Slack Randoms: Concept Bikes, Bobsleigh Tracks and Centaurs
We use Slack as our workplace communication tool at Pinkbike and we have a #randoms channel which we use to share an assortment of videos and stories from all corners of the cycling world and beyond... We thought a couple of the moments from the past week were too good not to share with a wider audience, so here are some of the highlights.
Wild Concept Bikes
![photo]()
We've been spending a lot of time thinking about high pivot bikes this week and we're clearly not the only ones as Matus Prochaczka, CEO of Product and Concept Design studio Wekoworks, sent us through these wild renders of some concept bikes he has designed. These don't have anything to do with Pivot or Canyon and are instead Matus' attempt at looking into what 3-D printed carbon and metal could mean for the future of bike design. He believes that new manufacturing techniques will allow bikes to move away from the traditional two triangle design and instead into something totally different, like these monocoque bikes.
![photo]()
Matus said, "We are in the age of metal 3D printing, plastic 3D printing, even carbon 3D printing. There can be made any structure inside, that carry stress forces. From my point of view, a single monolithic frame shall be nothing unrealizable these days. I contacted Pinion to send me a real model of their shifting device and I placed it into my frame. The rest is completely modelled, textured and rendered by me."
The bikes are 160mm enduro bikes with high single-pivot suspension and gearbox-driven transmission. Matus hasn't worked out exact kinematics for the system but has been inspired by other long-travel bikes for the suspension. Unlike most designs however, his shock sits on top of the top tube and he said a nice feature of this design was that you'd be able to see the suspension working underneath you during a ride. Will these ever see a physical form? Well, like most concept cars, bikes or anything, they very likely won't. Matus instead said he wanted them to be eye-catching and an attempt to show the mtb community what a new approach to manufacturing could bring. However, if someone does want to collaborate with him, he's up for the challenge.
![photo]()
Antoni Villoni Rides a Bobsleigh Track
Antoni Villoni is kicking off 2021 with some unusual lines that have included riding up a bridge, along super-exposed paths and, the pick of the bunch so far, on this disused bobsled track. An alternate view is below.
More Foaly Hucks
If you thought last week's hucking horse was impressive, wait until you see what they did back in the 1920s. In this admittedly cruel clip, you can see horses take on Rampage size hucks on Steel Pier. The Daily Mail said, "Horse diving became one of the most popular attractions in Atlantic City in the 1920s, with the death-defying stunts drawing huge, adoring crowds to the famous Steel Pier. The act involved a woman, clad in a swimming costume, jumping her horse off a platform which could be as tall as 60 foot - almost twice the height of the tallest Olympic diving board - into the water below"
Thanks to kpickrell for the subheading pun.
Centaur of Attention
Speaking of horses...
This Instagram clip sent me down a YouTube hole that ended up with me watching this French music video. That was enough internet for one day.
New Zealand Tourism
A man rides through a flooded field
Exactly what you think is going to happen in this video, happens. Doesn't make it any less funny though.
Specialized sponsors a Spanish Soccer Team
Spanish Segunda Division football team, RCD Mallorca, has claimed the title of the first football club worldwide to announce a partnership with a leading bike manufacturer following an agreement with Specialized. The partnership will run for the next two years and will see the company feature on the back of the first-team's shorts, in addition to advertising at our stadium and training ground.
Mallorca is seen as a must-visit destination for road cyclists and the team has also changed its stadium's name to 'The Visit Mallorca Estadi' in an effort to encourage tourism when travel is possible again. RCD Mallorca said, "Our innovation to align ourselves with one of the leading bike manufacturers not only helps us promote the island as a must-visit location for cyclists, but represents a landmark step for the relation of two sports which can learn so much from one another."
Kaz's Friday Evenings
Kaz said this popped up on his YouTube recommendations this week, we don't know what prompted the algorithm to show it to him and we don't want to know either!
Wild Concept Bikes
We've been spending a lot of time thinking about high pivot bikes this week and we're clearly not the only ones as Matus Prochaczka, CEO of Product and Concept Design studio Wekoworks, sent us through these wild renders of some concept bikes he has designed. These don't have anything to do with Pivot or Canyon and are instead Matus' attempt at looking into what 3-D printed carbon and metal could mean for the future of bike design. He believes that new manufacturing techniques will allow bikes to move away from the traditional two triangle design and instead into something totally different, like these monocoque bikes.
Matus said, "We are in the age of metal 3D printing, plastic 3D printing, even carbon 3D printing. There can be made any structure inside, that carry stress forces. From my point of view, a single monolithic frame shall be nothing unrealizable these days. I contacted Pinion to send me a real model of their shifting device and I placed it into my frame. The rest is completely modelled, textured and rendered by me."
The bikes are 160mm enduro bikes with high single-pivot suspension and gearbox-driven transmission. Matus hasn't worked out exact kinematics for the system but has been inspired by other long-travel bikes for the suspension. Unlike most designs however, his shock sits on top of the top tube and he said a nice feature of this design was that you'd be able to see the suspension working underneath you during a ride. Will these ever see a physical form? Well, like most concept cars, bikes or anything, they very likely won't. Matus instead said he wanted them to be eye-catching and an attempt to show the mtb community what a new approach to manufacturing could bring. However, if someone does want to collaborate with him, he's up for the challenge.
Antoni Villoni Rides a Bobsleigh Track
Antoni Villoni is kicking off 2021 with some unusual lines that have included riding up a bridge, along super-exposed paths and, the pick of the bunch so far, on this disused bobsled track. An alternate view is below.
More Foaly Hucks
If you thought last week's hucking horse was impressive, wait until you see what they did back in the 1920s. In this admittedly cruel clip, you can see horses take on Rampage size hucks on Steel Pier. The Daily Mail said, "Horse diving became one of the most popular attractions in Atlantic City in the 1920s, with the death-defying stunts drawing huge, adoring crowds to the famous Steel Pier. The act involved a woman, clad in a swimming costume, jumping her horse off a platform which could be as tall as 60 foot - almost twice the height of the tallest Olympic diving board - into the water below"
Thanks to kpickrell for the subheading pun.
Centaur of Attention
Speaking of horses...
This Instagram clip sent me down a YouTube hole that ended up with me watching this French music video. That was enough internet for one day.
New Zealand Tourism
 | In a new ad from New Zealand Tourism, comic Rhys Darby calls on New Zealand's prime minister Jacinda Ardern for help solving the 'next great conspiracy' – why the country keeps getting left off world maps |
A man rides through a flooded field
Exactly what you think is going to happen in this video, happens. Doesn't make it any less funny though.
Specialized sponsors a Spanish Soccer Team
Spanish Segunda Division football team, RCD Mallorca, has claimed the title of the first football club worldwide to announce a partnership with a leading bike manufacturer following an agreement with Specialized. The partnership will run for the next two years and will see the company feature on the back of the first-team's shorts, in addition to advertising at our stadium and training ground.
Mallorca is seen as a must-visit destination for road cyclists and the team has also changed its stadium's name to 'The Visit Mallorca Estadi' in an effort to encourage tourism when travel is possible again. RCD Mallorca said, "Our innovation to align ourselves with one of the leading bike manufacturers not only helps us promote the island as a must-visit location for cyclists, but represents a landmark step for the relation of two sports which can learn so much from one another."
Kaz's Friday Evenings
Kaz said this popped up on his YouTube recommendations this week, we don't know what prompted the algorithm to show it to him and we don't want to know either!
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[UPDATED] Final Elite XC Results & Overall Standings from the Mairiporã XC World Cup 2024
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Asking for a friend.
3D Printing for manufacturing has been developing more slowly but yes, it does allow new shapes to be put into production that just can't be made any other way.
But 3D Printing for certain shapes is stupid, very slow, energy intensive and produces lower quality parts - like tubes, for example.
@Mikevdv nails it.
(Sorry this just had way to much "yer mum" joke potential)
A good design brain trumps 3D printing every time. The most elegant solution deigned for manufacture will always be cheaper than 3D printing complex shapes.
The only thing that will change this is when material costs become way more dominant in total cost of a part compared to processing costs. And I suppose this could well happen...
Take a look at the company Titomic, they can print an entire bike frame in 20 minutes
Also, @mikelevy nailed this days ago with his Kenny Powers comment
Hahaha! Same happened to me at 9:39 where I stumbled upon that guy....
...proceeds to design a bike with a dozen triangles. There's a reason for the triangle design:
They have a fight, Triangle wins
Triangle Man
(Like my bmx bike in the ‘80s)
Are your wheels the factory set that came stock on your bike?
Specialized, with the biggest R&D budget in the cycling world, just went back to single pivot on their flagship bike for a reason. When you come up with something better, be sure to let all these clueless bike engineers know about it
I guess that is to say, it's more often due to the build quality.
In many factory built wheels, spokes are not tensioned adequately/evenly. This leaves higher tension spokes carrying more load, while others that have not been tensioned properly going full slack. You end up fatiguing spokes in this scenario, to the point of failure. One of the many reasons hand built is better =)
Jokes aside, I agree that build quality is likely a larger culprit. I forgot that I was also using aluminum nipples which didn’t help.
A spoke break and a nipple break are two different things. More often than not alloy nipple break because spokes have been cut too short and don't completely extend to the back of the nipple slot. Alloy nipple need the spoke to reinforce them. In the 3 years I have been building under the Privateer banner, I haven't had a spoke OR nipple break, and I do a fair amount of alloy nipples! Brass are just more tolerant to poorly lengthed spokes. High quality alloy don't give up much to brass, other than weight.
Not sure who was funnier, Murray or Dave
I miss that show.
www.redalp.com/EN
But then, after looking at it again for about two seconds, I'm right back where I started, opinion-wise..
I guess part of that is simply other companies have done a generally better job in packaging the same basic concept, at very least from an aesthetics point of view? Such as Commencal, Balfa, Forbidden, Norco, Canfield etc...
Also, why would you tell anyone this popped up in your feed? Asking for a friend.
The point of the story though was she continued to do this after she lost her sight... I think it related to hitting her head or something after they jumped. Not sure.
Not looking for my leaders to be cool, just intelligent and competent.
I understand you want competency and intelligence is your leaders, who wouldn't?
It's just a shame you choose to be unintelligent in your comments.
Of course it's a conspiracy for the rich to get richer. To socially engineer and create chaos & distrust amongst the plebeians, scratching for pennies just to 'get by'.
I'm willing to play Conspiracy Top Trumps with you, if you like.
fiat money, quantitative easing, debts being bought & sold as a commodity while others gamble peoples pensions without thought or care. Of course it's a conspiracy...
Sorry it wasn’t clear, but it is in direct response to his ripping Jacinda.
NZ had little to no Covid, meanwhile the US is racing to half a million dead.
Miniscule. It’s not 5%, not 3%, not 1%. It’s not half a percent. It’s not even a quarter of one percent. It simply does not warrant the response of destroying liberty and the economy. Not to mention all the threatening talk about the ‘vaccine’.
What is your position on the way it’s been handled?
The entire thing was a shit show from the beginning. "One day it's just going to go away" Right.
WTF are you talking about "all the threatening talk about the 'vaccine'?
we're way behind distributing the vaccine because the last administration had no plan.
you have my apologies Sir.
re: the vaccine. can't speak for your country, but over here there is already threatening talk about not being able to work/shop for food/travel unless you take the vaccine (that isn't even a vaccine). maybe i'm unique, but having my freedoms threatened for a 'virus' with a monumentally high survival rate, raises my eyebrow (to say the least). maybe you're happy to roll over whenever they say so? land of the free, home of the brave? not so sure anymore.
I’m sure you get the idea to incentivize getting the vaccine in order to reach numbers of immunized individuals to have herd immunity and stop the spread. But maybe you don’t care 1. Because it sounds like you don’t think the virus is real, and 2. Half a million strangers in another country dead is trivial...cause percentages.
p.s. where does it say i don't think its 'real'? (whatever that even really means).
let me ask you a question. do you fully understand that all deaths after a 'recent' covid positive test are 'covid deaths'? do you get that? two weeks ago, in the UK, not one single recorded case of seasonal flu in the whole country. amazing, don't you think? do you see what i'm getting at?
p.p.s. a lot of strangers die. a huge amount. good luck with your bucket of tears, because there are a lot more than they are telling you about on the news. dying for a multitude of reasons. every single day.
Fortunately, I don't have a close family member lost, but I have distant relatives and friends' parents who were otherwise fairly health die. Clearly you are uneffected. Good on you.
And yes, people die all the time.
If restrictions are in place to stop the spread of a much more virulent virus, of course instances of flu would tumble. Are you alluding to that being conspiracy some sort? Sounds more like common sense.
It sounds like you should move to Texas or Florida...
are you telling me that you believe the press and the state are simply telling the truth and looking out for our best interests? please tell me you aren't saying that.
Tell me more!