Mountain Biking - Bender's New Bad Boy

canfield:

Bender is a Banshee rider and will remain with them. He came to us to build him the ultimate huck bike. He wants it for some really "BIG" stuff he's got lined up. We didn't want to step on Banshees toes so we made sure they where aware of it before we started building. We aren't sponsering him but we gave him a friendship deal, he is a very close friend of Chris and I and we have tried for some time now, to figure out a way to set him up. He was at a point where he really needed a special bike and I am thrilled to have him riding a CB, the "Bender" Signature frame.
The Bender frame is a 4130 main frame with aluminum rear weighing in at 18.73 LBS frame and shock. We are sure that the rear arc is going to help him to stick the really big landings.
Benders Secret Weapon has 10" in back and fits a Super Monster 12" up front with a 66 deg head angle. The bike is small but Bender is too. It fits him great, he came by my house last week to show me the complete bike. I can tell you it pedals like no other big bike out there. It has more rearward travel than any bike I've ever seen so it should help him stick the landings without sticking his wheels. Nice and balanced.
The red is painted on, I used to custom paint motorcycles. There is a "bender" painted in between the top tubes, Secret Weapon" on boths side gussets and the red stars on the seat tube because he's a star IMO. The paint is a texured black powder coat, it's the tuffest paint we could get. Kinda like tool box paint. He's a bit hard on bikes so it seemed like a logical choice.
Thanks for all the kind words!
Cheers
Lance Canfield

http://www.canfieldbrothers.com/DSCF1067.JPG

For all the pics go to
http://www.canfieldbrothers.com/Lance'sSteel.htm

i thought he rode a karpiel? what's a banshee? a karpiel banshee?

anyways that karpiel was sweet...

He used to ride for Karpiel, then Jan Karpiel sort of stuffed up BAD...... He then went to a company called Banshee. What he rides (or used to I guess) was a Banshee Scream. He is still a Banshee team rider so will prob only use this bike for big drops, then use the Scream for smaller things and a Morphine (one of Banshee's HT's) for other things.

ok so what happened with karpiel? can you (or someone else) please explain it to me?

banshee... i will look it up.

went on the site, nothing about josh bender :S

Dang that is one heavy .....

Karpiel went bankrupt. Made some nice bikes, but must've spent more than they made.

www.bansheebikes.com is a north shore company run by pippen osbourne. Solid bikes but 8 inches of travel and more freeride oriented. The bike is great but not 10inches and not meant for 50 ft hucks :) Bender is/was listed as a team rider.

Karpiel closed down, rumours are Jan, while a good builder, had the business sense of a gnat. He ran his company into the ground.

19pnd frame...:eek:

i heard that they could be coming back?

18.73 pound frame and shock. Dang. I'm sure that's as low as the manufacturer dared go, too. Hmmm...looks similar in concept to the virtual pivot point frames, but the rear triangle would move quite a bit differently. More vertical motion compared to the forward rotation of the SC bikes, for example. What's that wheel thingy below the upper linkage? Anybody know what the shock is?

Wasn't the bike he tried the jah drop on a custom job with 12" travel in back?

the wheel thingy is im asuming a tensioner like on BB7 and the shock looks like a romic double barrel. and i think the bike he used for the jah drop was a karpiel armageddon and it has 14(ish)" of travel

You can read up on Canfield suspensiopn here CB Suspension (http://www.canfieldbrothers.com/Suspension.htm)

The wheel is not a tensioner,

From the above mentioned page;
"The biggest problem with suspension bikes is pedaling. If you have a low pivot frame were the pivot is below the chain line you get pedal bob. The chain is pulling up on the suspension making it bounce during pedaling.

If you have a high pivot frame were the pivot is above the chain line the frame pedals stiff. The chain is pulling down on the suspension reducing the pedal bob. The problem here is that you get pedal feedback, which is the chain pulling on the pedals when the bike hits a bump- kicking your pedals.

Understanding this, we designed a suspension with the best of both worlds. A high pivot with a upper pulley wheel which takes away that pedal feedback and pedals stiff like a high pivot.

Along with the chain pulling up or down on the suspension, the chain also pull the wheel forward and down- which has the same forward and down effect on the rear triangle.

This doesn’t affect single pivot frames, but on horst-link frames and parallel linkage frames it does because they have a solid suspension member that is connected to the front triangle by two linkages or swing arms"

:beer:

It is true that Jan KArpiel was not a great business man, towards the end of the company's life he also did some foul ups with frames and shipping. Making customers wait months longer than usual, there were even reports of a coupe of bikes being sent out non heat treated! I have heard rumours, so at the moment this is e-speculation but the designs of the Karpiels have been shared with some other company and with the aid of Jan they may very well be built again.

Also it is a cromo front triangle..... it is built to be ridden off some huge mother hucking hucks:) At 19lbs it's obvious they haven't taken short cuts in strengthening it, or they went to the same design school as Banshee, add as much gusseting as they can..... weight isn't the main factor;) Kinda like the guy who runs grip sport in Australia, he will fix ANY broken frame or beef them up for you..... http://www.gripsport.com.au/images/products/28893131Tank%20full%20gusset%20Collage.JPG