Rocky Mountain Builds Custom Bike For Wade Simmons

How’s this for a #flashbackfriday?

Except the bike isn’t a flashback itself, it’s more of an homage, specifically to the bikes made by Rocky Mountain that Canuck frorider Wade Simmons has piloted over his career. To celebrate the longstanding relationship between the ‘Grandfather of Freeride’ and Rocky Mountain, the iconic Canadian brand has fabricated a fully custom, one-off alloy mountain bike frame in its Vancouver development centre. Complete with gussets, CNC linkages and an enormous bashguard, it’s even been painted purple and gold for all you retro-lovers out there. There’s few details on the bike itself, but who cares – let’s just look at it, and you can read the full press release from Rocky below.

Nope, it’s not the Pipeline, but a Pipedream.

You won’t be able to buy this. Maybe if you give birth to a riding genre and stay sponsored by the same bike company for a few decades, you’ll have one made for you too.

Gussets! Purple!!

‘Ooh baby I like it raaaaw’

External cable routing and bashguards – making a comeback?

That’s a whole load of fork travel on the front. Suitable for froriding then.

Original Frorider.

Press Release

Wade Simmons has been in the freeride game since the beginning. He’s left his mark on our sport through an extensive catalogue of images and video segments, showcasing his creative ability to conquer any line with unmistakable style. Simply put, Wade’s career has been driven by his desire to do something different. While watching the old footage of himself riding in The Moment, he couldn’t help but get nostalgic about the bikes that helped shape his career.

Bikes like the Pipeline, Switch, RMX, RM7, and RM9 were the tools of Wade’s trade. To him, these were the bikes that had soul. The “Thrust Link”, “NE 3”, and “3D Link” were some of the iconic technologies that made these bikes special.

Old school meets new school.

#notTodmorden

EOL: Evidence Of Loam.

Wade is what we call an “ideas man.” Fueled by Wade’s creativity, Rocky Mountain Bicycles decided to build a very special bike, founded on nostalgia and designed to modern day standards.”Tapping into some of his old favourite lines, this is a story of Wade Simmons’ Pipedream.

Gussets and linkage plates were an iconic look of the early 2000’s. Riders like Wade were beginning to push mountain biking in a new direction, and the frame designs were changing to meet their demands. From 49mm straight head tubes to adding extra gussets for flair, the Pipedream embodies the classic spirit of freeride.

Rocky still prototypes custom frames in its North Vancouver workshop.

Many of the early Rocky Mountain freeride bikes had a feature that allowed you to mount the rear shock in 3 different locations. This was known as “NE 3,” and required a plates on either side of the shock with a cross-brace to stiffen everything torsionally. While having a bit of fun with cross-bracing designs, the NE 3 Man was born.

The 3D Link was a CNC milled feature on our full suspension bikes of the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Platforms like the Element, Edge, and Slayer all had versions of the 3D Link, which made it a natural addition to Wade’s Pipedream.

The Rocky Mountain Bicycles Development Centre is located at the foot of Vancouver’s North Shore mountains, and is home base for all of our product development. It’s here that we weld our prototype frames, test new ideas, and fine tune the details. Long time Rocky Mountain Bicycles welder Al Kowalchuk worked on this custom project, delivering an incredible finished product.