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I don’t believe they do make an inferior product. I wouldn’t buy one if I did. Not that I am buying one anyway as they are too expensive
If they're too expensive, that's exactly the same as saying there are better products available for the same money. That means you are accepting an inferior product based on it being locally made.
Probably fine for short track races and punching up climbs but constant tugging back on the cranks gets annoying and tiring on longer rides IMO.
Current Scott Spark owner here, and I’ve never noticed any tugging back through the pedals. It does stiffen up when braking heavily downhill on multiple “stutter” bumps though, and is sensitive to rebound - better running a slower rebound on root littered trail to balance the flex stays*.
*I think, im not a mechanical genius but it feels better to me.
If they’re too expensive, that’s exactly the same as saying there are better products available for the same money
No, that assumes that spending more elsewhere would get you something better. But in this case "better" is so subjective that these discussions make little sense. We buy the bikes we like, whatever the criteria, and we enjoy them. We pay the money we want to pay.
Just for balance I only ride hardtails (now) so my knees are my suspension. They’re single pivot.
I have a Starling Murmur (non-linkage single pivot) and came from a V4 Nomad (VPP). I definitely feel like the Nomad was a bit more active under braking than the Murmur. The Murmur feels better pretty much everywhere else though. Hard to compare directly though, as there are a lot of other differences between the bikes.
Current Scott Spark owner here, and I’ve never noticed any tugging back through the pedals.
Not ridden a Spark TBH. Some are better than others. But put your back wheel up against a wall and compress the suspension, the cranks will rotate back slightly.
Just for balance I only ride hardtails (now) so my knees are my suspension. They’re single pivot.
You will also be using your angles and hips so not single pivot at all.
Another linkage/flex stay single pivot:
Photo near the bottom
The brake mounts have been decoupled from the swingarm to isolate braking forces and reduce weight.
(my bold)
Any of you guys able to explain how this works?
Just looks like it has been decoupled from the seatstay - so is unaffected by the flex in the seatstays.
Who loves them
Me.
My Orange is a brilliant mix of fun and capable.
I've owned many, many MTBs and some other suspension layouts undoubtedly handle some types of terrain better - but the only place I actually struggle a bit on the Orange is proper steep & rough, where my fingers involuntarily grab the brake levers. More skilled riders may not have this issue.
A few broad thoughts on different suspension layouts I've owned...
Four bar - Generally good, but pedal bob can become an issue on some bikes (old Mega 290). Others were very sprightly (Zesty).
DW - Very good, responsive under power but more neutral/less engaging feel than a single-pivot. Might be my ideal choice for a big bike.
Maestro - As above.
Faux-bar / linkage SP - Predicatable, involving, more feedback than the above. Like a "slightly less SP" feel. Konas didn't pedal well.
ABP - A good compromise, basically felt like a lively four-bar.
Mondraker Cero - Very supple & composed, pedals great, felt like a hot knife through butter on rocks. Actually this would be my choice for a long travel bike.
I didn't think locking out under braking was actually too bad as it felt quicker than with the brake isolated via floating arm as you would just skim over the bumps. Certainly the best results were with no floating arm. This was going back to the 222 though.
I honestly think it's a bit over thought for most people including myself. as long as the angles are good, the rebound is controlled and the sag is set and it doesnt blow through the travel they all do the same thing.
I wouldn't have an Orange again though. No bottle cage mount. Which is the actual issue.
Shock tune makes a big difference, a mate was horrified that my 20 yr old Marin East Peak with the original non-adjustable Fox shock was plusher than his shiny new Orange Five with its fancy tuneable shock, admittedly his bike didn't bounce like a pogo stick going uphill.
Just looks like it has been decoupled from the seatstay – so is unaffected by the flex in the seatstays.
Other way round maybe? If the brake was on the chainstay it would cause the chainstay to flex (given it’s designed to flex). That might cause both odd (lopsided even?) suspension action and the possibility of the calliper moving relative to the disc (bad for the pistons).
Possibly a flexing chainstay that carried the calliper would cause brake rub too.
But from the pics it is clearly attached to the chainstay, not the seatstay. The interesting bit is that the forward end of the post-mount structure appears to be built in to the chainstay, the back end appears to pivot separately on the axle rather than being built in. I guess that helps keep the structure smooth and symmetrical side-to-side so it can flex evenly. It will cause the chainstay to flex, but the chainstays are no doubt build strong to reduce that to acceptable levels. With this type of design, you can choose where you build in the flex, and you want to attach the brake caliper to a non-flexy part.
Edit got seatstay and chainstay mixed up myself doh
Yeah I don't think it does anything clever to the suspension kinematics, it just attaches the brake only to the chainstay, allowing the seat stays to flex as designed.
Scott Sparks are similar:
Have had two oranges and a couple of Kona single pivot faux bar bikes. Both konas bobbed a lot under pedalling. I "fixed" it on the last stinky with a better shock which meant I could just turn the back end off while climbing.
The oranges are absolute hooligan machines. The first, an alpine 160, climbed ok, but it would be comprehensively pounded into the ground by the later alpine 6. I don't know how, but it's a proper mountain goat and will spring up things to my astonishment (I'm not a climber, at all). I've never really noticed either misbehaving under braking. It might squat, it certainly doesn't jack (the eldest kona probably did this as its main pivot was behind the BB). The 6 is like driving a bulldozer downhill, you sort of aim it and hang on, the bike will get you there no matter what's in the way.
I've a whyte e180 which is a proper 4 bar bike. It generally rides just like the 6, but there's something wrong with their kinematics - without very precise shock pressure control it has a tendency to collapse somewhere between mid-stroke and full travel.
I'd quite fancy a modern linkage driven single pivot like a Yeti ASX;
https://www.thebikelist.co.uk/yeti/asx-2007-frame
This seemed to have the benefits of an Orange style system - mud clearance, big main pivot bearing out of the way of filth - with some additional stiffness and adjustment of the shock curve.
Whyte / Marins Quadlink 2 system was a 4 bar with some of the same benefits.
As has already been said, the variation within systems is larger than the variation between them.
It's all trade-offs. I prefer a fairly linear, high anti-squat bike - one of the reasons I bought my Bird.
I loved the old Coiler too!
I'm going to own up to not really being that sensitive to the differences in suspension systems.
I've owned a couple of linkage driven single pivot Konas, a couple of Horst pivot Specializeds and one Lawill Yeti (many, many bearings) as well as having the odd borrow of an Orange.
They all squished and bounced and massaged my abilities as far as they could. The suspension layout was never the limiting factor.
Brake Jack/Squat only matters when you use the brake, there's a simple fix for that 😉
The one thing I would like to play with is a (cheap) longish travel, concentric BB pivot type bike.
More for it's zero chain growth, single speeding possibilities, as I understand it would make for a "terrible" pedalling bike, but if it were exclusively for uplifting (DH use), I could see such a machine being great fun...
I do think MTB suspension suffers a bit from over analysis, some things can actually benefit from a more 'agricultural' approach being taken...
“
I do think MTB suspension suffers a bit from over analysis, some things can actually benefit from a more ‘agricultural’ approach being taken…”
I’d argue that the reason most bikes have decent suspension now is that things have been analysed properly. If you look through the Linkage Design blog you’ll see that most bikes of a given intent have converged on similar kinematics, whilst 10+ years ago they were all over the place. And those similar kinematics are despite the designs being different types.
Edit got seatstay and chainstay mixed up myself doh
Not as badly as me when re-read what I wrote. Ouch.
I’d argue that the reason most bikes have decent suspension now is that things have been analysed properly. If you look through the Linkage Design blog you’ll see that most bikes of a given intent have converged on similar kinematics, whilst 10+ years ago they were all over the place. And those similar kinematics are despite the designs being different types.
I'm sure there have been improvements, how much is due to kinematics, how much to shock development?
But also how many riders really find the benefits and how many are being a bit "princess and the pea" about stuff they read in MBR?
A bike that fits well is probably more beneficial for most riders...
“I’m sure there have been improvements, how much is due to kinematics, how much to shock development?”
It’s both but if you look at the kinematics for bikes that were great ten years ago, in comparison there were lots of bikes that were hopeless (eg regressive leverage curves so they’re bad at small bumps but bottom out easily, v low anti-squat so they bob horribly, v high and rising anti-squat so the kickback is really bad, etc).
Nowadays the majority of frames have pretty decent kinematics.
“A bike that fits well is probably more beneficial for most riders…”
A bike with good geometry for how you’re using it is more beneficial. A bike that merely fits well isn’t good enough. A bike that fits well with great geometry and great suspension kinematics and a great fork and shock is best.
“But also how many riders really find the benefits”
I doubt most can isolate or explain the differences - but that doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy a bike that rides better.
Anyone remember Monolink suspension? Guess Maverick took it to the grave? Probably quite difficult to package with long dropper posts, big wheels and steeper seat tube angles these days. But a clever way of getting a rearward axle path without too much chain growth. Think I demo'd a Klein Palomino with it once.
“ Anyone remember Monolink suspension?”
It’s part of that family of suspension which is designed to work well when you’re sitting but stiffen when you stand because the BB is on the suspension linkage not the frame. Not great for anyone who stands up to descend (which I’d hope is pretty much everyone now that dropper posts are the norm). Good if you stand to pedal but sit to descend but that seems the wrong way around.
So it is. That's suboptimal. Explains why no one uses it now. Couldn't remember if it was any good or not. I do remember trying a Trek Liquid at the same time and preferring that.
I had an Orange 5 and loved it for trail centre and natural trails but I felt I had to set up the suspension differently for each trail type. I found this quite annoying as I didn't like the feel of the set up in an in-between type set up. But then that's pretty much the same for all suspension just that I noticed it more on the 5.
Out of interest, is there shocks that change their rebound as well as their sag and compression on the fly? I'm still always fiddling with rebound on my full sus when out riding.
My have already been said above but the split pivot idea is a great system for a single pivot bike, assuming you're going beyond the simplest, direct swing arm to shock Marin/Orange layout. It can give all the things I like about how a single pivot feels under pedalling (if done well) with almost no braking influence on the suspension.
Having said that if you have as many pivots as a split pivot design you could just use a 4 bar and project the VPP into the right area to get a very similar feel through most of the pedalling part of the travel. 4 bars had a past rep for being very neutral and I wasn't a fan of that feel but it's designed in, not inherent to the design.
Brake squat and jack aside, the simple effect of braking on a single pivot is that the calliper clamping the rotor prevents wheel rotation (er, as it should) but as it's preventing rotation relative to the swing arm the suspension becomes less sensitive and the wheel is more likely to skip. Whether it's a real problem when riding is subjective but it happens, it's a similar effect to Chris Porter's points on clutch mechs but often more pronounced.
Braking can effect suspension on linkage bikes also - generally squat or softening I'd expect if there is any effect from brake link rotation but it's a long time since I looked at any of those linkage graph programmes.
I prefer simple, durable and effective-enough over greater performance via complexity so a SP Starling with a good shock and no more than 120mm travel would keep me happy.
Doesn’t it all depend on what you’re after from your bike. My reason for getting suspension in the first place was to take the sting out of riding after a back injury. I wasn’t ever bothered about axle paths or anything else. For that a single pivot works perfectly. It makes my bike more comfortable to ride. I also like the idea of fewer parts that you get with the design. Of course, I tend to ride on my own so I have little to compare it against but don’t care too much whether a ‘better’ design would make me more efficient or faster.
I do wish some more companies would bring out single pivot designs at a decent price. There is still a market for them and much as I would love something like a Starling it’s well out of my budget. Come on Alpkit!
Jerm - Have a look at Dartmoor bikes.
Though I just went with secondhand Orange frames.
Doesn’t it all depend on what you’re after from your bike. My reason for getting suspension in the first place was to take the sting out of riding after a back injury. I wasn’t ever bothered about axle paths or anything else.
If I can shave 5 seconds off my descent time, I can get back into the Strava top 100. Considering I've been spending 10 hours a week for the last year sneaking in at night with a shovel to realign the trail, spending 2K on the latest suspension design seems cheap.
I think the potentially fastest downhill suspension design would be a high pivot split pivot with idler. You’ve got a linkage to drive the shock to get a good leverage curve. You can have loads of anti-squat without kickback due to the idler. You’ve got a rearward axle path from the high pivot. And you’ve also got good brake-squat (60-80% appears to be a good compromise between maintaining geometry and keeping sensitivity under braking) unlike a high single pivot where brake-squat is really high.
And now Trek have done this on their new Session.
but as it’s preventing rotation relative to the swing arm the suspension becomes less sensitive and the wheel is more likely to skip.
This is the bit I am unable to rationalise in terms of the mechanics. The braking force is a constant, so the torque it exerts on the swingarm is a constant. The braking force will therefore bias the suspension to a more compressed state when braking, but the spring rate will remain the same, so the rear suspension will continue to exhibit the same movement in response to a given force (at that point in its travel) as it would when not braking. It is not as if the effect compresses the suspension so far that you hit the bump stops, nowhere near that, it is a relatively small effect relative to the total travel.
It needs to be approached scientifically, that is measuring/observing what is actually going on, rather than starting from theory. High speed camera looking at the rear wheel sort of thing (though I am not excluding the social sciences from "science").
But as I don't have that data, my own ha'pennyworth of theory is that rear wheel locking (or at least slowing down) as you go over bumps may be an important factor. Wheel locking will impart a large slug of angular momentum to the bike. On a rigid bike, or a bike with no brake squat, that will be transferred to the whole frame, causing the front to dive and the rear to rise up*. In a "caliper attached to the swingarm" design, that will partly go to compressing the rear suspension. Then when the rear wheel makes contact with the ground again it might grip and spin up.
This is a recipe for all kinds of weird resonances taking place, which might well give the impression of the suspension not absorbing bumps correctly, but would be quite complex to model. Hence the need for data. But given all this, I am loathe to say "'brake jack' is a figment of peeps' imaginations", whilst also being sceptical as to their explanations of what it is and why they feel it more with single pivots.
*ETA which would explain why wheel locking is difficult to control and sometimes happens in an on-off-on kind of way. Once it starts, the rear wheel is unweighted so it locks even faster, then the wheel slams back down and grips again and so on.
^^ I have just remembered an example of this from my student days. I was cycling along on my Claud Butler 10 speed (2x5 not 1x!, this was 1978 or so) when an Ever Ready metal rear light fell out of my coat pocked and got jammed in the rear wheel (at least I think that was what happened). I almost went over the bars (not quite a full endo) and crashed into a tree. It was violent.
Just bought a 2020 orange stage 5 frame direct from Orange (one way to make it cheaper it seem). Can't wait to see what all the fuss is about!
This is the bit I am unable to rationalise in terms of the mechanics. The braking force is a constant, so the torque it exerts on the swingarm is a constant. The braking force will therefore bias the suspension to a more compressed state when braking, but the spring rate will remain the same, so the rear suspension will continue to exhibit the same movement in response to a given force (at that point in its travel) as it would when not braking. It is not as if the effect compresses the suspension so far that you hit the bump stops, nowhere near that, it is a relatively small effect relative to the total travel.
I don't doubt what you say about the mechanics, sounds right to me. The swingarm has to rotate relative to the wheel to compress though, and braking tends to fix the wheel position relative to the swingarm (if locked up, which of course causes skipping) but it seems that any amount of braking will create some resistance to the natural movement between the two. How much resistance isn't a Q I could answer though.
“The braking force is a constant, so the torque it exerts on the swingarm is a constant.”
I’m not sure braking force is ever constant, not for more than fractions of seconds. Is what’s actually happening not more like applying a rotational friction damper to one of the parts of suspension that needs to rotate for the suspension to move, so although the spring rate isn’t changing, a load of compression and rebound damping is being added?
Well I guess we disagree on that. The thing about friction (which is why friction damping is pants), is that for a given contact force (fluid pressure) it varies little with speed until the speed gets very low (incipient lock-up). So the small changes in brake disc speed (relative to the caliper) as the suspension moves over bumps and the linkage does its thing, don't result in appreciable changes in the force at the caliper. As long as your grip on the lever is constant and the wheel isn't locking up, braking forces are not locking or damping the suspension in any way, they are just applying a constant offset to it's position (could be zero, depending on the geometry).
Over longer timescales braking force will vary as heat builds up and so on, but over the time it takes the suspension to go up and down it will be constant. Unless the wheel starts to lock, when it won't.
Just bought a 2020 orange stage 5 frame direct from Orange (one way to make it cheaper it seem). Can’t wait to see what all the fuss is about!
Snap!
received mine yesterday evening and it is seriously nice. An itch I've always wanted to scratch.
Suprised how light it is, think it weighs less than my Bfe even with shock mounted.
What colour did you get it painted in?
Just try riding some different suspension designs and see how it works in the real world. I've found Giant Maestro and Spesh FSR bikes to be noticably better under brakes than single pivots. Not a huge difference, but you can feel the difference.
I’ve found Giant Maestro and Spesh FSR bikes to be noticably better under brakes than single pivots
Everything is better under braking TBF.
Just bought a 2020 orange stage 5 frame direct from Orange
Did Orange say why they had discontinued the Five and S5 - and if the slab-sided swingarms are gone forever?
“ As long as your grip on the lever is constant and the wheel isn’t locking up”
We’re talking about MTBs and the rear brake. We brake to control our speed before a corner or other technical feature which requires lower speed, often because the terrain is loose, or rough or steep. The only constant is modulation, often to avoid locking the rear wheel.
I likeed my Alpine 160 with a coil CCDB. It never gave me any problems pedalling up/on the flat and it absolutely ripped on the way down. But then I also liked the Capra and the Demo and a Kona stinky.
They all ride a bit different to each other but personally I don’t think that the suspension systems (apart from the odd one) are much better than each other, it just depends what you like to feel, the geometry and the quality of the shock.
The only constant is modulation, often to avoid locking the rear wheel.
I don't think we flutter the brake lever at the same frequency as suspension moves up and down, or time it precisely with suspension movement so it has an effect. The timescales are different.
Anyone give me a quick tutorial on how to quote on here..?! Tech idiot alert..
Scandal - that was the first thing i noticed when I picked the frame up, how light it felt, certainly a chunk lighter than the fuel ex frame it's replacing. Ive broke my scales tho so don't know exact weight. Got mine done in wasabi with orange decals, looks gorgeous. Really dont get this ugly thing people seem to think about them, personally I think it looks ace.
Chakaping, I asked them that because the 2020 was a substantially revised design from the previous gen and they discontinued it after a year. Hope that doesn't imply it was a shocker! They said something about pushing the evo and the stage 5 being in a complete redesign.. 🤷♀️
Thought £1600 with a super deluxe ultimate was pretty good..