If this is slack, then I like it (Warning: Rocket content)

Weight – 7.6lbs for the 16″, who you kidding? That’s a pound heavier than a 16″ Five and I doubt its much stronger either.

But you only ride through the medium of other peoples videos. Therefore I doubt the weight really matters much at all.

jeebus…

Seriously guys, chill out, who’d have thought the material someone else’s (cos I assume you won’t be buying one if you hate it so much) bike is made out of could make you so grumpy!

There is sound engineering behind it, if you don’t like it fine, if you don’t agree with it on scientific and engineering grounds then also fine, you’re more than welcome to start up a bike company and sell us your undoubtedly better design…

It may or may not have ‘fixed’ anything, but it is a perfectly valid alternative approach using a material the designer has chosen for it’s specific properties applied to the task at hand. Surely that’s exactly what you want a bike designer to do?

The OP was trying to give us an idea of how the bike *rides*, which surely is more important…

But you only ride through the medium of other peoples videos

Yawn.

Metalheart – ignore the pointless arguments, thanks for posting up a helpful and thoughtful note of your actual experience. Interesting post.

Obviously a 6.5lb Orange 5 made of 6061 al alloy is going to be as strong as a 7.6lb Rocket made of 853 – I mean, you only have to consider that the yield strength of 6061 is 325MPa whilst that of 853 is 1400MPa…

ah goodo, now the real keyboard engineers are onboard.

lets quote some material constants eh?

perhaps we could define shear modulus to show how stiff it will be too eh?

where’s the facepalm smiley?

skywalker – Member

The Rocket is of comparable weight to al alloy full sussers designed for similar use, whilst being stronger and stiffer where it counts. Explained at length elsewhere on here…
Weight – 7.6lbs for the 16″, who you kidding? That’s a pound heavier than a 16″ Five and I doubt its much stronger either.

So like someone else said, a pointless niche.

The Rocket is a longer travel bike than the Five – it’s 150mm.

Better comparison would be the 150mm Transition Covert – Transition quote 7.74lbs for a medium frame with shock.

http://www.transitionbikes.com/Bikes_Covert.cfm

I definitely used to see the point in a full sus frame with a steel front end and alloy links, chain/seat stays, but that was back in the early days of DH where everything weighed a ton anyway and it all broke far too often and most manufacturers warranty dept didn’t give a shit.
The only advantage to a steel front end I can see is it’s ease of being repaired, but no one (bar maybe CynicAl) would ever bother having a frame re-welded, especially not the type of fashion/niche bandwaggon queue’ers that will buy this. and in these days of every single problem being posted online for all to see distributors/manufacturers are far happier to hand out replacements to keep their customers sweet.

If you read the marketing, Cy wasn’t stupid and didn’t actually make any claim of this being stiffer/stronger than a comparable weight Aluminium frame, just stiffer/more durable than his own previous abortion of a frame the Hemlock.

I happen to think 7.6lb is a decent weight for it’s travel and geometry, but I don’t really understand why anyone is bitching about full build weights, You could build a10lb DH frame into a full build weighing 30lb if you really wanted but you probably couldn’t ride it to anywhere near it’s potential safely without parts breaking. it’s the same with Hardtails and shorter travel sussers, why anyone would want a BFe or Rocket with XC strength/stiffness rims, weak sidewalled tyres, weak/flexy cranks or a light flexy stem for example is beyond my comprehension.

The strength points are interesting, are many people busting am frames? Genuinely interested in experiences here as i’ll probably be getting something quite enduro focused in the near future.

I would however say that these are direct competition for the 5 despite the 10mm difference in travel

Calm down dear. It’s just what it’s made out of.

It’s steel because (important caveat alert) FOR THIS TYPE OF BIKE there was very little drawback and the stiffness was actually better in some places, so I was happier to make it from steel. Plenty of the 150mm frames out there are now in the 7.5lb range unless they’re carbon, so it was in the game, so why not? I agree if the frame weight had come out at 9.5lbs then it would have been pretty silly to go ahead, but it didn’t.

I wanted to see if it would work, to see if I could. It does and I did. The shorter travel versions we’re working on will be aluminium because FOR THAT TYPE OF FRAME it’s more appropriate and I can get the weight a durability combination better than I could do in steel FOR THAT TYPE OF FRAME.

Now look what you’ve done. You’ve made the most affable man in the bike industry SHOUT IN CAPITALS.

Shame on you all.

Can anyone explain the benefits of a steel am full susser? I actually like the look of them, I just don’t see the point (other than trying to be niche)

+1, then the man himself answers, in capitals no less!

That’s a shame for the riders who ride short travel framrs hard, why don’t you do an Alu 150mm version for STW riders?

wow you guys are getting really pumped. does it really matter what its made from? i hear bamboo bikes are quite strong too……

any ways. i have just put the medium demo rocket back on the scales with no pedals. it comes in at 29.08lbs. your talking the same kind of weight as an orange five.

i took it for a spin yesterday and if you didnt know it was steel you wouldnt know. its stiff responsive and wads of fun. what more do you need.

good job cy and paul.

ps thanks for the tanks neill x

doesn’t sound like it’s for me sadly.

any chance someone can make a slack, alu or steel (if they like) FS with less travel and a slack HT?

sort of like a 4 inch travel blue pig would be ideal.

cheers.

I posted this because my curiosity was piqued by the slack HA and by Cy stating he saw no real point in reducing the travel. I thought maybe other people might also be interested.

The fact that I’m not a trail god, and ive already admitted to being a bit of a mincer, I thought it an interesting counter to GW’s statement the other day that perhaps I’d (not me personally, mincers in general) hate the slack. Well I didn’t. I liked it. It Made me ride faster than I have for a fair while over familiar ground and it all felt pretty damn stable.

Like Joe says ^^^ the material choice on the day actually was, well, immaterial…

Oh Joe, you are welcome. It was good to finally get out on the bikes!

But you only ride through the medium of other peoples videos
Yawn.

You are him then?

tracknicko, the quoted numbers were merely to illustrate the folly of simplistic assumptions based on incomplete information. Anyway, this ‘keyboard engineer’ has to go and check if the latest work on the CNC machine has come out right…

Tracknicko – I have a 100mm travel version of the Rocket coming as a prototype which is basically exactly as you describe, but for obvious reasons will be pretty much the same frame weight as the 150mm travel Rocket. Definitely going to give it some riding and see what we think, but given how well the 150mm frame works I’m more sceptical than I was. Basics with a 140mm fork will be 67deg HA, 73.5SA, 13.1″BB. That said, as it’s basically a shock mount change on the Rocket frame it wouldn’t be that hard to do a small run for people who want this kind of thing mixed in with a batch of Rockets. We’ll be keeping people posted on the prototypes on the website and newsletter if you’re interested.

After a fast rocky descent yesterday I found myself considering a full-sus bike for the first time in ages, ended up doing some reading on the Rocket and came across a statement regarding the DropLink suspension design which rather counters the following quote:

If you read the marketing, Cy wasn’t stupid and didn’t actually make any claim of this being stiffer/stronger than a comparable weight Aluminium frame, just stiffer/more durable than his own previous abortion of a frame the Hemlock.

“It’s incredibly stiff. When combined with the steel seat tube it’s easily a match for the stiffest bikes available now.”

Obviously a 6.5lb Orange 5 made of 6061 al alloy is going to be as strong as a 7.6lb Rocket made of 853 – I mean, you only have to consider that the yield strength of 6061 is 325MPa whilst that of 853 is 1400MPa…

obviously you are taking into account material density and tubing wall thickness – i mean you only have to consider that a simple oversight leads to misinformation.

If you read the marketing

don’t be silly.

I’m starting to suspect that the material choice was at least partly Cy trolling- some of the responses on forums have been great.

To add actual light to the debate I had the same bike metalheart had for a couple of days and I really don’t care if it was made of pig iron and tin; it’s good and fun. Goes up well, especially on steep techy stuff where it has more traction than I have fitness, and goes down where you point it. It’s certainly enough fun that I’ve put down a deposit for one.

Interesting thread. Well bits of it anyway 😉 For absolutely no reason other than ‘I fancy a change’, I’m going to test ride – and if I like it – buy a rocket from Cy.

Just to fan the flames of prejudice and fundamentalism, which seem to underpin far too much of this discussion, I rode a mate’s new Orange 5 and thought it was absolutely brilliant at allowing you to go as fast as you dare on big, rocky terrain. And for that reason I don’t want one.

My ST4 is nice and poppy and fun and weighs about 30lb anyway. So replace that with a bit more travel and some new bike shinyness? Sounds good to me.

Mr stru: it’s pretty telling that those of us who actually have riden the Rocket couldn’t tell (or in my case give a stuff about) what material the front triangle is made of when your riding it. It’s actually (one of) the least interesting aspects about the bike out on the trail. The whole point of this thread was about the ride…

Alex, I’m neither fundamentalist nor prejudiced on the matter. I’m a Cotic fanboi for sure, but if you test rode the Rocket and decided it wasn’t for you, you wouldn’t find me castigating you for it. At the end of the day some folks like different stuff from others for a whole host of reasons. Hell, you can buy a five and it won’t bother me. It’s all bikes and it’s all good.

Besides I’ve still to get a go on the Laby Agile yet… 🙂

(I still want one though…)

Metalheart – wasn’t getting at you at all! You’ve ridden the thing, it was the rest of the thread that wandered off in a ‘to me to you’ direction that I was struggling with 😉 So your post was great and made me doubly want to test one.

Alex: no offence taken. If my posts have helped you down that particular path then it kinda vindicates me coming on and wittering about it in the first place…

I’d be interested in what you make of it though, good, bad or indifferent.

Whatever though I think you’ll enjoy it 🙂

Another interesting weight comparison for the Rocket

Yeti’s 150mm SB-66 – Sicklines quote 3136g for the bare frame with no shock or mounting hardware – that’s 6.91 pounds. Add the RP23, ISCG Adapter, shock mounts and 12×142 axle, and it’s 7.88lbs. And that’s for a small frame.

7.5lbs for the Rocket with shock is more than competitive there.

http://www.sicklines.com/reviews/2012-yeti-sb-66-aluminum-review/

any chance someone can make a slack, alu or steel (if they like) FS with less travel and a slack HT?

Yeah, I’ve been wanting one of those for a while. Saw this the other day – looks interesting. 150mm front + 114mm rear.
http://ride.io/reviews/gt-distortion-2-0-2012-review/

I’m starting to suspect that the material choice was at least partly Cy trolling- some of the responses on forums have been great.

😆

Not surprised by the frame weight on the SB-66 at all, as they claim 7.5lb. I should not for the benefit of fairness that my frame weights aren’t including the rear axle so it can be compared to QR back end frames. That said, the Syntace axle only weighs 39grms.