Is This the New Enduro? Specialized Patent Shows 170mm Bike With UBB Suspension Design
Earlier this month the cover was finally lifted on the prototype downhill bike that Loic Bruni and Finn Illes had been racing on the World Cup circuit this season. That unveiling wasn't quite as dramatic as some had hoped - it revealed a link under the bottom bracket that pulls on another link to activate the shock. Specialized are calling it their Under Bottom Bracket (UBB) suspension system, and say that it allows them to “independently fine-tune key ride dynamics components, including axle path, shock leverage rate, and anti-squat/anti-rise characteristics for braking.”
Those claims have been solidified in the form of a recent patent application, which details several different ways of executing the design, along with the resulting anti-squat, anti-rise, and leverage ratio numbers. Interestingly, the frame used in the patent descriptions has 172 millimeters of travel, and is shown with a water bottle in some of the images. I wouldn't be surprised if this suspension layout shows up on the new Enduro – after all, it's been over four years since that bike last received an update. It's stood the test of time very well, and the geometry isn't that far off from bikes that have been released this year, but there are undoubtedly some areas that could be revised.
The basic claim of the patent application is that the system allows for greater flexibility when it comes to tuning individual aspects of the bike's suspension performance. The drawings show in detail how the system functions – a link runs under the bike's bottom bracket, connecting the chainstay to another short link that pivots around a bearing and drives the shock.
One interesting part of the patent is the section that mentions 'field adjustable suspension.' Several of Specialized's mountain bikes have adjustable geometry, but this would add another level of customization. The example used mentions having multiple attachment points on the seat tube for the link that runs from the seatstay to the seat tube (labeled 74 in the photo). The patent states, “This could allow a rider of the bicycle to tune certain performance characteristics, such as anti-rise, to a particular terrain or course, without significantly or dramatically affecting certain other performance characteristics, such as leverage ratio and anti-squat.”
There patent also mentions using different brake mount designs to tune the bike's anti-rise characteristics: “Changes can be made to the design of the brake mount and/or the rear braking system that attaches to the brake mount to cause the rear braking system to be positioned differently with respect to the seat stay member, but to still move or rotate with the seat stay member. These changes can result in adjustments to or tuning of the anti-rise characteristics of the suspension system.”
As far as the overall suspension characteristics of the bike in the patent, predictability appears to be the goal here – there isn't anything that stands out as being too wild, a trend we've seen lately with suspension layouts from various companies. Extreme S-shaped leverage ratio curves are mostly a thing of the past, with smooth, moderate progression the new goal. The different configurations shown in the patent give the bike between 10% – 20% progression depending on the layout, and it mentions the ability to run either a coil or air shock.
A final interesting tidbit has to do with the frame construction details that the patent describes. The patent states, “Preferably, the main frame is constructed of individual components, as described above, which are fabricated from a metal material, such as aluminum or steel, and welded together. Desirably, the bottom bracket support member is created from a metal material by a forging process and, thus, benefits from the strength and durability advantages that inherently result from the forging process.”
It does go on to mention that “alternative materials such as composites may also be used in whole or in part to construct the main frame.” I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a carbon version of this bike (assuming it becomes a real thing), but I also like imagining the mountain bike world's reaction if the new Enduro was made of steeel.
We'll see if this ends up being the next generation of the Enduro, or if Specialized decides to take another route entirely.
Author Info:
Must Read This Week
Sign Up for the Pinkbike Newsletter - All the Biggest, Most Interesting Stories in your Inbox
PB Newsletter Signup
However, I doubt it will be granted based on prior art, such as the Ancillotti bike (Specialized’s Horst link addition does not substantially differentiate it from prior art in terms of novelty...that is just derivative combination), and based on my cursory review of Specialized’s claims in their patent application. Interestingly, two of the inventors are from Freiburg, Germany, about 250 miles from Ancillotti. Maybe they’ll eventually be able to patent some sub-element aspect of the frame, like a suspension adjuster mechanism or something. But as the claims exist now, that’s doubtful, IMO, if the examiner learns of the prior art and the related questionable claims of novelty.
Interestingly, many of Specialized’s initial claims in the recently-published patent application have been cancelled. Personally, I expect they’ll soon abandon this application...too many dubious claims of novelty where prior art clearly exists. IMO, they’d be better off filing utility patent applications for small features of this type of suspension design (like unique quick-suspension-adjustment features or quick-swap linkages), possibly along with a design patent (maybe for a lug-type of unique design aesthetic or something).
Or Specialized might try to play their chances and hope the examiner doesn’t find all of the non-patented yet commercialized prior art (patent examiners usually look for previous patents and abandoned patent applications, but Ancillotti’s design, for example, isn’t patented to my knowledge). As I mention elsewhere below, the public can comment on the examination process and inform the examiner of prior art. That does not usually happen and patents are frequently granted for non-novel technologies or previously-invented / previously-patented / previously-commercialized technologies. Enforcement can become difficult at that point, but the existence of a patent (enforceable or not) can help with marketing, perceived clout, outside investment, etc.
Examiners are quite limited in their knowledge and bandwidth...so Specialized might just be playing the brute-force “patent everything and see what makes it through” game. That seems to be the approach of many big innovation-focused companies since the US switched to the “first to file” patent process.
Sadly, First-to-file can really screw small and independent inventors in many cases and in many ways...and it makes it more expensive due to several practical consequences of the new first-to-file approach. Figure $50,000+ to apply for and receive a patent like this. And that doesn’t include annual maintenance fees of around $3500 on average for the US, after it is granted, for the duration of the patent (often around 12-16 years). If you also patent it in Europe, Australia, Asian countries, etc, budget $200,00 minimum — and likely $400,000 in expenses and maintenance fees and also translation fees over the lifetime of the patent in all of those areas. And then if you want to sue someone to practice your right to enforce your patent and prevent people from using your technology, budget $200,000 to $2,000,000 per suit. It’s become stupid money and the realm of really big and rich companies =/ =(
patents.google.com/patent/US20230312050A1/en?oq=United+States+Application+US20230312050
It’s clear this bike was initially primarily an engineering / innovation / R&D / US-alternative-manufacturing exercise for racing (and Specialized’s own comments about their prototyping efforts confirm this). The patent application certainly seems like a hasty afterthought, done to try to protect — or enable future protection of — their racing-oriented suspension design. Not filing a patent application would surely be considered irresponsible by Specialized corporate management. And the quality of their patent application claims (and numerous cancelled claims) certainly seem to support everything I’ve mentioned above.
But it’s certainly been a hugely intriguing and successful effort thus far! I kinda want one of those DH bikes myself (however, Intense did just released the new M1, and in red =). If Specialized don’t receive a patent for it (or abandon the patent application), maybe 3-4 other companies will be making it soon — like the 6-bar-suspension Canyon / production Specialized Demo / the new Intense M1, etc.
I also believe Specialized has their own patent team, and they did enough research on the matter before filing. It is likely the scope of the claim will be reduced later on, but I do not see them dropping the application.
That being said, I agree with your last paragraph. I am afraid it is more about looking good in the eye of the shareholders/management, than actually protecting a new "revolutionary" tech.
And again, no no no — sure, they have some in-house attorneys, but guess what, bike engineering / prototype production / IP schedules often get crunched, prototyping gets delayed, and then all of the sudden they’re stuck having to rush to file a provisional patent before the first race when it’s revealed to the public. Provisional patents often indicate that you haven’t prepared very well. I bet Specialized also has outside patent counsel and support — but very few patent attorneys have detailed MTB-market-specific knowledge of historical prior art. If they “did their research” and were prepared, they would not have filed a provisional patent — they would’ve done it right and filed a regular patent application with subsequent patent application continuations as required. And all of the cancelled claims also indicate they weren’t well prepared, nor well researched, nor well written & executed.
Anyhow, when you’ve done this patent stuff for a while like I have (since 1999 when in high school when working for my neighbor who was an Expert Witness in Federal District Court for intellectual property cases in computer graphics and video games and related gaming artificial intelligence...we helped win $205-million dollars in high-profile cases my senior year!), you start to pick up on details like I’ve mentioned. Just trying to help Pinkbikers make sense of this stuff! Because the original article missed some things and most of the comments don’t help much either, haha.
If that is what is happening, I consider that to be unethical abuse of the patent system (if they know it’s virtually certainly unpatentable due to prior art). However, many business gambits and practices these days are unethical, so I guess it’s all part of the game.
I kind of think Pinkbikers should band together and crowdfund a low-overhead & low-assets super-lean LLC to produce built-on-demand and drop-shipped frames of this design...and just ignore the legal / patent warning letters =P. If successfully sued somehow, and if the LLC was structured properly (including supplier raw material inventories which could be diverted to other bike production), the company assets and inventory could be worth as little as $10,000 or so. Forfeit those assets, fold the company, and start a new on-demand / drop-ship frame company. =)
Might I recommend having a guest editor from BRAIN do a regular series on PB to cover industry processes? It could go a long ways toward avoiding the anger and confusion that typically accompanies the common misperception that pretty much every new product was spawned through evil intentions.
If granted — and the public can comment directly to the patent examiner via the USPTO during the patent prosecution phase, to ensure they know about Ancillotti’s extensive prior art which may overlap with Specialized’s supposedly novel utility claims — this patent will likely be unenforcible due to Ancillotti’s prior sales of its bikes. But chances are the patent won’t be officially/legally invalidated if granted (no one is going to want to spend the hundreds-of-thousands of dollars to do that, when Specialized would probably pay $$$ to settle the dispute and keep using the patent under the guise of enforceable validity).
This is essentially what happened (from what I’ve seen and heard) with Knolly and Intense...Intense produced irrefutable prior art that was in direct contradiction to Knolly’s lawsuit regarding presumed infringement of its patent claims, and both companies mutually decided to carry on with no further enforcement or action. They both knew Knolly’s utility patent was unenforcible (from a legal / court perspective where novelty and prior art are scrutinized). But a “patented” suspension technology is good for marketing purposes, and potentially for getting investment money, so it’s still officially a granted patent that has not been challenged in court to prove its uneforcibility. Smart move for Knolly to drop it...Intense has mega Costco revenue to outspend them in court to prove Intense was not infringing due to prior art, and then countersue Knolly for compensation for all their legal fees for the frivolous (actually maybe more negligent or malicious than frivolous) original patent-infringement lawsuit =P
I believe it will use utilize a new energy source:
The Machine Integrated Lithium Fuel
Either way Ancilloti deserves some credit here- theirs even includes geo/kinematic adjustment at the twist of a knob. Hopefully some of that big S money too.
I had looked into making an offer for Ancillotti with a $1B bike company I was helping — they were quite intrigued (especially as it might have opened up the Italian & Southern European high-end MTB market a bit with the Ancillotti brand recognition, as new higher-production bikes were introduced), but most of the value would be in the historical brand value and Tomaso’s personal knowledge & expertise...so the acquisition would mostly be for him and his knowledge / intangible assets, not his company and its tangible assets and low-production-volume machinery & tooling (and especially not his non-patented suspension design, as anyone can copy that at this point). They ended up not making an unsolicited purchase offer (it sure would have surprised him!), especially as they couldn’t quantify the value of reintroducing the brand at a larger worldwide scale. We all talked about it a bunch, but we decided to put those resources into diversifying into aerospace and defense technologies (leveraging their engineering experience with high-performance aluminum alloys and composites).
However, I would still LOVE to help bring Ancillotti to the worldwide market someday. I’ve been to the village where Ancillotti is originally from near Florence (where they were made until Tomaso moved to the mountains, but his dad still did tube cutting and prep there for Tomaso for a while), and I’d love to help keep their brand alive, if it ever comes to that’s point. We even got to see the private Ancillotti museum motorcycle collection...and it wasn’t even planned...it was just during a random business lunch which happened to be in that village...the restaurant owner just wanted to show off his personal collection! Ancillotti is just one of the richest brand histories I’ve ever seen. First order of business would be reintroduced old Ancillotti logos on bikes and some tasteful consumer merchandise — their old Italian typefaces and logos are just stunning works of art =)
I reported this thread to Tomaso ;-)
10/10
I have to imagine that part of the drive is to get more mass lowering in the bike design. But to your point, the suspension kinematics they are showing here are not super interesting given the complexity.
unremarkable anti rise numbers
What sort of numbers would you prefer to see?
Riders tend to run volume reducers in their shocks to make them more progressive. Just get a little more progression out of the frame and less out of the shock. That way you can control the ramp up a lot better and run a coil shock if you want to. There are progressive springs, but theyre expensive and only made by cane creek and MRP.
It's important to understand that progressive springs - whether air or coil - are progressive only in the spring rate. A progressive motion ratio curve acts on both the spring and - importantly - the damper.
Image a motion ratio curve with an extreme falling rate. We could compensate by using a spring with an extreme rising rate and achieve a typical wheel rate with respect to the spring, but the wheel rate with respect to the damper would still be an extreme falling rate and the overall performance will not be as good as if the wheel rate was optimized with respect to both. This is one of the reasons the Trust products never achieved the full potential of a linkage design, and the concept applies to more conventional applications, such as rear linkages with insufficiently progressive motion ratio curves that attempt to use highly progressive air springs to compensate.
That said, I'm not sure they explored the damping curves as much as they could have, as the curve shape of the damper link was fairly smooth. I suspect there could be advantages to a more progressive (with respect to position, rather than velocity) damping curve.
Regarding damper shaft speeds I understand your point, but cant say how big the effect is for a given leverage curve and shock progression.
I personally like more progressive frames since they naturally have a progressive damping curve. The early stroke gets less damping for better sensitivity and recovery while the end stroke is damped more heavily to prevent bottom outs and keep the spring in check after a heavy landing.
The idea works best on a progressive frame with a traditional coil shock. Progressive coils and air are nice but you loose a bit of control due to a faster end stroke rebound.
Pinkbike will praise this but burn the Unno for the same issue.
*but never the glaringly obvious one.....
-haha-
(Seriously though - this looks like an interesting design and can appreciate the adjustability. I just don't know how that push-rod and rocker link will fare under JRA conditions for the masses.)
Regardless, if you do wreck the chain ring, who wants the added headache of also wrecking the suspension?
I also have some wild idea based on a citroen 2cv.
Have . Oh Yes, you understood that right; Niner has been around longer than 29. Your Point?
I ride both fast and slow chunky terrain and I have yet to bash my chainring across nearly 16 years of mountain biking. I bet its a non-issue.
My point is, never say never. You don't know how good it will become.
I also ride chunk and I routinely hit my pedals, the short end of the cranks, the chainring, and even the BB.
You’re clearly not riding as hard as you think you are, just saying…
Maybe he is riding harder and better?
Anyone can demolish their shit into every obstacle....
Also MTB originated in Crested Butte CO.....Not Marin County CA with Fisher and his gang as they claim it did.
Yea the bikes were goofy and needed all you mentioned to evolve and i also vowed i would never own a 29, up until 2019 when i bought my first, having never even really tested one since 98; it was a gamble purchase at the time but am on board with what they became.
The circus of linkage under the BB though, is of no comparison to what your Apples to oranges is and will never be on my radar for a bike purchase, especially with the choices of incredible bikes available today.
"never say never. You don't know how good it will become.".... (Australian Gun Laws and ownership) Hows that working out for you guys on how good its becoming? Just a Thought
Anyway, homicide rates:
Aus: 0.86 per 100k, all methods.
Canada:2.25 per 100k.
USA 5.9 per 100k... just from guns. 6.3 across everything.
You guys had had 484 mass shootings by September 4th this year.
Canada had... *checks notes*... none this year.
Australia had... *checks notes*... also none this year.
Keep up the good freedom, you're winning!
So you said never to 29ers - until you bought one.
You can't see the irony in your own argument.
So it was you! Well done for seeing what others couldn't at the time, even if your bike was terrible
I only had Gary Fisher between 2006 and 2013, but his 29ers of the time just didn't feel right for me on a medium frame.
Personally I think they've only made bigger wheels work for small and medium frames in the last few years.
My next ride will be 29. Ridden a heap now that I've been impressed with.
Unless the obstacle happens to be a.) capable of hitting within the radius of your chainring/bashguard and b.) only to the left of the bashguard/chainring, c.) hard enough to damage a solid metal link - then it's unlikely to be an issue for most people.
I'm not saying its impossible to damage this linkage type - but I think its extremely unlikely, even if your running your BB area into obstacles often. Even in the event that this bizarre edge case occurs, and somehow the rock/root/rut strikes near your BB and to the left of your chainring, perhaps the link itself will be capable of standing up to most hits.
Either that, or the engineers at Specialized are about to seriously mess up their new Enduro! We'll see.
Regardless, I don't think it would be an issue either for this (potentially) new bike.
Mine is a couple generations old. Better long travel trail bike back then, current gen is a better descender.
The anti-squat looks as if it will be ~100% near sag, which will make it an 'ok' climber (not an issue if the climbswitch is readily reachable). This will actually be a bit lower than the anti-squat on the current Enduro. Notably, the anti-squat falls off dramatically. One can hope that this might mean much less chain growth than the current Enduro.
The leverage ratio is quite a bit lower/less progressive (2.7 to 2.4) than their current design (3.4 to 2.6) - moving them in the direction of Yeti's SB150/160 design.
Frankly, the current Enduro is a damn amazing bike - although I think it could be improved in a slightly higher pivot design with a low idler. It could give it an even more rearward axle path, maintain relatively high antisquat, and cure the Enduro's main issue: crazy chaingrowth/pedal kickback in the last 30% of travel.
This will certainly leave plenty of opportunity for cascade components to introduce a higher leverage/more progressive link option!
=> www.instagram.com/p/CyJTSv9oY0g/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA=
thanks
Then imagining putting suspension linkages BELOW that…sounds like an interesting choice
Some brands like trek discoverd by moving the lower shock mount you can change the curve while the geo basically staying the same.
A single pivot with rocker can do the same except the adjustment.
Who ever thought "well I'd adjust the anti rise of my bike for this part if I could"? That's the bike you wished for.
I'd like to try the first 29er iteration against my '22. I bet it makes me feel stupid for dumping money into it.
One guy here is waiting for the under bb high pivot. I'm holding out for the over head top tube.
The coolest-lame trend is to hide your shock in the frame. Do that trick.
Where is the novelty? They already can do that. It's a novel design, but doesn't seem to accomplish anything novel.
The patent system is so f*cked.
www.pinkbike.com/news/waki-bikes-of-the-future-y-me-schmetterling-2016.html
www.pinkbike.com/news/spotted-under-the-cover-of-specializeds-prototype-downhill-bike.html
- Tell them I no longer work here"
theres a general consensus id say that if you have 3 grounded points in a 6 bar linkage, that its a 4 bar linkage with 2 extra links creating a second 4 bar loop. i.e 2 more including the shock.
If you have a 6 bar linkage with only 2 grounded points kind of like a stephenson linkage, then its more of a "pure" 6 bar.
The shock being a link makes it an icky subject though because in linkage design mostly you have stiff incompressible links, but here we have a compressible link.
so its more like a 5 and a half bar mechanism ............................
I understand that having an axle path defined by all 6 bars is different than having one defined by four bars with an extra two defining the leverage ratio, but as pure as definitions get, they're both called 6 bar linkages. But is there a practical difference between the two? arguably, not really. Hell the first picture in this article is a great example of that. It's a 6 bar linkage that allows the designer to independently control the AS (pedalling behaviour), AR (braking behaviour), and leverage ratio (shock behaviour). Which is exactly why everyone who uses a 6 bar linkage, whether it's a 6 or a 4+2, uses one. But you could also call it a linkage driven single pivot because the axle path is controlled by a 2 bar linkage. Everyone cares about axle path when really it means f*ck all unless you're making big changes like low/mid/high pivot.