I'm intrigued by Chinese carbon.
Every time I'm about to pull the trigger there's another frame design incoming.
This one however stumps me a little.
There are trek style designs, there are horst link style designs, DW copies and vpp copies... however the new FLybike/Carbonda bike has a solid rear triangle … I assumed this means linkage driven single pivot but its described by someone who very likely knows more than me (which in my case isn't much) as a "four bar design with one piece rear triangle"
Are any mainstream brands doing anything like this?
Most single piece rear triangle bikes seem to use a short link between the seat tube and rear triangle as far as I've seen
I think that's just a single pivot with a linkage driven shock. In a proper multi-link design, there should be more than one pivot between the rear axle and the front triangle. In that, the rear axle is mounted into the rear subframe, which then connects to the front triangle with a single pivot just above the bottom bracket. The rear axle follows a circular path around that pivot. Faux-bar, not 4-bar.
The arrangement of the linkages will affect the linearity of the spring. A frame intended for coil springs will probably be different from one tailored for air springs, and the damper may need a custom tune to match that, but the axle path is determined only by the location of the lower pivot. The other linkages play no part in the axle path.
Thought I was going mad and just saw exactly the same post from @mally. I'm not going mad, I really did.
But yes, looks like someone in marketing has counted the links but not understood what they're connected to. I'd agree that it's a linkage driven single pivot bike.
Looks similar to Giant but with a harrizontal shock, some Santa Cruz designs, focus, and maybe Intense. Lots of solid rear triangles about for a long time.
My ibis also uses a fixed rear triangle. However, the difference is that they all have a short link between the bottom bracket cluster and the triangulated swingarm. This doesn't
Yeah that's not a 4-bar. Linkage driven shock and single pivot
Some 4-bar frames don't have a pivot on the chainstay and rely on flex in the chainstay, but that is a fixed triangle so it's not that.
You can have fixed triangle that is swung on an upper and lower link...but that's different again.
There are technically four bars so I suppose you can claim it but in MTB terms 4-bar means something else, specifically the Horst Link system, used by Specialized for example. A DW link is also technically a four bar system but not a "4-bar"
I was initially going to say that looks like DW link (Ibis ripmo) because it looks like a small link at the bottom pivot. But it's not... It's a single pivot.
DrP
I'm liking the geometry. I like the idea of chinese carbon frames, especially now the geometry has caught up with modern trends. However, i always a worry about quality/warranty issues. Have you looked into many frames? Any idea who the good manufacturers are?