Investigating a bike mentioned on another thread that I had not heard of, I found this pic:

Personally I think it looks ridiculous, but I can appreciate that for someone who has grown up idolising it, it may have taken on a desirability beyond pure aesthetics!

i dont really understand it, but i can see where ibis might have gone from this to the mojo…

There was a brief time when unified rear triangle bikes, with high and forward pivots, were quite popular, although rubbish by today’s standards. Doing away with a main pivot must have had one or two advantages.

It certainly didn’t look like much else!

I’d love to see an Orange X bike. High pivot URTs made of lots and lots of thick walled steel. Anyone got a photo of one of those?

Ah the Bow Ti… a thing of lust for Ibis fans worldwide 🙂

That’s the one, although the pivot is a lot lower than I remembered.

Love the length of that stem!

I visited the Orange factory and they gave me a X frame for nowt. then at the Bingley race meet I spent a good hour telling them it was shit and why were they sticking with unified when there were much better designs about.

i always wanted one of these even though i knew they would ride like pants

Some got their rear suspension pretty much right first time.

more here

one of those orange x1 frames is in our drying room at work complete with rockshox and a huge stem 😉

got an ibis bowti and thrashed it out in the hills tonight, its a fab bike with 5 inches of travel. awesome, love it, ride it a lot and dont care if people love it or hate cos its basically just a fine bike. most people have never ridden one often or hard, so dont believe them if they rubbish it. its a good bike.

a friend of mine back in 94 ish i think had a rigid frame but was made of some kind of flex material – like plastic or something. It was really springy when pumping the pedals – anyone got any ideas what it was?

I thought it was proflex or something like that. I can remember that it wasnt alu,steel etc and it was black plastic but not carbon.

there were carbon bikes back then but typically they were very stiff. the only thing that sounds similar was the breezers that had a saddle mounted on some sort of flex arm for sus.

I seem to remember it being very wobbly but not having any suspension. I had a flexi-stem so it was round that era. It looked a bit like the klein above but black shiny plastic with jade graphics.

Anyway its not important.

Freeandsingle, is that a titanium bike?

paydirt! I went looking for a pic of this, but wasn’t expecting to find so much purple anodising!

i had a marin with the manitou ‘forks’ suspension at the rear

it was sh!t

Amp “right first time”? If you believe mba, sure, they flexed like *** though, and as for riding them with lose pivots OMG111

Love the Bow-ti ~ although that guy could do with one a lot smaller! Any bike looks rubbish if it is a large size with only 2″ of seatpost showing!

BTW saw a mint OX out on the Quantocks the other day, complete with colour matching swing arm and Quadras!

That Manitou FS is just amazing. I remember going into Nottingham when I was about 15 when sshockwave cycles had them in. It was the ultimate boutique bike shop and it was like a pilgrimage. Grafton speed controllers, ringle stuff.

Ooooof I’m getting too excited now….

try and find a decent manitou frame that hasnt cracked, beautiful but not many seem to have survived, sob sob, sshockwave had them in with mountain goats and funks… ah bisto.

Ah the Orange X1, my first full suspension bike! Bought mine late summer 96 after saving up all my cash from my summer job before I went back to school to do my A levels.

Mine had a black swingarm, Pace MD forks (a whopping 75mm!), XT mechs and V brakes (wow they were a revelation back then!), LX cranks and hubs, Gripshift SRT800 shifters (which I fitted the sharktooth grips to, anyone remember these?), and the rest was Orange own brand finishing kit, including a cromoly seatpost (yes really!), 130mm looooooooong stem and 22″ wide flat bars!

It quickly grew some 26″ wide 2″ rise Azonic bars, the original Ritchey tyres got dumped in no time for a Panaracer Smoke and a Dart, and I fitted a Dave’s Chain Device!

Despite being a URT it actually rode reasonably well. The bigger problems with the bike than the suspension design were the 1″ headtube meaning trying to get a shorter stem was a nightmare, The Stratos shock was totally unadjustable apart from air pressure and was a bit poo, and the Pace forks flexed like mad! A half decent shock, better forks and shorter stem would really have sorted it out.

2retro4u
Marin County, Cali

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Orwell was a f#@king optimist.

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Repackrider, who made that one? Is it a one-off or a production frame? DarkenedDreams, yup, Ti I believe!

cynic-al – Member
Amp “right first time”? If you believe mba, sure, they flexed like *** though, and as for riding them with lose pivots OMG111

buying the design doesn’t seem to have harmed Specialized much though

Yeh that Amp was the way forward in geometry if not in execution..

repack rider – Brian Skinner frame?

sh1t 😛 fold up i i got on one 😆

i used to have an orange X1 just like that but with pace forks, loved it. shame the shock wasn’t more reliable!