WAKi-bikes of the Future: Y-ME Schmetterling
 |
There is only one round of the UCI DH World Cup left, and then we can begin the final countdown to World Championships, the biggest race of the year. An aura of mysticism surrounds it, this is a race where athletes are putting everything on the line, bare knees, single ply tyres or aluminium bolts. So far the top teams have engaged in eye-pleasing Paintjob warfare with Pitty and Bossman leading the way, but sometimes those unique conditions create new components and even frames, like the DaVinchi Sparthan.
What if...
I told you that bike designers got so inspired by Aaron Gwin's chainless massacre in Schladming, preceeded by Neko Mullaly's amazing run in Hafjell, that they decided to play with the idea of a chainless DH bike. Which other track than Val Di Sole fits such bike better? Several journalists did real-life tests with and without a chain (Dirt, GMBN) and the results were quite shocking with lap times being within seconds. What are the potential benefits of running a bike without the drive train? Well for starters, the weight of the whole bike would go down by a full kilogram, and most importantly, the unsprung weight at the rear axle gets cut by at least 400g since we are getting rid of the rear derailleur, cassette, chain, and freehub body. If you think for a moment about how many rocks and roots of all sizes that heavy wheel has to ram into during the course of Val Di Sole or Andorra's track, this may mean shaving off whole seconds by just riding along. Removing chain tension makes it even easier for the suspension to take the wheel out of the way of obstacles. Chain growth becomes a non-issue and engineers can further optimize suspension kinematics. Finally, if we skip the crankset and the chain ring, the bottom bracket height can get lower by at least 5cm. This dramatically lowers the center of gravity of the bike, improving cornering and handling in general.
Chainless Specific Downhill mountain bike:
 |
Here is my go at the design of a chainless DH bike, the Formula 1 of push bikes. First up is Y-Me Industries with their Schmetterling, which means "Butterfly" in German. We all know who could pilot that thing to get the gold medal and the most prestigious pride-flag resembling jersey. The man in question is known for using very little of his suspension and I had the pleasure of watching him in person bounce off of the tops of fridge-sized boulders, hence the 650B wheels of the bike are mounted to only 150 millimeters of travel in the front and 160 in the rear. Geometry is not exactly a Geoshmetron, a 61-degree head angle and near 1300mm wheel base should please many keyboard warriors. The bike has a relatively long chainstay at 460mm. The suspension is based on a high pivot design with initial rearward axle path for ultimate smoothness and steady wheelbase change. Kinematics are built around a modern air shock, Faux X26.
 |
The fork is a bit of an engineering beauty, the upside down design is for a bit of extra traction and supreme tracking through the race course from hell. 1.5 crown design to improve aerodynamics, reduces stress at the crown/steerer interface and maximum fore/aft stiffness under braking. The whole upper assembly is made of carbon fiber with two aluminium tubes cast inside, working as a sliding surface for the bushing mounted at the end of the inner legs. Thanks to using a carbon fibre monocoque structure and (actually) clamped 24mm axle Y-Me could manipulate stiffness of the fork the get the desired result. Yes, there is one bushing under the wiper seal and one at the end of the 35mm inner leg. This way the bushing offset increases with the travel, stiffening up the fork at the best possible moment and eliminating the issue of bending of the inner legs, which creates additional, unwanted resistance in standard forks featuring both bushings mounted in the outer leg assembly. Then we have the air spring with a high volume negative chamber and off course the tokens... made of fricking 26" carat gold. No... but the fork may have a twin tube damping cartridge in golden color from the Swedish Åhléns (read Oh-leans), of course with separate high and low-speed compression adjustments. The bike has quite a slack head angle to better work with angle of attack forces acting on the fork, therefore the fork offset has been set at only 44mm.
 |
The bike features special pedals from HP, thanks to a slight drop of the axle they always remain with the right side up and provide a better platform to stand on when pumping. HP makes both a flat and clipless chainless specific pedals, or rather platforms.
Super Push Bike
The second bike could have been designed already, last year. Socialized's engineer, James Chamberlaine designed most of his favorite features into this bike, that is a very low center of mass, long front, shorter end, slack head angle and low BB. I am not keen at all to write more about it since I know that the Pinkbike audience always has a lot to say when a bike from this company comes along. I don't want to enrage the masters of numbers. So here it is; the Socialized X-Works HOTwalk F5R.
 |
Could chainless bikes be the way forward? Could it be a new trend after this 120 hyatus or the Plus fuzz? Perhaps some rental park bikes could be designed as chainless, which could lower the prices of the rental? Joeys like me probably only pedal on the hips of the jumps when they roll on machine dug trails anyways. I'd like to say that I'd really love to see more genuinely interesting bikes being designed. The less bikes that look like a Seshion the better... because the Seshion is a damn good bike, but make your own good bike, damn it.
Cheers!
Arguably yours,
Wacek Kipszak – Waki
@WAKIdesigns / Waki on Facebook
Disclaimer: This article is meant to be a satire. My very intention with it is to entertain you and eventually provide some food for reflection in case we treat our sport a bit too seriously. I honestly do not wish to insult or harm anyone or any company. Eventual resemblance to persons, names and places might be coincidental.
Author Info:
Must Read This Week
Sign Up for the Pinkbike Newsletter - All the Biggest, Most Interesting Stories in your Inbox
PB Newsletter Signup
m.pinkbike.com/u/protour/album/Potential-2016-Demoproducts
Waki and Jason@specialized have seen my dream concept bike, I'm more than a little disappointed it didn't make it prototype status for this big race. I assume they are getting the patent finalized first.
This is my handmade prototype for mountain gravity bike (chainless).
vimeo.com/87980676
www.facebook.com/szymon.dziedzic.75/media_set?set=a.504378426254067.121313.100000457419999&type=3
are you his manager?
Shit... I conceptualized the 1x drivetrain in 2003 as I was running 11-34 with a 22-32 up front and commented to another mechanic I respected that they should come out with a 40tooth cassette and a smaller ring up front. The guy scoffed at the idea. Funny how it's pretty much standard these days.
Well sorry kid, don't know what to tell you. You obviously know everything already.
as near 50 years old... yep.. probably right mate!
@m0dest: im probably gonna regret this, but I will try to reason with you. my problem is none of those reasons, is because you think anyone cares about your stories. You managed to tell a stupid story(seriously is not even a good one) about you telling something to another guy like 12 years ago; in the middle of a post that is just aimed at poking some fun at waki, the fact that it contains probably the oldest meme ever should have gave it away.
And this is more of a personal curiosity thing. do you actually think that by spouting out whatever credentials you think you have your arguments hold more value? seriously im trying to understand how that could give any force to you argument and I cant figure it out. also what the f*ck is UBI?
I got your reference. You just took offense to it for some odd reason.
I was agreeing with your original post by providing a valid statement that I don't typically think Waki's posts are trollesque while also mentioning from a personal experience that just because someone scoffs at a good idea it doesn't mean that it eventually won't come around. Maybe once you finally mature around to "old" you may get the reference.
UBI: You already know everything at 28 so why should you be concerned with old bike shit?
Get on man. I got old man shit to do.
Well here it is...
dual crown forks and everything
A lot more sexy than current mountain scooters, is it the future for bike park ?
And on that note you didn't even talk about the axle sizing for optimal push/power/chainstay ratio.
You should make a drive chain snap in / quick release system. At any time you can install derailleur,chain,spocket with in seconds.
drawing of the bikes looks - SIC
Actually first pic - looks awesome; whether is chain-less / single speed / gearbox bike; which can easily became true with carbon fiber usage
As an aside: I rode last year's Enduro Giant des Portes du Mercantour (EWS round this year) and they made us do one chainless run. Super fun!
In real life, we'd have to introduce a middle step to forward the chainless idea. In a first season, we'd have to have the guys at the DH Worldcup drop the chain and leave everything else equal on their bikes. Have two timed final runs, one with, one without chain.
In the following season, let the racers adapt their bikes as much as they want to the chainless run (aka reducing unsprung weight). We'd learn so much about this sport...
I'm not sure on the common pedal axis though. Might be OK for clips, but on flats a lot of mechanical grip is generated by making a 'v' with the feet, kind of like what rock climbers refer to as an 'Egyptian' : the leading heel is dropped and so is the trailing toe. The offset of the cranks allows the feet to form a V and outward pressure gives pedal grip. Bryceland, Hill and Kovarik demonstrate this well, can be seen on pics of them in the air. It can also help progress the outside foot in a flat turn, like skiing, AKA 'laser cock', as well as drop COG onto the outside and raise the inside to lay the bike over in a turn while keeping weight over the top of the contact patch. MX, riders do this seated, but can also grip the bike with knees to keep hold of it in whoops and jumps, otherwise you just float off the pegs.
I don't know where the tipping point is though, I prefer 165mm to 175mm for DH partly due to less 'splay'. Short cranks and no chainring would be a cool setup to try.
I rode for a couple weeks in Whistler on a ~2005 V10 without drivetrain and it was one of the most enjoyable experiences! The positive benefits of no chain (and other components) is definitely noticable.
everyone in vids now seem to ride level pedals, even Nino did at the Olympics.
Awesome article by the way
Lol