vendetta evolution ideas

[ratz]

Does this baby still exist?

Yes it does, it's my bike for the hills. It's about a pound heavier than the Vendetta and 2-3 lbs. less than the Silvio. If it were possible I'd be willing to front the capital to make this an option. I think it would be well received.

And that's why you kill off the suspension on the Silvio and poof we are there. 1 fork to rule them all. Perhaps keeping the suspension fork as a low volume paid upgrade. I bet that climbs pretty fast with the stiff front end and the upright position. I wonder what Larry could have done on Silvetta and AOMM?

 

[hamishbarker]

May not be noticeable...Use an aero chainring.

yep, good call. the crankset is an aero mess on most bikes. I guess even a thin plastic plate could be cut onto match the exact size of the big chainring, perhaps two or three cable ties in place, with a slot for the crank (a plate with some dish would mean less of the crank exposed.) could attempt to smooth airflow. it's out there at the very front, so any smoothing has a better chance to help than further aft where the airflow is already messy.

regarding possible loss of torsional stiffness, perhaps, but this was done on both the front and rear of the Burrows/Lotus superbike ridden to gold by Chris Boardman at the Barcelona Olympics, and seemed to not suffer for stiffness even under that champion 4000m pursuit rider's power output. The bike was so clean and fast that the UCI banned it (as usual for most things faster...)

 

[snilard]

regarding possible loss of torsional stiffness, perhaps, but this was done on both the front and rear of the Burrows/Lotus superbike ridden to gold by Chris Boardman at the Barcelona Olympics, and seemed to not suffer for stiffness even under that champion 4000m pursuit rider's power output. The bike was so clean and fast that the UCI banned it (as usual for most things faster...)

Yes, I know. But this bike was super expensive custom build from carbon fibre. Cruzbike as a company simply has not this possibilities and experience. Vendetta need to be relatively cheap a really universal. I think that it is possible to make bike like the V with monoblade forks and make it pretty stiff and light. But you will need a lot of experience, a lot of time and well equipped workshop.
What for example Mike Burrows has. A lot of his ratracer lowracers use monoblade front fork. His latest machine uses internally routed chain with internal gears and he use chain inside front monoblade fork to drive front wheel. I saw the machine on Cycle vision 2014 competition. He is the Men because he is 45 years older than me and he was (on his homebuild bike) way faster than me and my friends on our homebuild bikes.

 

[Rick Youngblood]

Possible Carbon Fiber and Hydro-formed frame. Based off of the Zockra frame

 

[Eric Winn]

Possible Carbon Fiber and Hydro-formed frame. Based off of the Zockra frame

View attachment 477

Handlebars seem a little high... The Zockra handle bar design was pretty cool.

 

[Rick Youngblood]

Handlebars seem a little high... The Zockra handle bar design was pretty cool.

Yes, but the seat is at a very very low angle compared to stock V, raise it to about 18-20, place a nice comfy Ventisit seat pad on it, Voilà!

 

[Greenspeed]

That's is a beauty Rick. Would love to see the design goes into production model.

 

[hamishbarker]

The rear frame doesn't need to be stiff, so if done in carbon with or without a rear monoblade (the benefits of monoblade are probably a bit less on the back end since it's not in a clean airflow any more, however there is also the benefit of allowing half the airflow which gets entrained along the surface of the wheel not having to hit a chainstay), the tubing could be a bit smaller diameter since that will be less stiff. However, it's worth optimising for best strength to weight and frontal area, which, depending on how thin the walls of the frame tubing can be and not be too fragile as far as knocks and scrapes, might turn out to be large-ish in the vertical (bending) direction, narrow side to side, with quite thin walls.

Hopefully it's possible to reduce weight a bit, and also improve drag a little also by using carbon for the rear frame, while using the common silvio/vendetta front end for lower cost manufacturing.

An easy trial could be to find an M5 carbon mid or high racer (or other carbon mid/high racer frame) with a damaged boom, cut off the boom and fit the cruzbike front triangle. But the M5 rear dropout spacing is of course 130mm (rear hub spacing) not 100mm (front hub), and the frame is presumably built with stiffness to resist the chain tension loads which are not present in an FWD MBB configuration.

 

[KiwiGuy]

Possible Carbon Fiber and Hydro-formed frame. Based off of the Zockra frame

Like this approach, though I'd be inclined to think that copying the Morciglio Apache frame from the headset back might be a little more aero.

Kind regards...

 

[super slim]

Notice how he has closed in the rear triangle, and what a lovely looking rear tailbox with lots of storage. The rider adjustments are via different crank lengths??? with a multi holed crank-set!!

 

[Lief]

Remove it; and lower the price of the bike $50-80 bucks.

Plus remove the cost of maintenance - I understand I'm one of the rare Silvio 1.0's with a still functioning (still used) front suspension.
Many people just don't bother once it goes out - mostly because it's not a deal breaker.

 

[super slim]

Lief I NOW have a functioning front suspension too, on my ancient Silvio V1.0, BUT after 6 months of frustrating loss of pressure over only 5 km, I have fixed it.

And boy do I notice NOT having front suspension, as most of the bike paths in Adelaide , South Australia, are next to train, and tram lines , or rivers (actually creeks), with lots of Radiata Pines (Softwood) planted, that have surface roots that bind the soil together, but also destroy bitumen paths!!!

I spent ages on new valve inserts and different lubricants so the valve seats would seal, all to no avail!!!
Then replacing the valve assembly, with no improvements

I finally bit the bullet and removed the suspension fork from the bike to access the top of the suspension!

The problem was the 2 O rings that seal the air cylinder screw in top plug to the outer tube.
see attached sketch.
I took the plug and the fork to a seal specialist, who measured it up and gave me 4 o rings of the same cross section but one size down.
The first time I installed the new O ringed plug with LOTS of O ring grease, it was a failure, as I pushed the plug straight down until it reached the threaded top of the spring?? unit
The O ring s must have rolled a bit and I lost pressure within 1 hour.

I then removed the plug by by screwing the whole way, using the 6 mm Allen key into the 6 mm recess, re greased and screwed it back the whole way, so that there was no twisting action on the O ring.
It held air pressure overnight, so I reassemble the front end using a carbon fibre head-stem expanding plug to replace the destroyed star washer for the bearing preload, and have been as happy as a pig in Sh*t ever since!!!
I LOVE my 30 mm Silvio front air bag suspension!!!

 

[Lief]

Slim,
There is no arguing with that kind of determination.

 

[hamishbarker]

rejuvenating suspension forks which others have given up on have a special scouts achievement badge...

 

[ratz]

rejuvenating suspension forks which others have given up on have a special scouts achievement badge...

In slims case that would probably be assusie special forces. I suspect he's long past boy scout

 

[super slim]

Thanks guys, but the difference for me on very rough bike paths with thousands of tree root speed humps, without 30 mm (V 1.0) suspension is HUGE!!!!
The Air bag front suspension leaves ALL other front suspensions for dead, even 80 mm hydraulic MTB suspension!

 

[super slim]

I am often told I am a 16 year old!!!!
I THINK that was meant to be a compliment???

 

[Vulcanelli]

Lower and longer

 

[Balor]

You'll turn it into a Zockra. Also, slacker head angle would result in more wheel flop and less pedal feedback (and that is actually a BAD thing).

 

[Doug Burton]

Forks are a PITA to get manufactured. All fork manufacturing appears to be in China, and they frequently don't get it right.

I've been doing manufacturing quality assurance in China since March 2012, and you really have to stand over them to get things made the way you want them. That's why I appeared to "disappear" about that time. I certainly have nothing against Chinese manufacturers; they have an incredibly flexible manufacturing system, and they will give automated manufacturing a real run for its money in the way they use manual labor.

At the end of this month, I'll make my 18th trip to China in 3 years. Airline tickets (my company sends me business class, God bless 'em) run from $6600 USD to $12,500 USD. Pretty tall order for a small company like Cruzbike.

The point being, that the fork has to be as simple as possible in order to be reliably assembled. This is one driver for removing suspension from the forks.