First Look Friday: Knolly Warden, MagLOCK pedals, and SPOT Gen3

[Nick]

First Look Friday is an introduction to the products that we are currently testing for review. This week we're featuring the Knolly Warden, Maglock pedals and the SPOT Gen3 and Trace.

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[Meezo]

 

 

SPOT Gen3 and Trace

 

the winner for stolen bikes ?

[Iwan Kemp]

the winner for stolen bikes ?

 

May very well be. Let's see how testing goes.

[Guest]

Enjoy testing

That Knolly should make for a great ride !!

[Meezo]

May very well be. Let's see how testing goes.

 

and hopefully a drop in Insurance premiums

[NicoBoshoff]

and hopefully a drop in Insurance premiums

Hahahahahahahahahaha...you're funny.

[Rock Guy]

Is it just me that feels that Warden has an obscene number of pivot points? Don't get me wrong, I know nothing about the bike, it may well produce an amazing ride. I just think that all the pivots are just more places for things to go wrong. 

[GlennH]

The MagLock pedals look interesting. How much will they be when they hit our shores? Pitty we dont get to test them before we buy them like in the video

[GlennH]

Im keen to know the price of the mag lock when they come to SA.

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

Is it just me that feels that Warden has an obscene number of pivot points? Don't get me wrong, I know nothing about the bike, it may well produce an amazing ride. I just think that all the pivots are just more places for things to go wrong. 

FOUR BY 4 SUSPENSION TECHNOLOGY

The Four by 4 suspension platform is the cornerstone of Knolly Bikes. When our CEO and chief designer, Noel Buckley, set out to design his first bike(the V-Tach), he started with a certain suspension philosophy and a list of ride characteristics that were important to him. He designed the suspension technology first… prioritizing traction, ride balance, and suspension performance while braking. He rode the first prototype and knew he had a winning suspension design, so he applied for patents and Knolly Bikes was born.

Inspired by Formula One auto racing strut-style suspension, Knolly’s patented Four by 4 suspension technology provides freedom in design and execution that no other design in the industry can tout. This freedom means that Noel can design each model from the ground up and manipulate wheel path and shock progression completely independently. This allows each model to have suspension rate curves that are generally linear to progressive, which is important because it means your shock doesn’t have to ‘save the day’ by providing lots of bottoming resistance, as it would on a bike with a falling rate curve. This helps keep your shock from being over-worked and over-heating on long downhills, which can affect shock performance. This also helps maintain normal shock service intervals. Each of our bikes have rate curves and leverage ratios that are implemented for a certain type of riding(trail, AM, DH) while all models share some fundamental ride characteristics:

TRACTION – This is priority number one. Without traction, there is no confidence… without confidence, there is no fun. The Four by 4 is a fully active design that is all about traction. There is no complicated pedaling platform designed mechanically into our frames, which means there’s nothing getting in the way of you finding every ounce of traction on the trail.

Do you like technical climbing? There isn’t a better friend out on the ledgy climbs than our Four by 4 suspension. When you find yourself searching for every bit of grip out of your rear tire because you’ve committed to 30 foot section of the ‘steep and loose’, your Knolly will dig in and fight for as long as your legs can.       

PEDALING – This doesn’t have to be over-complicated, but so many times, it is. Many bikes on the market these days feature suspension designs that require a certain amount of chain torque in order to pedal smoothly. The problem with this philosophy is that you are never able to turn this ‘feature’ OFF in order to enjoy fully active travel and optimal traction.

Knolly’s Four by 4 suspension pedals well in all iterations, without the need for complicated linkage tricks. Our active design provides a baseline for smooth pedaling characteristics, which can then be enhanced by any number of suspension shocks on today’s market. These shocks can provide a lockout or low-speed compression adjustment, which gives the rider total control over how the bike feels while climbing and descending.     

BRAKING – This is often an under-appreciated topic when it comes to suspension. Braking forces can impact how your bike tracks and finds traction. The Four by 4 is a fully active design under braking forces, which is accomplished by proper pivot location. No brake induced suspension lockout, and no brake jack, just smooth and reliable suspension performance no matter how hard you’re gripping your brake levers.

Four by 4 is proprietary to Knolly Bikes, which means we do not license the design out to any other manufacturer.

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

It's essentially a four bar design with a yoke and extra linkage. And it reportedly works VERY well. 

[Guest]

VERY much so

[stefmeister]

It's essentially a four bar design with a yoke and extra linkage. And it reportedly works VERY well. 

Or is it just an excuse to avoid a patented design?

 

I'm sure proper kinematic modelling would yield the same results in a standard 4 bar design, no? And reading through their design explanation still doesn't answer what exactly the extra linkages improves/makes better.

Also, referencing F1 strut suspension, or rather a double wishbone - push rod design, the extra linkage is still just act as an extension of the seat stays (which acts as the push rod) in a 4 bar design.

 

I'm not sold on this, although actual testing might prove otherwise.

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

Or is it just an excuse to avoid a patented design?

 

I'm sure proper kinematic modelling would yield the same results in a standard 4 bar design, no? And reading through their design explanation still doesn't answer what exactly the extra linkages improves/makes better.

Also, referencing F1 strut suspension, or rather a double wishbone - push rod design, the extra linkage is still just act as an extension of the seat stays (which acts as the push rod) in a 4 bar design.

 

I'm not sold on this, although actual testing might prove otherwise.

Potentially, but maybe not without hitting their requirements. More tech speak below...

 

The Four by 4 Linkage is our unique and patent pending secondary four bar linkage designed to alleviate many common issues with current full suspension frames.

The Solution: Knolly's patent pending Four by 4 Linkage:

The Four by 4 Linkage came out of our design goals to design a frame that had the pedaling, braking and handling characteristics that we wanted, while at the same time eliminating the annoyances that bugged us with current frame designs.

The Four by 4 Linkage isn't just a secondary four bar linkage — it is a formula on how to design and build a full suspension frame that incorporates rear wheel path, seat tube placement, shock placement, seat clearance (for those technical moves), rear end lateral rigidity, climbing geometry and other aspects into a frame's design.

Benefits:

The Four by 4 Linkage allows us the freedom to solve these problems:

• Stand over height and continuous seat tube: by keeping longer stroke shocks “horizontal”, we can keep the top tube height low. By using a continuous seat tube with a fully adjustable seat post, when the seat is completely lowered a rider can straddle the seat comfortably (for additional information, see our section on small riders).
• Seat position: When the seat is extended in a climbing position, the lay-back seat tube intersects the location of a normal 72 or 73 degree seat tube angle, ensuring proper climbing geometry. When lowered, the seat is slightly more forwards giving more room for rear tire clearance as well as making it easier to get behind the saddle when riding technical terrain.
• Rear shock and leverage ratios: by keeping the shock roughly “horizontal” on our longer travel frames, long stroke shocks can be used, ensuring our leverage ratios are well below 3:1. Lower leverage ratios increase shock sensitivity, bottom out resistance and reliability. The secondary linkage also isolates the shock from side loading and places it in a location free from tire roost, further increasing its reliability.
• Rear shock accessibility: having the rear shock accessible in the front triangle means that it's quick to adjust, tune, maintain and remove the rear shock.
• High lateral rigidity: by keeping all wheel path suspension components at the back of the frame (i.e. not being forced to bring pivots forward of the seat tube), we can keep linkage elements as short as possible, increasing their lateral rigidity.
• Tire clearance: by using our lay back seat tube design so that tires won't hit the back of the seat tube (or bottom of the seat) when under full compression, our frames feature excellent tire clearance.
• Neutral braking: Knolly frames are active under braking forces ensuring maximum traction in difficult sections
• Neutral pedaling: our wheel paths are tailored so that our frames have efficient pedaling characteristics. While a V-tach will never climb like a lightweight XC bike, you CAN pedal it to the top of your favourite trail.
• Minimal chain growth ensures that our frames are free from annoying pedal feed back.

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

 

The problems with current technology:

When we first started designing the V-tach, we looked at the existing suspension designs in the market and found that they had various annoyances which would not meet our design goals. Common problems include:

• Interrupted seat tubes and the tall seat tube masts that they sometimes create

Rocker links that hit seat post quick releases on smaller sized frames or lowered seats

Tires that hit the back of the seat tube or the seat under full compression

Difficult to access rear shocks (frankly a pain in the butt with today's pressurized air and volume adjusting anti-bottoming shocks with multiple adjustments)

Lack of rear tire clearance

Lack of lateral rigidity — especially on multi-pivot linkage frames and frames with long chain stays and seat stays that extend past the seat tube

Limited stand over height where it really matters. This is especially important for smaller riders where being able to fully drop the seat to a very low height so that they can put their feet on the ground while straddling the seat is key (see our section on how our frame designs benefit smaller riders here)

Artificially long chain stays that try and address some of the tire interference problems: this is fine for DH frames, but reduces “flickability”, climbing ability and low speed maneuverability for long travel free ride frames

High leverage suspension ratios that reduce rear shock performance and reliability

[Guest]

Testing shall prove otherwise