Kingdom Unveil Two 3D Printed Titanium Prototype Bikes
Starting from some sketches on a riding holiday in Morzine, Kingdom have become a brand that forged their name in creating hard-hitting and forward-thinking titanium bikes. Starting out with the Vendetta hardcore hardtail, they now have a range that includes everything from gravel to park bikes, all made out of cycling's most alluring frame material.
Despite this growth, Kingdom aren't satisfied. As they have developed as a company, they have, along with their customers, realized that every bike they make creates a toll on the natural world in which their bikes are meant to be ridden. A blog on the brand's website, written by James McKnight of Misspent Summers, distills the dilemma as, "Everything we make harms nature. Yet it seems impossible to just stop. Is there a better way forward?"
To combat this and to progress their bike range, Kingdom have turned to additive manufacturing. Rather than welding tubes to other tubes, Kingdom have partnered with US-based Form 3D to print parts and then join them with tubes instead, in a similar fashion to brands like Atherton Bikes and Huhn Cycles.
Kingdom are doing things slightly differently to those other brands though. For a start, Kingdom are specifically using Electron Beam Melting (EBM), they say, "Compared to laser powder bed fusion, which is more widely used, the EBM process offers greater strength-cost effectiveness and makes more sense for larger components." Kingdom are also using the technology to not just make 'static parts', like a headtube or dropouts, but major, stress-laden, moving parts such as the main load-bearing yoke and subsequent BB pivot. Kingdom claim the shapes they have made would be almost impossible using traditional manufacturing methods. Their technique also means they can reduce wastage during construction over going down the CNC route.
 | At Form 3D, we have been a long time manufacturer of bike components, but we have never 3D printed bike parts as large, unique, and complex as we did for Kingdom Bike's new frame. We worked together with their design team to overcome some challenges of 3D printing like powder removal while taking advantage of the creativity that additive manufacturing has to offer. These benefits can be seen in every bike component, from the chainstay yoke customization to the complex net structure in the showcasing seat brace. This is by far the most additive manufactured parts we have seen in a full titanium bike frame, and we are thrilled to see and ride the final result." |
The Codpiece mesh that sits between the seat tube and the top tube is the only non-functional printed piece. Kingdom added it as a playful example of external mesh printing but it may not make it past the prototype stage as it has proven to be a Marmite design choice.
Kingdom want to make it clear that at this point the technology applied to the load-bearing pivot parts is still unproven but, they are cautiously optimistic they're onto a good thing. On top of the EBM process, Kingdom are also adding a further treatment after the printed process called HIP - a heat treatment usually reserved for use in aircraft and medical printed parts. Kingdom say, "[This] might be overkill but, it reflects our standpoint on making the parts on the bike as tough as possible".
Single Pivot
Kingdom have unveiled their first steps in this new direction in a new platform pictured in this article, the single-pivot Void.
One might question why Kingdom are pairing such an envelope-pushing construction technique with a suspension system that is generally seen as a throwback. Well, Kingdom love its simplicity and began sketching out the design with UK tuning company TF Tuned to create a low slung and chuckable bike. However, this is no ordinary single pivot and Kingdom are claiming that the unusual parts they are forming using Additive Manufacturing allow them to create a system with fewer compromises than you might expect from a design of this type. Lead engineer Dean Kemp says:
| The hardest part about designing a single pivot is you’re far more limited in terms of layout. Designing a suspension platform is a balancing act — you’re limited by the shock you’re using, target travel, and endless other design factors. On a linkage bike, it is possible to make a small adjustment to one small component in order to realize a comparably large change in how the bike reacts. With the single pivot, major parts might need amending to achieve desired handling or suspension targets. This means that, traditionally, the simpler the layout, the more compromise required. This is where additive manufacturing comes in — we are now able to create components exactly as needed, expanding the possibilities of a single pivot layout. |
Testing process
Next up for Kingdom is testing, lots of it. While they are confident in this new direction, they want some feedback from riders to ensure the theory is matched by what happens in the real world. They will now be creating 14 Void frames and sending them around the world to a team of dedicated testers who have been asked to test, "Pedalling, jumping, crashing, dropping 2m to flat from our loading bay, leaning it stupidly against a lamppost. That sort of thing. And repeatedly washing it, taking it apart, finding spares for it, and maintaining it." Testers will be specifically asked to pay attention to any wear on those all-important additive manufactured parts.
Early feedback has pointed out the lack of space for a water bottle to which Kingdom reply, "The answer to that is simple at this stage. This is about 'does it work?' Rather than hydration, which we will get to later."
This process will be literally make-or-break for the Void. If it passes the rigors of the testing team, Kingdom are aiming for the start of summer to begin producing the bikes for sale, if it fails, and Kingdom can't engineer their way around the project, they'll shelve it.
The Bikes
Kingdom will be making four different iterations of the Void, a 27.5" and 29" 130mm 'Trail' version and a 27.5" or 29" 160mm 'Mountain' version. The bikes use the same single-pivot suspension design even down to the same yoke but there are some small tweaks in geometry that tailor them to their expected use. Other differences include straight 44 vs tapered head tube and post mount vs IS tabs mounts for the brakes. The Void 160 also has a different printed BB pivot part to the VOID 130 as it is a part that needs to be BB drop specific.
Void 130 Trail
Based on Kingdom's XFS and Party Stripper frames, the Void 130 is designed to be a playful, aggressive trail bike. The bike can be built with a 120-140mm fork and 27.5" or 29" wheels. Kingdom has a couple of example builds on its site including a regular 12-speed build and a park focussed 7-speed version that isn't even specced with a dropper and weighs less than 29 lbs.
Void 130 Trail Details
Intended use: Trail / bike park
Frame Material Titanium - Ti-3AL-2.5V / Grade 6/4
Wheel size: 27.5" or 29"
Travel: 130mm rear, 120-140mm fork
Seat angle: 76.5°
Head angle: 64.5°
Reach: 485mm (large)
Weight: 3.05kg (medium, without shock)
Sizes: S, M, L, XL
Price: N/A prototype only.
More info: kingdombike.com
Intended use: Trail / bike park
Frame Material Titanium - Ti-3AL-2.5V / Grade 6/4
Wheel size: 27.5" or 29"
Travel: 130mm rear, 120-140mm fork
Seat angle: 76.5°
Head angle: 64.5°
Reach: 485mm (large)
Weight: 3.05kg (medium, without shock)
Sizes: S, M, L, XL
Price: N/A prototype only.
More info: kingdombike.com
Geometry
Void 160 Mountain
The 160 Mountain's geometry comes from Kingdom's longest-running suspension design, the Hex. Kingdom says this means it offers "stability at speed without any handling compromises". In 27.5 or 29er mode, the VOID Mountain can run a 150-160mm travel fork with a metric 230x60 shock.
Void 160 Mountain Details
Intended use: Enduro / All Mountain
Frame Material Titanium - Ti-3AL-2.5V / Grade 6/4
Wheel size: 27.5" or 29"
Travel: 160mm rear, 150-160mm fork
Seat angle: 76.5°
Head angle: 64°
Reach: 491mm (large)
Weight: 3.15kg (medium, without shock)
Sizes: S, M, L, XL
Price: N/A prototype only.
More info: kingdombike.com
Intended use: Enduro / All Mountain
Frame Material Titanium - Ti-3AL-2.5V / Grade 6/4
Wheel size: 27.5" or 29"
Travel: 160mm rear, 150-160mm fork
Seat angle: 76.5°
Head angle: 64°
Reach: 491mm (large)
Weight: 3.15kg (medium, without shock)
Sizes: S, M, L, XL
Price: N/A prototype only.
More info: kingdombike.com
Geometry
Kingdom are trying to make the testing phase as inclusive as they possibly can and will be inviting people to try the frame and give them feedback on it during this phase. TF Tuned will have 3 frames in the UK (along with other dealers in Singapore and in the US) so if you're interested in testing it yourself drop them a note.
More info, here.
Author Info:
Member since Nov 14, 2018
Must Read This Week
What a revelation - bikes aren’t made to tolerances seen in aeroplanes or F1 but yet are still entirely fit for purpose.
If you are hooked by his special brand of drivel then you can buy on of his bottom brackets at 1000% markup.
Last few motorbikes I have purchased are not perfect, I spent a bit more than a mountain bike too.....
If you saw his vid on the crappy production standards of some carbon bikes.... especially BB's then you'll get what he's trying to say. He uses a very simple Go/No Go gauge's to point out those shitty standards of very expensive fantastic plastic an titanium bikes. Christ, there so simple even I use them where I work in a shit hole Alu foundery..
He does a very good an entertaining job of pointing out the hipocracy and terrible standards of the bike industry, mistakes that would get parts returned an rejected in any low grade commercial industry let alone the aero space industry that our very expensive (an often overpriced) bikes are marketed as
I love his vids,
wouldn't buy his BB's tho :'D
(I think) his BB's are expensive as they are custom made to each customers specific needs, in that theyr'e made to solve those factory f*ck ups
And it's not ok.
Yes, my cranks did kind of spin in my YT Jeffsy frame but, my gosh, it's so good when you don't need to replace a bb every 2 month.
But i agree the ranting and swearing gets a bit boring, be much better if they were actual blogs on how things aren't as they should be.
The guy doesn’t even ride, does he?
there is no need for a 200€ bb or aerospace tollerances, the tollerances from shimano/sram would be fine. but most of the companies fail to do so, and that is how we end up with extremly high failure rates for bbs. just because they cheap out on a good fixture, strategie for getting a good hole into carbon or just fail at quality control.
im happy that he is talking about all the bullshit behind the scene, there is no reason to pay f1 prices for stuff with major defects in it. im fine with non dangerous defects but the price should fit the build quality.
Kingdom are a small business, out to make products they want to in a sport they obviously love being part of - why would I want to his unrealistic, largely irrelevant expectations?
Who cares if he's a loud mouth, put his loud mouth aside, and he still has valid points.
If he does ride, i believe he is a roadie.
Could be worse, could end up watching a blogger telling you about his non mtb related lambo, van build, and 20 bike collection but only rides 2 of them.
It’s up to you if you want to watch bloggers do such things but I would rather not.
I am sure they are great bikes, i'm also sure other products hambini has slated in the past, are actually decent products. (except boardmans, these are total trash)
However, i'd rather a product be torn apart than just praised. It's funny how we never hear a bad word about a bike from a sponsered rider or blogger.
I think you may need to have a think about just what negative means to you then?
You didn’t say ‘hambini made a blog of a previous model have a look and see what he thought’
You are either ignorant, plain thick or back tracking to try and prevent you looking like either.
I merely stated he gave kingdom a bit of a hammering, you can make the choice yourself to go view the video. I've not said nothing negative about the bike/frame.
But when you have to start calling people ignorent, or plain thick, you've conceded the arguement here.
You merely stated it in a manner that does nothing but imply something negative about kingdoms products - If you can’t see that well you are ignorant or plain thick, backed up by the fact you do not understand the meaning of the word ‘concede’.
If you want to view my comment as negative, then fine, that is your choice. If all you want to see is awesome reviews on bikes, that's fine too. When i choose to buy something, i find the worst reviews first.
If this bothers you that much, you have to much time on your hands, just go out for a ride!
btt: the kingdom frame hambini "review" was f*cked in so many ways. not sure if there was any contact to the company but the frame was f*cked, quality control didnt spot the error and the customer had a problem with the frame that didnt got solved.
maybe they learned from it and switched to 3d printing?!?
“ Michelle Arthurs Brennan is a 31 year old cycling journalist, she has had previous experiences with flouting the law here. Commentators on the post linked have claimed that Michelle is infertile and her feminist extremism is a cover up for her infertility. She herself has described her amenorrhea (failure to menstruate) as a result of her excessive training. However gynecological experts have suggested Arthurs-Brennan has a body fat percentage that is too high and an underlying condition such as polycystic ovary syndrome exists. Some users that claim to know Michelle and Maurice have stated she has had multiple failed IVF treatments. She also claims to be an expert in bed and deems the exploits of ham fisted amateurs at massaging her clitoris to be equivalent to those of poor fitting bicycle saddles.”
www.hambini.com/daf-j-maurice-brennan-michelle-arthurs
Bikes aren't even close to a premium product when comparing to aerospace, where things still aren't perfect.
While thats true, there is a some standard for bikes that pretty much implies that it shouldn't eat bottom bracket bearings due to poor manufacturing. For something as simple as a bicycle, this should be a guarantee in terms of how the bikes are made.
THATS the reason we have "standards" and tolerances. all the problems with creaking pressfit bearings result in not being in tolerance because of bad manufacturing or bad frame engineering. pressfit is used everywhere without problems because is the cheapest and one of the best ways to mount anything.
to be fair carbon is quite hard to manufacture, same for ti frames, but you pay for exacly that knowlege and therefore you should get a product in tolerance.
But I'm quite sure the price per kilo of the monocoque of a plane is pretty close to some of the bikes out there. The technology to produce them is different of cause.
.
.
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Sincere apologies to all the families/victims for that tasteless comment.
The comments, well if you are ok with that, as I say you are disturbed.
Regardless of Bambino's presentation style its points from an engineering perspective are sound. But if you have an issue with him don't come on here ranting because that just makes you a massive hypocrite.
Many bikes have far worst tolerances than your grandpa steel bike designed in a piece of paper 70 years ago.
You had Boeing hammering 737 NG structural crappy made parts and the thing can fly for years,but you can search what happen when something goes wrong.
Head sets work fine..
why can't the bike industry get PF BB's right (some do)
there are also problems with headsets. and even some bad engineering is going on there as well: e.g. saw some plasic rings for tentioning the headset bearings
Completely FK up the same process for a BB? It's nothing to do with how much stress the joint is under but, more sticking to a certain standard when every other company has their own variation of that standard aaaaaaaaaaand the afore mentioned quality controll at both the factory that makes the frame and the distro that assembles it into a bike.
BMX has had pressfit BB's for ever. Around 2000ish, different variations on BB size started appearing. The heads of BMX comanies got together an settled on two frame standards. An sure BMX is all chro mo..... it's almost as if carbon production is the problem not the actual BB.............?
Agreed... I think it’s great that he’s calling a bike company out. Those kingdom bikes look great from far away, but the welds are scary.
Exactly, I think most people on here don’t quite understand British humor.
but i agree with you, there should be ONE good bb standard. im sure that this was the plan with bb30 (and to make carbon frame production cheaper/easier) but the failed on that part big. then there was pf30 and now we have that problem: xkcd.com/927
i dont know enought about carbon production but i asume shrinkage of the matix is the problem. they just dont want to wait for the frame to cure and mashine it after some time. also carbon quite hard so you need expensive tools and even more expensive fixturing because a frame is quite hard to clamp.
Sorry, but "as an engineering student i can ensure you" is not a valid argument lmao.
wtaf is going on here?
Why aren't you happy?
There are two ways to achieve a better progression (make it at least mildly progressive) (1) make a hole in the downtube and angle the shock down (orange has done that on its DH bikes) or (2) move the swingarmshockmount way back (the best example is the old Guerillia Gravity DH -probably the best nonlinkage bike ever made). You can do this via a long shock or a yoke -voila Fullmoxie.
I highly suspect this bike rides similarly, but you'll be a touch faster on it since you won't be lugging around that heavy wallet.
First, additive manufacturing, yes can create unique shapes but I see nothing spectacular here as far as the outer shape of the rear/front triangle. One 'shape' or maybe better put structure is the 'lattice' which is not completely solid and should be possible to use to keep weight down, but as pointed out this frame is a porker for what it is. So, pretty much a fail. I would love to know exactly what unique characteristics this bike frame has that other high-end single pivot frame do not have.
The Santa Cruz Superlight and Bantam were great Al single pivot frames that had good suspension, were around 5.5-6 lbs w/out shock and had water bottle compatibility. Oh, and they cost like $1,200 for the frame and as little as $2,000 for a complete bike.
Sustainable mfg is great, but to be honest the high-performance bike industry as a whole is such a small overall market, and the number of frames this particular company is going to make, it really doesn't matter how they make them. But if they are going to charge this much and use this kind of advanced material/mfg, maybe they could come out with something better than or at least just as good as decades old technology from Santa Cruz that provide some value to the consumer other than a slightly less polluting manufacturing process and horrible value.
In the case of Robot Bike Co whose technology Atherton bikes licensed, the benefit of the process was to allow highly individual frame geometry in the fraction of the time traditional custom frames could be produced combined with the highest tech suspension available that was designed to work the same regardless of the geometry modifications. That is, the use of 3D printing actually had a purpose and provided a unique value to the person with money to burn. Still way too expensive, but definitely unique from anything else out there.
If that got filled with wet mud and dried out only to constantly rattle around inside, I would
not tolerate that shit, it serves ( in mesh form ) no purpose other than to show off and cause as said, at least
have the sense to think of the consequenses of the such.
The other thing behind computerized 3d production is that companies can offer lifetime warranties/crash replacements. For example, Pole has the CNC files for their Machine which is no longer in production, so if you ever want a replacement part for a bike 8 years down the line, they can make you one, which means you don't have to scrap the entire bike and buy a new one. Same with Guerilla Gravity and their carbon process.
The pullquote from their blog post talks about reducing the damage to nature caused by consumerism....and then doesn't really support that 3D printing consumer products is somehow less harmful. It just sounds like greenwashing to me.
I would love to know more specifically how 3D printing significantly reduces energy consumption in manufacturing, or produces fewer emissions in material processing or something like that, but they just don't provide that info so it seems like an empty statement.
Recyling the metal takes energy. You have to smelt the scraps down and recast. With 3d printing, there is little to recycle.
Also you need even more energy to melt the balls partially together with a laser/ebm, with will result in a part with worse mechanical properties.
also you lose a bit of powder in the process that needs to be recycled
I made a few of these over the summer, more travel and lighter. Thoughts?
www.pinkbike.com/photo/20056691
I sell Mondrakers and this comes up all the time. the number of people that take the idea of sizing down a frame size as some sort of assualt on their masculinity is absurd. LMAO
Mondraker, or whatever. Mondrakers look lovely and I’d love to try one someday too
Luckily I've already got a similar geometry single-pivot frame that doesn't take a water bottle (and is probably a bit lighter).
I'm thinking these will be $5000 frames
Love the 3d printing manufacturing process. Hope it works out, and that prices will be reasonable.
I am all thumbs it would seem.
I'll just put this right here