Rarely, to our knowledge, does a designer of a premium DH rig see the bike manufacturing process from front to back. Everything from designing the bike on the computer to riding the finished product on the terrain it was built for. Noel Buckley, owner and designer of Knolly Bikes, has been designing bikes for over ten years. His first frame design was the V-Tach in 2004 followed by Endorphin, Delirium, Podium, Chilcotin and just recently the new Warden.
His original V-Tach design was simply to build himself a bike for terrain he enjoyed riding on the North Shore Mountains of British Columbia. That same design, or at least the patented & proprietary 4x4 suspension, is what has led to the current Podium DH frame. Noel is the very first rider to test any new model. He takes his bikes, such as the Podium, to the terrain he wants the bike to perform on, specifically in this case Cypress Mountain in West Vancouver. We often get asked how the Podium came to fruition and what makes the bike what it is. So we thought we would get it from the man himself as he talks about the journey of the Podium, a couple technical features about the design and his thoughts on the future of Knolly Bikes.
Garett Buehler and Linden Finiak give us their impression on the Podium mixed in with some shred time:
Thanks for reading and we hope to see you on the trails! For more info check out the website at
knollybikes.com.
Contact your local dealer or distributor for further details -
info@knollybikes.comAction photos: Margus Riga -
www.margusriga.com
Ryan Berrecloth dropping into one of his built lines deep in the North Shore.
Member since May 7, 2008
Stinkys = tank , but Operators are a different breed.
It looks to me like an FSR layout but with a more controlled shock compression rate.
Can somebody tell me if I'm missing something?
you can also check out knollybikes.com/company and click on the engineering tab for their design detail of the four by 4 linkage
Secondly, the wording of that actual patent was that the dropout pivot was to be ahead of, and significantly below the hub axle, between the dropout and the lower link (which most called the chainstay because that's what it looked like compared to hardtails). Rocky Mountain's ETS and Smoothlink patents are for a dropout pivot that is above and ahead of the rear axle but again to the lower link arm.
Third, if you look at where Knolly has their dropout pivot, its basically in line with the axle, same as with Ellsworth's ICT bikes, but where they difer from the ICT is the path the upper linkage takes, and thus where the virtual pivot point (which is the same as the ICT point in Ellsworth's patent, he just had to "invent" a new hocus pocus term for it to get a patent) ends up that the wheel is moving about, and the path it takes in relation to the drivetrain. ICT's have those ridiculously long links that run virtually parallel to one another so that the ICT becomes this zone in space METERS away in front of the bike. Cube basically copies that design for their bikes (which is why we won't see Cube stateside until the ICT patents expire).
- Use a full-length seat tube.
- Place the seat tube in front of the bottom bracket to move the seat forward when dropped. No rider interference.
- Increase lateral rigidity in the rear end by keeping the suspension linkage components as short as possible.
- Orient the rear shock in a position that allows for long shock stroke lengths.
- Isolate the rear shock from side loading. No flex. Period.
- Progressive shock stroke
and of course, you get the rear axle path as described by deeight.
Poached from: blistergearreview.com/gear-reviews/2013-knolly-chilcotin
Come and ride if you are ever up here, always trying to get more riders on the tracks and yes that bike looks sick!
The track will be closing on the 15th October, but will open up again all next summer and be bigger and better!