Up next in 10
Ralph from Rå Bikes talks us through the features of his award winning Rå-12
Read more here: https://singletrackworld.com/2022/10/best-in-show-judging-bespokeds-best-mountain-bike/
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[Music]
0:11
hi we're here at the raw bike stand with
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Rafi and this here is my choice of best
0:19
mountain bike in show it is the ra 12.
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and so congratulations Rafi first of all
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well thank you for choosing it and I
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haven't really explained to Rafi why I
0:30
chose it so first of all obviously it
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looks gorgeous but you've got to look
0:34
below the paint and one of the things
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that I appreciated about this was that
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it's actually got quite a lot of
0:41
technical features in it that you might
0:44
expect to find on like a commercial more
0:48
mass-produced bike like
0:50
the flip chips it's got two flip chips
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here's one here and one down here so
0:55
first of all rather tell us what this
0:57
top one does the top one is for changing
1:01
the wheel size in the back so you can
1:02
run into mullet setup okay
1:05
um it doesn't it preserves the geometry
1:07
across the 29 and the 650b wheels
1:11
so okay
1:13
nice and consistent and then the bottom
1:17
chip
1:18
um that does the leverage ratio and
1:19
nothing else so it doesn't change the
1:21
suspension kinematics apart from
1:24
well it does change suspension
1:26
schematics it changes it from a three
1:29
point one to two leverage ratio to a 2.8
1:34
into 2.2 leverage ratio okay now then
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I've skipped over some critical bits so
1:40
let's say how much travel is there on
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this particular setup it's 165mm travel
1:46
on the back
1:48
um from a
1:50
65 mil stroke shock and it's designed
1:53
around 170 mil Fork but you could run it
1:56
with a 200 mil
1:58
boxer if you wanted to cool okay
2:02
um and so then another thing that I
2:04
really appreciated was the amount of
2:06
work that's gone into making the frame
2:09
so you've gone beyond just uh or I say
2:13
just but you're gonna be on like putting
2:15
tubes together and you're actually
2:17
making like the parts for the Yoke and
2:20
stuff so this yolk in here you were
2:23
telling me you make that up out of a lot
2:26
of parts so how many parts are in um
2:28
there's nine Parts in New York at the
2:30
moment it's
2:32
needs to get simplified but at the
2:34
moment it's working well okay
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um starts off as round tube and laser
2:41
cut plate and
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um steel bar stock so
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this is the main pivot bracket currently
2:48
which is kind of machined
2:51
all in-house hollowed out the reason one
2:53
of the main reasons of hollowing it out
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is that you're joining a thin tube
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so
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if you're joining a thin tube to a large
3:00
block block of metal you can get kind of
3:03
undesirable welding characteristics like
3:05
the thin tube burning away before you
3:09
can get the heat into the thick part
3:12
and also
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with it only being thin there you get
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very little
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kind of
3:19
hit spread into the rest of the part
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which means you don't get any distortion
3:22
on
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the ball for the pivot
3:27
okay and then there's also laser cut
3:30
parts and then they get machined after
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they're laser cut and then bent right
3:35
then there's inserts that go in there
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and get welded in together yeah and then
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there's a round tube that gets rolled
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into an oval and then I bend that and
3:45
put that in the CNC Mission as well
3:47
and it all gets started
3:50
oh yes well together
3:52
and that is just for the Yoke which
3:55
takes
3:56
longer to
3:59
well from the front triangle
4:06
you basically you don't make the
4:09
transmission and some of the bolts
4:11
yeah I buy a couple of bolts in but then
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I mean like these bolts are made these
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are the old bolts actually I've got
4:19
thank you
4:20
you make this shockling
4:23
it's all CNC machined in-house
4:26
um and then you just didn't have time to
4:28
put the new Hardware in all right so
4:30
this is all made in-house as well
4:31
there's a new boat made in-house and
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anodized in-house cool
4:35
it's all 70 75 Hardware or
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um
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I've never been a fan of aluminum shock
4:41
Hardware unless it's smaller than 12 mil
4:43
so that's titanium okay
4:47
um for the lower one
4:49
and then you make this uh sort of panel
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here that then gets welded in as well
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don't use that way that's
4:57
um
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sheet of s515 Steel
5:00
which starts it's 2.7 mil fix to start
5:03
with and then the pockets get taken down
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to just under one mil
5:09
um
5:11
the
5:12
triangulation and the angles of the ribs
5:14
are all kind of in line with where the
5:17
forces are going from the head tube
5:18
right
5:19
frame
5:21
um
5:22
yeah I'm actually moving to a tapered
5:24
head tube on the next on the production
5:27
version right this is kind of the
5:28
production sample
5:30
but the type of head tube allows me to
5:32
have a longer head to per size so
5:34
that'll be even stronger
5:37
um
5:39
a lot of work it goes into putting this
5:41
together the only round tube
5:43
that piece
5:47
um that's also stainless so that if when
5:49
that inevitably gets chipped by rocks
5:50
it's not going to rust okay
5:52
um well this the the downtube the C tube
5:56
must be round as well yeah the seat
5:58
tubes around is still bent unfortunately
5:59
oh okay manipulated yeah so that's the
6:03
only one that is just a straight round
6:04
tube okay
6:07
um this is 34.9 seat post
6:11
um and I use a polyester shim which I've
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made some
6:18
heat molding tires for to form a lip on
6:21
the top to make a custom shim but it
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means that you never have an aluminum
6:25
Post in a steel frame and the issues
6:27
that come along with that
6:28
um but the one of the main reasons for
6:31
using the oversized seat tube is to
6:33
create a really stiff kind of
6:36
cage to keep a trunnion mounted shock
6:38
going up and down just doing what it's
6:40
supposed to do because one of the things
6:42
from the earliest steel bags I was
6:43
making where they were kind of a more
6:45
traditional
6:48
the generic Steel full suspension that
6:50
you see nowadays with the
6:53
two triangles
6:55
um you get a lot of twisting force into
6:57
the shock right and I've seen shocks
6:59
with no anodizing left on the shafts and
7:01
I didn't want that I wanted a nice
7:04
solid package all the forces kind of
7:07
kept down by the BB in a really strong
7:08
area
7:09
[Music]
7:09
um
7:10
the piece that links the BB to the
7:13
bottom bracket is actually a much
7:14
thicker wall thickness than the rest of
7:15
the frame
7:18
um
7:20
well
7:22
internal cable routing but it's all
7:23
lined end-to-end with nylon tubing so
7:27
this and then bonded in
7:30
so it's
7:32
really easy to root cables
7:34
I'm really fussy about cable routing so
7:37
okay I spent a lot of time on that
7:39
and
7:41
so yeah there's just so many little
7:43
details in it that are I think well
7:46
thought through and there's an awful lot
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of effort gone into it
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um and so there'll be some people that
7:52
are looking at this and thinking they
7:53
might want to buy one so give us the
7:55
price for a frame frame starts at three
7:59
thousand pounds which is the same for
8:01
the 20 as well there's slightly less
8:03
traveled version with that little Peak
8:05
over here here we go and then there's
8:09
various shock options and there'll be
8:12
rolling chassis and probably full builds
8:14
by early next year okay what's your lead
8:18
time
8:19
um currently it's about December for the
8:22
first few first floor batch okay
8:25
okay very much come
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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back
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