First Look: Breezer Repack - Eurobike 2013
First Look: Breezer Repack
| Repack Details • 160mm travel • 27.5" wheels • ISCG mount • Price: €2499 - €3699 (US pricing TBD) | • MLink suspension design • 12x142mm thru-axle • BB92 bottom bracket • 6066 aluminum frame, sealed cartridge bearings |
The Repack has a 68 degree head angle and 438mm chainstays, numbers that aren't radically slack or short, but which were chosen by Joe Breeze for the well-rounded handling characteristics they provide. Breeze's theory is that the higher axle location that comes with 27.5” wheels means that a bike's head angle can be steeper than it would be on a 26” wheeled bike and still achieve the same ride characteristics.
With the MLink suspension system the rearmost pivot is located in the middle of the chainstay. Expanding collet pivot hardware is found on the pivots located on the seattube, where sealed cartridge bearings rotate around 17mm axles.
While Joe Breeze is known for his expertise in frame geometry, he sought outside help to develop a suitable suspension design for the Repack. This outside help came from the Sotto Group, a firm that has developed numerous suspension systems, including Yeti's Switch suspension design. For Breezer, the firm developed the MLink suspension system, an interesting combination between a dual short bar link design and a Horst link, with a pivot placed in the middle of the chainstays and a rocker link mounted to the seat tube. This mid-chainstay pivot location means that the pivot only needs to move 3 degrees as the bike goes through its travel, which could help extend bearing life, since the bearings don't need to move as much as they would in a dual short link design. Frame stiffness was a key factor in the design process, with the end goal being to create a low maintenance, flex free frame. To accomplish this, the rear shock is connected directly to the rear swingarm, and an aluminum brace joins the seat stays to the chainstays for additional solidity.
Parts Spec
There will be three models of the Repack, with the Team version coming decked in a full XT build kit, a Fox 34 Float up front and a Float CTD rear shock. The Pro model gets an SLX drivetrain, and the Expert gets Shimano's Deore gruppo with X-Fusion's Sweep fork and O2 RLX rear shock.
The legend himself, Joe Breeze poses with the Repack. The name comes from Marin County's Repack Hill, the site of mountain biking's historic early days in the mid 1970s.
www.breezerbikes.com
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This is a flawed statement. If I'm reading this correctly (which I may not be) then it sounds like the design uses a cartridge bearing to rotate 3 degrees. Rolling element bearings that are used for oscillating applications must rotate enough to provide at least one full rotation for each rolling element. This means that in a bearing with 10 balls, the bearing must rotate 36 degrees. For a bearing that rotates 3 degrees, this means that there must ne 120 rolling elements, which seems unlikely. Bearings that don't have this minimum rotation tend to fail (very) early due to fretting corrosion as the ball immediately wears through the lubrication. This is why bushings are typically used for these types of applications, bro.
Do you even Bro, bro?
Just because it's designed by an engineer, does not make it well engineered. I'm in the aviation industry, and a lot of engineer are seriously lacking in on the ground stuff, like wear and metallurgy. When they come to an experienced engine mechanic to ask them 'what do you think' before they make a recommendation, really leaves me serious doubts about bike engineers ;-)
Lol!
right ... ?
EDIT: and yeah, as i can see it, putting a pivot in the middle of the chainstay would only bring problems. With a normal horst link or an old Kona style you at least have a strong axle connecting the two sides, keeping the pivots at least slightly colinear. With a DW-link (or any other short link system) you encase the bearings in a uniform shell with a pivot all around it. Stiff as hell. With this you have a pivot on each side that's connected with a wonky stick (sorry, but MTB frames are more or less weak sticks, their shape more or less guarantees it). Which is just awesome for fley, aligment, wear, etc.
Without people being anal about stiffness and suspension performance we'd still be riding kluknkers. If i were you i'd buy the guy, that's raging on about some bike sucking (and giving arguments to his thinking), a beer.
www.sottogroup.com/frames
Understood - it's a first look. But no need to speculate. Joe Breeze worked with Sottogroup to design this, they could discuss what the "M Link" hopes to accomplish. What are its characteristics? Will it be stable pedaling platform? More plush? Sit deep in the travel? There must some ideas behind why there is an M link there and what it does compared to others?
All this could be discussed without putting a leg over it, it wouldn't be speculation - it would set expectations.
I'm intrigued but not terribly excited, seems to me like the pivots on the stays will be more trouble (weight/maintenance) than they're worth. With only 3 degrees of movement I'd rather just have a solid hung of metal there personally.
.... So pedaling efficiency at sag, more active everywhere else?
If, as stated in the article, the mid chain-stay pivot only rotates 3degrees, and let's say 17" chain-stays (just rounding off) - then it would seem you get less than 1/2 inch of travel at the rear wheel from the chain stay pivot. There are interesting ride feel implications for when in the full travel the mid chain-stay pivot takes over and for how that rotation is limited.
Um, small amounts of repeated rotation is exactly what kills cartridge bearings...
What an awful looking bike! Looks like they've designed it around whichever layout avoids most patent infringements...
that's an old skool Breezer Lightning still going strong some 20 years later ---
www.pinkbike.com/photo/10007392
l love the Breezer line.... l used to sell the snarkies outta them back when they just did steel. really glad to see they're back making 29ers and that new full squish is sweet!!!
The comments between aks21 & mikekazimer where more interesting than the article!
And how the heck does it extend bearing life, when bearing really do not like such small movements?
And direct connection to shock means shock will not last long.
I thought FSR patent in US was about to expire?
www.pinkbike.com/photo/9388181
I would probably kill someone for xt. Don't quite know what I would need to do for xtr...
Curious to see how it rides though, it's good to see something a little different.
Friend of mine had an ETSX designed similar to this that went through multiple rounds of bearing replacement in the short time he had the bike, back of the bike was always getting sloppy.
There are numerous bikes that have horst links that suffer chain slap... its just gonna scratch the paint and maybe chip the surface of the stays, its not gonna kill bearings which have stainless steel outer races. Worried that much, put a lizard skins over it. IF you actually bothered to read what Mike wrote about the bike, he specifically mentions that the frame designers, who know shitloads more about metallurgy, stress, path loads and so forth than anyone who chimes in ever on pinkbike articles, put the brace where they did EXACTLY to solve flex worries. Ya do know why triangles are used so much in bicycle frames right ?!
Comparing to short link is non sense as usually the chainstays come around the link and you have a single through axle. I guess it's hard to achieve the same rigidity with such a design, whether you want it or not. No need to neg prop me for that, I'm not badmouthing. I am just very suspicious that two tiny short axle (guess 15 mm long each maximum) will provide the rigidity of a single 60 mm long (if not more on say Nomad or Mojo) single axle holding together the short ling and the whole rear triangle squeezed in between (or the opposite fo the Nomad)