Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 51 total)
  • Robot Bike Co – r160
  • neilforrow
    Full Member

    What’s people’s thoughts on this one then?

    Lot of ££ for a frame, but the potential / options would be endless.

    Edit: on the front page: http://singletrackworld.com/2016/05/robot-bike-company-r160-like-nothing-youve-ever-seen/

    http://m.pinkbike.com/news/robot-bike-co-r160-first-look-2016.html

    Gets my vote for the fresh thinking alone.

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    No bottle cage mounts, therefore not enduro enough.

    🙂

    mikey74
    Free Member

    I think it’s a thing of beauty and I look forward to the prices coming down, eventually.

    wwaswas
    Full Member

    Fascinating engineering. It’s great people are doing stuff like this.

    In a world where I had the money I’d buy one, I’d love just looking at it.

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    It is pretty porny, though.

    Reminds me of some of the bonkers earlier MTB experiments such as;


    Whatever happened to beryllium, eh?

    beej
    Full Member

    I was at the launch accidentally, visiting the Renishaw innovation centre as a work thing. It’s interesting engineering, some of the other laser sintered examples they’ve got are very impressive.

    andyl
    Free Member

    I like the double lap joints by creating a groove for the tubes to slot into.

    The brake mounts look a bit flimsy next to the rest of the frame though.

    It does make me think of scaffolding poles though.

    philxx1975
    Free Member

    So ugly only its mother could love it

    if the future of bikes is creating ugly to suit the process I’m oooot

    philxx1975
    Free Member

    Story on front page says like nothing youv’e ever seen

    http://bastion-cycles.com/ really because everyone seems to be doing it

    oooh look 3d printed titanum lugs and tubes from down under http://bastion-cycles.com/process/

    TheDTs
    Free Member

    It is a bit

    isn’t it.

    wrecker
    Free Member

    Oh a mountain bike for Bugatti Veyron owners! they will be pleased.

    EdwardH
    Full Member

    Am I the only who one thinks that those titanium lugs will be a right bugger to keep clean?

    Speeder
    Full Member

    I like it a lot, great to see some different thinking, especially as it doesn’t need stupid swoopy tubes.

    If I win the lottery I’ll consider it but being as all my bikes combined don’t add up to the price of a single frame that’s the only way it’ll happen.

    Good luck to them, there’s lots of money out there, lets just hope it’s looking for the ultimate mountainbike.

    chiefgrooveguru
    Full Member

    That’s great, clever thinking! I’m curious to see how they generate suggested geometry based on height, arm span and leg length. Also trying to work out how this new DW6 suspension works – anyone know what’s going on with the three pivots near the BB?

    mickmcd
    Free Member

    anyone know what’s going on with the three pivots near the BB

    Looks like the third is a stiffener come tie pin,I’ve seen separate materials done like this to save on build time cost and weight, some parts we used to bond magnesium in between plates to achieve the same

    chiefgrooveguru
    Full Member

    Right, that makes more sense! So there’s a short link between seat stay and seat tube and a super short link between chainstay and seat tube. I wonder where the instant centre is projected?

    I know the Split Pivot puts the instant centre with respect to rear axle at the chainstay-seat tube pivot but the instant centre with respect to rear axle is projected from the seatstay-seat tube pivot pair and rear axle-chainstay-seat tube pivot pair, so the anti-squat (pedalling) and anti-rise (braking) can be tuned independently.

    mickmcd
    Free Member

    theres two little linkages buried down there ,maybe they counterrotate

    bigdean
    Full Member

    Its not stretching the technology much though is it.
    Most people could glue some tubes together in their garage with bit of thought (I’ve tried it).

    Ben_H
    Full Member

    This is the closest I’m ever likely to come to industry insider knowledge, so listen up people! 😉

    I spoke to someone close to Robot bike today – at my children’s swimming lessons of all places.

    He’s not a biking person and was a bit surprised I’d heard about it only a day after launch. He said that the growth plans were for a 120mm (?) suspension frame and then a hardtail.

    He said there had been some very close attention paid to pricing and that the USP was thought to be mass customisation (i.e. the geometry offer). It was felt that not many other manufacturers would be able to combine this offer with the materials.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    theres two little linkages buried down there ,maybe they counterrotate

    Looks like it. If he’d put a split pivot in there too he could have claimed to be using every suspension design going!

    duir
    Free Member

    It’s a DW link, so the bearings will need fully replacing every 3-4 weeks.

    You can get a fully bespoke, hand made Nicolai with almost infinite customisation for almost half that price with the added bonus of massive durability and customisation.

    no_eyed_deer
    Free Member

    Looks like something very exclusive from the 90s… MOAR titanium! MOAR carbon!

    I like it, but couldn’t give a monkeys for the ‘custom fitted’ nature of the frame. Maybe I’m just very average. All my frames (erm.. 11) fit me very differently, yet they are all great in their different ways.

    cookeaa
    Full Member

    Custom geometry with 3D printed lugs you say?

    Ahem, this very idea might have been tossed around STW 2 years ago When bitching about another Renishaw 3d printing bike based technical exercise…

    So yeah, there are no original ideas anymore…

    mrblobby
    Free Member

    Thought one of the main benefits of carbon was the fancy forms and being able to lay material where it’s needed to optimise strength to weight. Tubes and lugs all seems a bit old school.

    neilforrow
    Full Member

    Not sure they are professing to have come up with the individual processes, it more of a refined package. As cookeaa pointed out, there have been several similar stabs at bikes like this, and I’m guessing there will be more in the future.

    I Love the concept and fact that it offers something a lot of riders are looking for at that end of the market i.e. customisation.

    johnnystorm
    Full Member

    CaptainFlashheart
    Whatever happened to beryllium, eh?

    From Wikipedia:

    American Bicycle Manufacturing of St. Cloud, Minnesota, briefly offered a frameset made of beryllium tubes (bonded to aluminum lugs). Given the toxic nature of the material and the pricing ($26,000 for frame and fork), they never caught on. Reports were that the ride was very harsh, but the frame was also very laterally flexible.[52]

    Oof. Laterally compliant and vertically stiff! 😀

    dragon
    Free Member

    Utterly pointless outside of a uni students final year project.

    It’s like a mtb version of the Merlin Cielo which came out in 2009!

    AlexSimon
    Full Member

    dragon – I’m sure Independent Fabrication were doing it long before then.
    But it’s a bit different (and not as pretty) to be doing it by machine to order.

    Anyway – It’s not for me, but I wish them luck.

    M6TTF
    Free Member

    it’d have to be quick to ride that, its a reet munter

    woody74
    Full Member

    I don’t like to slag off something new and I do hope it does well, but they really should employ an industrial designer and graphic designer. With 3D printing you can have some lovely shapes but the lugs just look awful, especially the ST/TT lug. I think it is certainly the start of things to come.

    philxx1975
    Free Member

    With 3D printing you can have some lovely shapes

    That is topology optimization not industrial design

    cookeaa
    Full Member

    I Love the concept and fact that it offers something a lot of riders are looking for at that end of the market i.e. customisation.

    Not to disagree with myself but custom geometry in carbonfibre doesn’t actually need fancy 3D printed lugs.

    The likes of parlee, several smaller scale builders and lots of hobbyists have been doing it using the more “traditional” method of mitred tubes glued and filleted with epoxy, then joints wrapped over with pre-preg and compressed to form what is essentially a composite lug…

    I Can’t really see how a titanium lug is any “better” or cheaper, other than in man hours maybe?

    It’s a technical novelty, with the inherent bling factor that comes with using Titanium more than anything else…

    LAT
    Full Member

    Custom angles may not need 3D printing, but this is the method Robot have chosen to make their frames. i think there is more to what they are doing than bling and novelty.

    philxx1975
    Free Member

    http://pencerw.com/feed/2015/3/15/3d-printing-titanium-and-the-bin-of-broken-dreams

    I borrowed the link from a well known framebuilding forum.

    khani
    Free Member

    I like it, if the bits are replaceable and you could un bond the tubes from the lugs then you really could have a bike for life, even down to changing the angles and wheel size, top tube length, repair.. whatever…
    New head tube sir! what size, angle, headset would you like? Let me print that for you..
    Longer top and down tube, what length would you like?
    29/650-fat++++ back end? Here you go..
    New bottom bracket, what type?
    I understand that these particular bikes probably don’t offer most of that but as a construction model theres a lot of potential I reckon.

    kcr
    Free Member

    Not to disagree with myself but custom geometry in carbonfibre doesn’t actually need fancy 3D printed lugs.

    Yes, surely you could get pretty close to the same level of customisation by just mass producing lugs with a range of angles, using a cheaper process (basically extending what they must have done anyway for all previous lug and tube designs). 3D printing seems a bit of a gimmick in this application.

    The whole concept of infinitely customisable geometry is pretty niche for 90% of us anyway. Mike Burrows really challenged the whole idea that a hand built custom geometry frame was the be all and end all when he came up with the idea of small medium and large for Giant. Most bikes will have a few more size options nowadays, but standard sizes with customised posts and stems seems to work fine for most people.

    chiefgrooveguru
    Full Member

    You can’t change a single tube length without having to change at least one other tube length and the angles of at least three lugs. Mass produced lugs could never offer the wide range of sizing let alone variations on angles, BB height and so on.

    mickmcd
    Free Member

    Mass produced lugs could never offer the wide range of sizing let alone variations on angles, BB height and so on.

    I think you will find a time comparison and cost between the two will be very similar and the Pi joint was originally pegged mainly for composites

    in other news before I left industry (which was composites ) there was a project called SLCOM this was fibre reinforced 3d woven composites and they were pretty bloody indestructable

    phutphutend
    Free Member

    Or you could have a custom geometry steel bike that looks great and rides fantastically for 1/3 price…

    http://www.starlingcycles.com

    FunkyDunc
    Free Member

    is it a bit like this ?

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