#Super cat tales 2 gears full#

Since the Athertons don't have to use expensive molds and can justifiably charge a lot for their frames, why not demand utter excellence from them? Why not demand a truly custom bike, where every size is tailored in every way, not just reach and stack numbers? I'm starting to change my mind on this. More chain growth = more antisquat, all things being equal. Additionally, heavier riders can have more chain growth without it affecting suspension performance compared to lighter riders. To keep antisquat (an imprecise, rough, inconsistent measure) the same across sizes, then actual chaingrowth, the measure of how much the rear axle moves away from the bottom bracket for a given chainring size, needs to increase, but no bike companies that I'm aware of do this. Chain growth is a consistent thing to measure, and its the primary source of antisquat. Should kinematics be the same across all sizes? Antisquat tyically decreases as you go up in size because its a fuzzy calculation made on assuming where the riders COG is, which is obviously higher for taller riders.

All this being said, yes its really hard to adjust chainstay length, yes its really hard to keep the kinematics the same, but they are still making bikes without using molds. It does look cool though and I bet if you're on the short side it's actually an awesome bike. I really like the construction concept for the theoretical flexibility in geometry, but it's not cheap, and if they aren't willing or able to alter the back end to keep things in some kind of proportion to the front, then as a taller rider who's had plenty of bad experiences on long FC/short RC bikes in the past, I'm not willing to pay a ton to have a rearwards weight bias that I don't like, especially on a supposedly easily-customized-geometry frame. Not sure if you were aware or not but this whole project was originally called Robot Bike Co before the Athertons got involved - They were very big on pushing the 'you can have any geometry you want' barrow but seems as though that really just means different reach figures.

#Super cat tales 2 gears full#

So you have to ask why your not just buying that other bike? I'm guessing Tom left one or two words out there - maybe he meant 'we can't change suspension geometry'?Įither way I'm not really sure why they persist with this (very expensive) production method if they aren't really going to take full advantage of its single biggest design feature. But again, that's good and bad as it's a lot of money to spend on something that you could end up getting geometry that you don't actually like and then what do you do with it.? For most of us we'd be copying geo from another bike anyway. If it's like their other bikes you get a BUNCH of sizes to choose from which is good and bad cause it's not very likely that you'll get to do back to back test rides of those different sizes to get the benefit and I know their Enduro geo chart seemed like there were some odd sizing choices made? Course you could go custom. But most people looking for 'light trail bikes' actually want them light. Sure it's as 'burly' as the longer travel bike, so there is that. This is always the problem with taking a longer travel bike and making a shorter travel bike out of it. OR spend this much on another carbon 130mm trail bike and get down below 30 lbs for a medium easy. You could find aluminum 130 trail bikes at this weight for a LOT less money. It's just the marketing BS of calling it a 'light trail bike' and how much the frame costs for the weight it is. It's not so much that the bike is 'too heavy' for a 130mm trail bike. Someone who wants only 130mm surely would benefit from a lighter bike, and if bike park use is frequent then I'd go for the 150mm and play with shock length/sag/offset bushings to make it an actual 130mm the rest of the time. What I don't understand (cf ) is why make their 130mm bike as heavy and tough as the others in the line up.

Radon makes a bike park sustaining enduro frame at 3,2kg, so surely they (or Giant for example, not to name Liteville etc al specialists) go well below 3,1kg for their trail 'Have you ever ridden with a half full water bottle and thought 'well this bike is now rubbish, better dump it out?'' you are missing the point, 500g total is nothing, but 500g less frame weight makes it a lot easier to attain 2-3kg weight diference between 2 bikes, and that's huge.īut all this is not the point : this AM130 is aimed at wealthy riders who want more 'local' manufacturing, have precise geometry needs, and like this look. Pretty sure there are lighter 29er al frames.