I just checked their Instagram. It’s very, very reminiscent of Sick. They honestly think they’re onto something that the rest of the industry is too stupid to figure out. They’ve also got an army of fanboys patrolling the comment section.
Thats from a container of 90s far eastern factory frames someone found squirreled away somewhere isn’t it? Roll it in glitter, make up some marketing BS and throw it on the net for TWO AND A HALF GRAND!
The only way to get some progression is to stick one end of the shock through the lower half of the downtube, like on the 324 – that’ll get you about 10% progression.
or, give it a “pregnant” downtube, with the covenient added benefit of water bottle space? or am I misunderstanding?
Bike Geometry is a standard of measure used to market how a bike is supposed to handle. However, geometry plays a very small part in how the bike’s tires contact & react to the ground while in motion.
Well I’m glad they cleared this up. I thought geometry was an actual thing that mattered. Turns out it’s just marketing BS.
The suspension design is truly awful – and amazingly they’ve put a graph of how bad it is on their website. It’s regressive from 2 to over 2.7, so 35% regression. I presume they didn’t understand what the software was telling them and thought that because the graph was going up that it was progressive!
OK, I didn’t delve deep enough into their website to find any statistics on the designs… It is obvious from looking at the design that it’s going to be highly regressive, I didn’t quite realise just how much by. 35% regression is staggering! I didn’t get on with my Starling because it was mildly regressive, even with a DPX2 fitted chock full of volume spacers it still didn’t work for me, felt a little harsher off the top that I wanted and didn’t have enough mid stroke support or bottom out resistance for my taste. The Starlings are almost linear, only about 5% regression or something from memory…
Every full sus I’ve owned and liked has had in the region of 25-35% progression built into the linkage design, and has been complemented either by a high volume air shock or a coil shock.
Boasting about a “rising rate” shock leverage curve seems VERY odd… 🤷🏻♂️
And the stuff about the axle path over obstacles… Eh?!?! 🤷🏻♂️
I’ve just called the shiller out on the Vital thread… “Suspension expert” yet he doesn’t realise how a 35% regressive ratio affects the bikes suspension performance?!?! 😧
“ or, give it a “pregnant” downtube, with the covenient added benefit of water bottle space? or am I misunderstanding?”
Well you could, but if you look at all bikes that are shaped like that, the shock connects somewhere else. Intuitively, the last place you want to connect a shock is on that kind of bent bit of tube, as you’ll get some extremes of tension vs compression from the outside vs the inside of the curve, when you bottom out hard.
Looks like they had a proper UK distributor for their hardtails until the middle of last year, but not now? Not that I was about to order one, my bikes develop enough mystery faults of their own when I leave them in the garage, I don’t need mystery geometry too.
F whatever cr@p they say about geo or suspension – the head badges spiel has to be the best & worst & most obvious BS I’ve read since forever..
I love, it’s just brilliant unhinged weapons grade codswallop. I feel like bursting out into spontaneous applause – that kind of word salad needs recognition!
Anybody with any relevant CAD/CAM software fancy measuring this from a few known datum points…? The pic isn’t absolutely square on, but it’s close enough to approximate with a few constants to measure from
What do we know?
-Shock is 230mm eye to eye.
-Rear rim is 38mm smaller diameter than front rim
-Cane Creek Helm mk2 fork is 568mm A2C @ 160mm travel apparently (doesn’t go longer than 160mm)
-The TLE Speedgrip Apex sidewall Hans Dampfs were only available in 2.6 and 2.8″ widths (my eyesight isn’t good enough to see what widths are fitted, though 29 was only available in 2.6″)
-Tacx Shiva 500ml bottle by the looks of it (please don’t ask how I’m such a bottle geek!) which is 195mm tall base to tip according to my ruler.
-Front rotor looks like a 203mm
-Pretty certain it’s a 51mm offset fork, judging by the forward offset of the crown.
And then we have the limited geometry they’ve decided to share…
GEOMETRY:
Peacemaker Size Chart
Small Medium Large
ETT 23.5” / 597mm 24.5” / 622mm 25.5” / 648mm
Reach 432mm 457mm 480mm
Head Tube 3.75” / 95mm 4.1” / 105mm 4.6” / 117mm
Seat Tube 15.2” / 386mm 15.7” / 400mm 16.7” / 425mm
StandOver 26.25”/ 666.75mm 27.25”/ 692.15mm 28.25” / 717.55m
Should be enough for someone with the means to do it to be able to come up with a decent approximation of the geometry fairly quickly… Deconstruct the “secret sauce” as it were…
I just checked their Instagram. It’s very, very reminiscent of Sick. They honestly think they’re onto something that the rest of the industry is too stupid to figure out.
Sounds completely unlike Sick tbh, the only thing they’d put any thought into was the theft.
These guys, I dunno. Endless endless pointless fluff but they won’t share basic geo, that’s such an alarm bell. Doesn’t seem the same as Sick, seems more like incredible stupidity than fraud. They even draw attention to it, “This has DBG Geometry”. But that’s NEED TO KNOW INFORMATION.
I do like how much it looks like a saracen raw 2, though
Mullet Bikes Inc seem so close to Sick! in look/feel/attitude/approach that it can’t be a coincidence, so they either looked at the whole Sick! debacle and thought:
1) These guys really did a great job of launching a new bike brand, which is also my goal, I will emulate them
or
2) These guys really did a great job of ripping people off, which is also my goal, I will emulate them.
My theory is that Vitalmtb saw how much traffic the Sick! threads generated, and have created a copycat in order to bump visits to their site.
Looks quite normal, if a tad short in reach (but no idea what size we are looking at).
BB drop is about the width of a chain.
Static bb drop of big travel 650 bikes is about the same.
Although as you will have to run about 10% sag to avoid bottoming out, it will sit higher.
All the copy and press reads a bit ‘MTB for flat earthers’.
Haha that’s exactly what I was thinking while reading the science bits of their website. It’s shocking really.
I went to see if there was any new Instagram activity just to find they’ve deleted almost all of the comments overnight. They’ve only left a handful of positive ones.
I think they’ve probably just been drinking their own Kool-Aid a bit much is all. After all we’ve seem the made-up joke acronym thing before…Apart from the mullet wheels, the bikes seem pretty much middle of the road generic, so looks to me like they’ve decided that offering customisable head-badges*, and being a bit “detail light” on the “secret” geometry to build interest.
Mleh.
* Yeah, does nothing for me either, but some folks will love it no doubt.
Just caught up with this. Proper old school in some ways – basic swingarm suspension on the fs, and (even more retro) raised chainstays on the ht. With a good dose of engineering bollocks thrown in (also old school, but still with us and not just from this lot). But, to be fair, its new engineering bollocks. They could have resurrected “instant center tracking” for the full retro feel.
That graphic gave me a proper giggle, presumably as long as the front axle is higher then any bump sends you into orbit (not like you can’t do that anyway, I forget the technical term).
@chiefgrooveguru there seems to be some weight to the Mixxer claim if you rummage around the dumpster fire, it seems they previously sold them and started getting ideas well above their station before being told to do one if the comments are to be believed.
There is a mention of a ‘business partnership gone bad’ on their blurb. Why anyone would mention this is beyond me. For every person that thinks ‘poor sod, good luck to him’, there will be another one who thinks ‘that’s his story, who did he shaft?’
Reading the comments section of that VitalMTB story it’s a case of getting their revenge in first. Seems like their dealings with Foes went South pretty rapidly