Lawwill did leading better.

Gary Fisher less so with the rear end.

I think Mert Lawwill designed both the front and rear suspension on that old Fisher…….

RTS1 with spin tri spokes, best looking bike of all time.

Mine is a RTS-2, but it does have a trispoke on the front – and original Manitous 😉

You should see the looks I get when I turn up at Glentress on it, wearing jeans and no helmet…

Don forget the GT RTS…that was an awful looking bike.

you are mad. It might have worked oddly (designed to stiffen when pedaling) but they looked the mutts nuts.

Had a Trek Y22. The URT (you effectively stand on the swing arm) was only half the problem. The chain and seat stays were so thin my massive 11 stone used to make the back end flex more sideways than the shock compressed. I rode with a guy with one who was 15+ stone, his flexed so much the chain rings wore into the chain stay.

And that Manitou is still gorgeous.

Apparently the Mantra was originally designed to have a rigid fork and pivot around the middle, hence the ‘folding in half’

never heard the rigid fork argument but Jon Castellano had very particular ideas and the pivot was in what he called the “sweet spot”, the Ibis Bow Ti had the same effective pivot point (the Ibis Szazbo had a real pivot in the same place).

i’ve had/ridden 4 of the ones posted….

Trek ‘y’ bike – wasn’t that bad to be honest although the suspension didn’t really work it was quite a light xc bike.

Whyte PRST-1 – now this actually worked, looked like shi*te but rode really well, i broke mine! 🙁

GT RTS – best climbing full sus i’ve ever owned…possibly because it only had about 20mm of travel, it was okay but the rear triangle didn’t feel part of the bike…ever!

GT LTS – got this when the RTS broke, it wasn’t as good but did have more travel, a massive 100mm as i recall, looked the dogs at the time and worked to a certain extent.

Does anyone else remember greg herbold attaching a pair of rock shox to the rear of a hardtail….madness! always wanted to ride the amp…..

This thing…the Sotello CRS – Cantilever Rigid Suspension.

Not quite sure how that was meant to work

kin hell there’s some munters on here!

i had a Y22 too – jeez it’s ugly looking back…

Proflex. Mag 20 forks for the ‘big hits’ & a flex stem for the small ones.
Genius
http://mombat.org/1092Proflex2.jpg

The muddy fox on page 1 wins hands down…..

The front and rear were linked so that they worked in unison…. WTF!

i saw a crazy frenchie do the mega on one of these. amazing things.

d’you know what though? although they provoke mirth, and the bikes available today are in many ways vastly better, you’ll never get the super excited ‘what the **** is THAT?’ emotional response as someone who’s dad owns a bike shop rolls up on some USA exotica, when everyone else is on saracens, Raleigh and shoguns with cantis and fully rigid.

those were the days.

I think most of those bikes are more remarkable / memorable in our (mostly older) eye as they were the exotic stuff in our formative years. With those memories comes with the rose tints and wild ideas of owning one.
Plus the fact that (full) suspension in those times was still very much a rarity and a decent steel frame (possibly aluminium) with some 60mm travel suspension forks were the achievable goal for most of us that rode seriously in those times.
Anyone used to read MBA from cover to cover in the early 90’s? If I saw one now I’d flick through the pages before going “meh”.

Anyone used to read MBA from cover to cover in the early 90’s? If I saw one now I’d flick through the pages before going “meh”.

Just go straight to the inside back page! Retrofest!

My proflex rode quite well, once I replaced the Vector forks with Bombers, and fitted a coil in place of the elastomer. It was gash before that though.

http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/f19/pictures-old-obscure-suspension-bikes-126808/

A truly epic thread. Prepare to lose yourself for hours of retroness!

The front and rear were linked so that they worked in unison…. WTF!

I used to have a Saracen which did that:

Saracen Full-suspension Prototype by Ben Cooper, on Flickr

Currently sitting in the back of my garage –

Suspension is remarkably good even now, especially after replacing the original coil with a Float R an replacing the Manipoos with a pair of Judy’s. 😀
The frame design was quite interesting though.

Not mine but I also had one of these, that I raced DH on in the mid ’90’s –

Had a full 5″ of very bouncy suspension F&R.

Yes, that is rubber band suspension.

There are some truly gopping bikes on here! As bad as looking at road bikes….. 😀

Anyone remember the “commuting” version you could buy? Rigid forks and a big foam bumper in place of the shock, designed (apparently) as a comfortable commuter bike.

Madness.

The Mantra was actually designed to use a rigid fork. It’s supposed to pivot around the bearing to produce a comfortable ride without sapping the energy as the forks pogo up and down.

Bikes like the Ibis Szasbo above might have ridden awfully, but I really did like the look of the Sweet Spot frames. Still do.

Suspension is remarkably good even now, especially after replacing the original coil with a Float R an replacing the Manipoos with a pair of Judy’s

Resprayed in grey, as well, I trust.

Quite a few things to add here 🙂

Here’s my Mantra for starters…

It actually rides really well as it’s set up – as a singlespeed. The suspension works well enough considering that it’s really quite light for a FS and when out of the saddle, the stiffening up is perfect for gurning up climbs without pogoing. It would be rubbish as a geared, sit and spin bike though…

The original design had a rigid fork and flex stem – as suggested above, the idea being that if you hit a bump at the front, the frame would pivot up (and the flex stem down to keep bar height level). I have tried it with a rigid fork (but no flex stem) and as expected it rides just like a full susser with a rigid fork – rubbish basically 🙂

When I first rode it, it was terrifying on steep drop ins as it would jack up, raising the seat height just when you didn’t want. Soon enough sorted by not running much sag.

Which neatly brings me on to the RTS. IMO a great looking bike and considering some of the other horrors out there, actually quite a good bike BUT only if set up right which most people didn’t. It was basically a precursor to the NRS and as such needed to be set up so that it was topped out when riding on the flat. Unfortunately many (most?) people had sag on it so it bobbed around horrendously. A classic case of people not understanding suspension (though to be fair I don’t think that NRSs are a great solution except for some XC racing).

As for the Proflex, the 856 wasn’t an awful bike, just not that effective as a full susser but with additional weight. Certainly better than the 855 which had elastomer only with no damping…

How the hell does the ‘Shockster’ work???!?!?!

I wondered that, too. I think it fixes to the frame using the dropout and brake bosses, and then the wheel is moved to a suspended dropout in the Shockster.

love the barends in pinksters 2nd pic 😆

Although the thought put into the bike was waaaay ahead of it’s time.

I quite like the look of that ^.

My first full susser was one of these

1997 Scott Octane FX3. I thought it was the cat’s ass until I rode my 2005 FSR.

No doubt when I ride a 2015 bike I’ll think that the FSR is bobbins but it still seems OK to me at the moment.

Image knicked from another post

I road one of these in a car park. It was so bad. The bottom bracket swung from side to side like a pendulum under light pedalling…

Last photo in the original post on this thread is a Slingshot

Cannot speak for that one but the modern ones are anything but wallowy and soft, basically using the spring on the cable “down tube” and a piece of Ford leaf spring to produce a soft tail rather than a soft suspension. More recent ones use the same technology and mine rides fine.

What’s this all about whatthewhat?

teethgrinder – Member
What’s this all about whatthewhat?

Reinvention of this from 1897

Didn’t work then either.

I’ve got a book full of old bike part drawings – telescopic suspension forks from 1948, through axles from the 1930s, stuff like that.

In bikes, there’s rarely any new ideas – what there are are old ideas that do now work with modern manufacturing and materials.

bencooper – Member

In bikes, there’s rarely any new ideas – what there are are old ideas that do now work with modern manufacturing and materials.

Many bike related inventions are best forgotten.

Trouble with that is that once forgotten someone come along and reinvents it. 🙂

This is a great thread and it’s bringing back some happy memories for me.

My hobby at the time when suspension was developing on bikes was motor racing, both driving and chassis engineering on other peoples cars. I had also been riding and building motorcycles since I was a teenager. I remember having some great discussions regarding spring rates, damping, rebound (all a complete mystery to most cyclists at the time) with the owner and staff of my LBS, who were a Giant and Specialized dealer. Some of those early production bikes were truly risky, or massively over engineered.

In the end I looked at three bikes, the Klein Mantra, the Specialized FSR and the GT STS-2. I rode the Mantra, liked the FSR, but bought the STS-2 (a 97 model) which I still have. It was OK, but was a bit of a disappointment and I went back to riding my 94 Zaskar LE with Marzocchi XC700 forks, which I also still have, and ride.

Why the bike industry did not look to the motorcycle world in those early days is a mystery, but it was fascinating to watch it all happening.

Happy days.

bencooper
I’ve got a book full of old bike part drawings – telescopic suspension forks from 1948, through axles from the 1930s, stuff like that.

epicyclo
Many bike related inventions are best forgotten.

Without revisiting and experimenting, how do we know which ones to forget? It would be a crime to forever write off any idea simply because a man in a bowler hat couldn’t get it to work in cast iron and wood a century ago.

With an attitude that things are already the best they can ever be, nothing ever gets better. And sometimes, when moving forward you find the answer behind you.

neilm
Why the bike industry did not look to the motorcycle world in those early days is a mystery

Many did, as far as I’m aware. I recall motocross inspired design in the early days. The San Andreas comes to mind as a really obvious example.

However the design brief for suspension on a mountain bike is quite different from on a motorcycle, and that hasn’t changed. Designers were looking to solve problems inherent to push bikes that no motorcycle designer has ever had to worry about.

I’m not really sure that modern mountain bikes are, on the whole, any more or any less like motorbikes than they ever were. The design briefs have always been different and always will be.

I think that designers did look toward motorbikes, especially for DH bikes in the 90’s. I remember the old Rotecs with a single, think rear end like a motorbike complete with upside down forks. They did look pretty cool though.

There is a chap in America with a yellow Rotec that he is restoring…it looks ace. I have no idea if it works or not.

Crikey that slingshot is awful looking!!

In fairness I would like to ride some of these bikes for the fun though!

Ducati MTB?


OK, so technically the second set of photos aren’t of a full susser, but even so… 😯 😯

That looks nice, purely from an atheistic view but twin tubes everywhere, thats got to be hefty

OK here’s mine. Some may call it a gopping munter buy I love owning it and even riding it. The Amp Research/Mongoose Amplifier was one of the first full sus bikes where real technical design work achieved a result thanks to Horst Leitner, as opposed to just slapping on a pivot or two, a rear triangle and a shock somewhere pretty randomly (as can be seen from many of the bikes above). The result was a bike that did not suffer from as much pedal bob or brake-jack. Similar setups are still in use today with a few extras such as an upper shock link. This rear end was good enough to help Leigh Donovan win the downhill world champs in 1995 so I guess it can’t be that badly designed.

On this one the rear shock was shot and has now been replaced by a Risse Racing air shock for a bit more plushness and a little more travel. It’s actually good to ride (within limitations) though I don’t stress it too much these days. The forks are not original as thay are circa 1998.