pivot and multi pivot bikes, and I'm a big fan of Orange because they feel just right; that's not to say other manufacturer's bikes won't feel that way to other people. I've concluded that all these arguments for and against 4-bar, faux-bar, single pivot, VPP, i-drive… is largely marketing crap. These days, most mainstream manufacturers build good suspension bikes, with so little to choose between them performance wise, that a lot comes down to geometry, brand image, brand loyalty, and marketing. Certain magazines also like to shove their opinions quite forcefully. The only type of sus' design I will never have again is URT.

Hats off to ahwiles for producing his own frame based on what he believes to be correct. Seriously, I do admire anyone who produces their own stuff. Aesthetically it puts me in mind of the old Yeti Lawwill, though it looks functionally like the Giant NRS system.

edit: trail moggy, my very 1st sub 5 was well out of alignment at the back, so much so that Orange tok it back and refunded the shop. 15 mins into each ride the rear shock mounts and mech hanger would undo themselves. having said that, 've had a fair few Orange since and never again had an alignment problem.

mine was the first orange 5, in fact 3 of us bought them and every one had alignment problems, and as i said they just twisted the rear end which looked aweful on close inspection

as for brake jack it does exist some people just don't notice it

but the differance in a horst link and a single pivot in terms of brake jack is a little more than marketing crap

i too have ridden horst link, vpp, four bar and single pivot and by this i mean owned not just ridden for 10 minutes, and there is a real differance some have positives and negatives obviously, but the orange 5 just did'nt cut it for me.

Ahwiles – not a very elegant design is it from an engineering perspective – loads of unnecessary and pointless tubing. I'd suggest focusing on your frame design before worrying about brake jack which is largely irrelevant issue in the real world. That said, parallelograms aren't inherently impervious to braking effects though the can be in certain situations. Back to the drawing board 😉

the 5 minute explanation of brake-lock:

imagine a single pivot / swing arm design – like an orange 5, or a kona faux-bar, the brake calliper sits on the swing arm.

imagine the bike rolling along, and then the rear brake is applied.

wheel rotation becomes swingarm rotation, the swingarm compresses the shock and stays compressed until the brake is released and or the bike stops.

this effect can be usefull, as it causes the back end of the bike to sit down during braking – which can nicely balance the front end diving, keeping the bike level. some motor bike designs actually embrace this.

parallelogram designs like mine, or (nearly) Ellsworth, or the kona brake arm, the frame element to which the calliper is attached does not rotate during braking, wheel rotation cannot become suspension compression.

unless you've ridden an ellsworth (or any old-school 4-bar with a long horizontal top link), or a kona with a brake arm, or one of mine, then you haven't ridden a bike with neutral braking.

most people don't notice brake-lock, i do, and i don't like it.
(and as mildred points out, even i only really notice it on alpine washboard section, mind you, i no longer get any arm pump riding down alps, – seriously, none)

Brake lock: not an issue for most people, only an issue for me in extreme situations, some people even like it – even if they don't notice it.

X

(yes, the white bike is ugly, and?)

(specialized bikes, treks, lapierres, etc, are NOT neutral under-braking, they have a chainstay pivot, but the rest of the design doesn't take full advantage of it)

You fell for it so I get my point back :p The design looks fine though I'm sure it could be simplified still and fair play for actually getting out there and getting it made.

Thanks for the explanation above but I was also an engineer and understand it perfectly well thanks 😉 I do hope that's just a simplified version though and not your full understanding since you've completely missed out the force created when the back wheel is braking, effectively pulling the bike backwards against its momentum… It's pretty key in determining how a bike responds to braking and is the reason why parallelogram designs aren't necessarily brake neutral… In fact, by removing any effect of the caliper on the linkages, they can actually be worse if there's nothing counteracting the force from the rear wheel when braking.

FWIW, I currently own a horst (enduro) and a low pivot faux bar (Rocky Mountain Element) full sussers but have also had various others as well as testing a lot more (including a five FWIW). Still don't find it a major issue even on the bike that was the worst for it (Scott G-Zero, middle chainring position single pivot, not inherently unlike the five) as it only manifests itself to any significant margin in quite specific circumstances.

Edit – re-reading your explanation I'm actually wondering if you're including the rear wheel drag force but am not quite sure since you talk about the frame elements being the key.

Irrespective, looking at your frame, if the horizontal links are in exact alignment with the bike's direction of travel then I'd agree that there won't be any braking effect. Unfortunately, the situations where you tend to feel brake jack are over bumps while braking which will the mean the the suspension is compressed or extended. While in those positions, there will be an effect of the suspension since the braking force from the back wheel will be trying to pull the linkages back into the horizontal position.

psh.. who uses a back brake anyway?