It’s been a, 26″-wheeled, long time since Knolly Bikes produced a DH machine. In fact, as well as it pedaled and as every-person-fun as the geometry was, these days many Enduro, and all Super-Enduro bikes are longer and slacker. The rumoured return of the Podium has been circulating for years, and who’s to say if it will ever happen, but in case it does I felt inclined to put something down about suspension design.

[Folks that thoroughly read NSMB.com may notice I’ve cribbed this from my comments deep in the thread of my recent HP+I (Gearing) Hyjinks piece. As the circle of content sometimes goes.]

At any rate, High Pivot bikes with Idlers at the main pivot (HP+I) are in. How in? North Shore Billet is making 12x different Idlers for aftermarket sale, in aluminum and steel, and zero single-speed cogs in either material. If it’s mountain bicycling related, doesn’t take batteries, and it’s bigger than single-speeding then it definitely counts as news around here. 

So I was imagining that if the 4×4 suspension folks do make another DH bike, a DH bike that doubles as a long travel single-crown Super-Enduro bike presumably, there’s a good chance they’ll boost that main pivot to the moon and add an idler. Why not? And then I was thinking of all the typical detracting comments about bandwagon-jumping and well, I figured it was worth noting that the first prototype of the Podium I ever saw, back in ’08 or so, did use a higher-pivot and idler configuration.

That’s not totally unique. Trek, for example, was using an HP+I setup with their Session 10. But a period of DH-bike weight weenieism was already on the horizon and simpler-looking designs were winning the hearts and minds of riders everywhere. I’d soon know folks with ‘park bikes’ that weigh less than my steel multi-speed hardtail does now. 

I won’t pretend to know the full science behind “Omega Metered Factored Gaussian Super Theoretical Forward Ultimate pivot technology” but honestly it sounds less bullshit than at least half of the marketing malarky I read these days. And I’d imagine a future DH rig would share the design language of their other bicycles, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of relevant data to start from. 

So there you go, when, or at least if, the Burnaby, BC mountain bicycle brand releases a new DH rig, and if it’s running an HP+I configuration, remember there’s prior art before assuming they’re just following a trend.