Mountain Biking - Best ever and worst ever innovations in the mtb industry.

After thinking about this for awhile. The best I can think of is.
1)Virtual Pivot point, one of the best suspension designs out there.
2)Horst Link-Probably was the best suspension design out there until the vpp and the type of suspension on the palomino(don't remember the name. Still one of the best though.
3)*SPV*-dramatically reduces pedal feedback.**Also in worst
4)Disc Brakes-great braking power.
5)Profile 3 piece cranks-Strong enough for freeriding, lite enough for DH.

The worst:
1)The Lefty fork-dualcrown with only a left leg, known for wearing out hubs quickly and very small travel.
2)*SPV*-dramatically reduces the choice of parts, which is bad.
*Also in best.
3)The whyte industries bike. Never seemed to take off.
4)Carbon Fiber DH frames-Weak.
5)Coda parts. Fragile.

ok that's my list, feel free to list your's.

I would probably put Fox's inertia valve up in the best. I consider it the best stable platform system out there right now.

Candidate for worst:

Hite-Rite seat adjustment system. What were they thinking...

Originally posted by F1_Fan
Candidate for worst:

Hite-Rite seat adjustment system. What were they thinking...

What was wrong with it?

Lock on grips! Seriously... who designed a system where rubber grips just slipped over the handlebars, instead of a bolt on system?!

Originally posted by khuon
What was wrong with it?


Constant wear and tear on the seat tube... you had to love the sound of grit being pulled into the gap everytime the seat was lowered.

Also under the heading of worst... U-brakes mounted underneath the chainstays.

Originally posted by F1_Fan
Constant wear and tear on the seat tube... you had to love the sound of grit being pulled into the gap everytime the seat was lowered.

You would get the same wear and tear by raising and lowering your seatpost regardless of the Hite-Rite.

Danka I would agree with you on all counts. My top 5 are definately the same. As for the bottom I agree with the carbon dh bike and lefty fork but otherwise I haven't seen or used anything else. Not really innovations but things I appreciate more than others

a) open bathe spring fork
b) replaceable deraileur hanger (although I destoryed both the hanger and the deraileur in the same moment)
c) Recent rims. I don't know what they have done to rims in the last 5 years but when I was just commuting I used to go through rims OFTEN. Simply running them into a curb would screw them (and these were suppost to be top notch rims). Now they have rims which hold me up and to my newly found rough riding. I don't know what the tech is or if there is even one thing. But THIS one thing is awesome :)

Originally posted by Maelstrom

c) Recent rims. I don't know what they have done to rims in the last 5 years but when I was just commuting I used to go through rims OFTEN. Simply running them into a curb would screw them (and these were suppost to be top notch rims). Now they have rims which hold me up and to my newly found rough riding. I don't know what the tech is or if there is even one thing. But THIS one thing is awesome :)

Are you sure it's just the rims and not the quality of the wheelbuilding or the strength of heavier gauge or more modern spokes? I'm not saying rims haven't come a long way but I think wheelbuilding may have something to do with it too.

Originally posted by DiL
I would probably put Fox's inertia valve up in the best. I consider it the best stable platform system out there right now.

I have a blur on order with a Fox F100X fork. Do you have any experience with this, or the F80X fork? I took a chance on this new technology, and I'm looking for some reassurance that I made the right decision!

ThanX! :)

I second the Lock-On grips, those babies kick a$$!!!!

I think this is a good investment:

http://www.evilbikes.com/images/components/srs_apart.jpg

Probably the Camelback!

Lots more water, out of the way place to carry it. You don't have to rinse off the bottle before drinking. You can also carry tools, food, jacket, 1st aide...etc.

Clipless Pedals for most types of riding. (Still prefer Platforms for sick stuff, but clipless for about 85% of my riding).

My favorite component on my bike has got to be my Chris King Headset. Why? Before I bought one, I would destroy about 3 a year. Now, I don't even think about my headset anymore. Plus, is diminutive, yet stands out at the same time.

L8R

Originally posted by khuon
Are you sure it's just the rims and not the quality of the wheelbuilding or the strength of heavier gauge or more modern spokes? I'm not saying rims haven't come a long way but I think wheelbuilding may have something to do with it too.

It is possible...for sure. But I knew my wheelbuilder back home and he built for teams and threw one together for me. So I 'think' he was good but I seriously didn't know squat about bikes. I used to just pedal fast to get to work. I didn't try to do anything but pedal :)

Best: lighter, better ventalated helmets.
Worst: Tubeless tires

I think cycling shorts design has improved drastically. Especially in the chamois. I also think saddle design is much better.

Also, since the title of the thread is "Best in MTB history" I would have to say the front suspension fork itself.

There's so many to list in each category but I'll try to pick the ones that I think were most important for me at least...

I think the best innovative/influencial thing to have happen to mountain biking were:

multiple gears operated through a thumb-controller (thumbshifters) - although people rode singlespeed clunkers early on, they really couldn't do many climbs until someone had the bright idea of throwing on some roadbike derailleurs and a way to shift the gears.

center-pull brakes - braking was one of the biggest problems in the early days of MTB'ing (some would claim that it still is today) and hub/coaster and drum brakes that were being used back then had a tendency to overheat. It wasn't until someone decided to throw on center-pull brakes that had both enough clearance for the balloon tyres, was lightweight, reliable/simple and offerred enough power to adequately stop that people started figuring out how to go faster or tackle harder trails. To this day, center-pulls in the form of cantilevers brakes (includes V-brakes) still remain a viable choice for stopping mountain bikes although disc brakes do offer more power, modulation, decreased rim-wear and mud/wet-performance.

suspension - suspension allowed a rider to maintain more control, gain greater endurance by not being beat up as much and thus tackle harder and longer courses. Front and rear suspension really changed the face of mountain biking. Suspension also changed the way bike designers thought about bikes. Whole other portions of the industry had to adapt to the demands that suspension either directly or indirectly placed on the mountain bike.


Some of the worse things to have happened to mountain biking:

suspension - the concept of suspension itself is a great thing but unlike a lot of other ideas that resulted in some bad design implimentations, suspension created some truly horrific designs that still refuse to go away. This is because designing a bike around suspension changes a lot of things. And these basic frame designs whether good or bad have a way of getting copied and mass-marketted. The worse part of this is that although at the quality-end of the spectrum bad designs do tend t die out, those same bad (and sometimes dangerous) designs stick around in the form of cheaper lower-end bikes and worse... dept. store bikes.

Bio-Pace and other ellipticle chainrings - while mildly annoying on the road for those who have developed a spinning cadence, these things were plain stupid for the trails where you had to maintain and predict smooth application of power to your wheel in a lot of low/loose-traction situation.

As far as all time BAD ideas, the Suspension Stem must rate as one of the worst. Second only to the Softride mtn bike. Hmmmm, let's put a spring board on a bike and see if we can catapault the rider! Yeah, that was a good one!

L8R

Yeah... I was thinking about the Flexstem and suspension stems as well as the Softride MTB when I first noticed this thread but refrained from mentioning it. The bike seems to do pretty well on the roads though. I chalk both of those up as part of the "bad ideas in suspension" category.

Oh god.. the flex stems were awful.

The worst still is the auto shift system - a complex unit comprised of shifter and derailleur and misc. bits to explore the convenience of 'hassle free' shifting.:rolleyes:

The best? FREEHUBS!!!:D

I don't know. While I don't think an automatic shifting bike is usable for how I ride I can see a niche for it. And as long as people are riding thats good. Besides done properly and with the allowance of being able to set when the bike shifts according to your power I could see it being a good idea for a lot of people.

Freehubs...simple yet sooo true :)

Originally posted by Resident
The worst still is the auto shift system - a complex unit comprised of shifter and derailleur and misc. bits to explore the convenience of 'hassle free' shifting.:rolleyes:

The best? FREEHUBS!!!:D

I remember now!....it was the AUTO BIKE!

Originally posted by mindbogger
I remember now!....it was the AUTO BIKE!

There are several electronic/automatic shifting systems in existance. Some work better than others. Some work exceptionally well and I would in fact recommend or even consider buying them myself. Others are crap. And none that I've seen are worth a damn for mountain biking although the Browning system does come close.

Electronic/automatic shifting systems I think are of pretty decent quality include the Browning SmartShift system (made by the same company that makes guns) and the Shimano Nexus Auto-D.

Ones that I'm skeptical of but won't totally rule out include the Mavic Mektronic (I've heard mixed reports but never tried one myself) and the new expirimental Campy Electroshifters. I've only read reports of the Campy system but they have been raced over the course of the 2003 road race season. They're not expected to be consumer-ready for another couple of years. Campy however has been playing with electronic shifting since the early 1990s.

The Auto-Bike system looks like total malarky and I would never touch it.

Once again, I don't believe any of these systems are adequate for mountain biking where shifting needs are much too dynamic for any kind of artificial intelligent shifting system in existance today.

The best innovation? Quick Release. Easily.

Originally posted by Aggressor
The best innovation? Quick Release. Easily.

DING DING DING, we have a winner!

Originally posted by chrisk
DING DING DING, we have a winner!

... unless you ask all the guys who have replaced their QR skewers with standard bolts because they kept snapping them or popping the cams. I personally like my QRs and have no problems with them though. Also, I didn't think QRs were MTB specific innovations. They were around a while on roadbikes before MTBs.

Originally posted by Aggressor
The best innovation? Quick Release. Easily.

That was a road bike innovation... and it happened long before the MTB industry existed.

Hail Tullio Campagnolo inventor of the QR

Ironically for my wheels I prefer a through bolt. haha. Especially on my seat.

Originally posted by Maelstrom
Ironically for my wheels I prefer a through bolt. haha. Especially on my seat.
i need to put a bolt on my seat. I keep getting my shorts caught on the QR.

Suspension is one of the best innovations

Removable face plates for stems. Back in the days, you had to somehow wiggle to bars through the single clamp stems. What a pain!

Fatty FAT Fat tires. Nice improvement!

Clipless pedals. One of the best upgrades to a bike!

However, one of the greatest innovations has got to be tubing manipulation. IOW, butting and tapering of frame tubes to make frames lighter, stronger and provide preferred ride characteristics.

L8R

Best:) in no particular order

1) Front suspension (in particular cannondale Headshok and derivatives including Lefty.)

2) V-Brakes

3) Integrated oversize BB's Aka Cannondale Hollogram and Shimano XTR (M960)

4)4 Bar link rear suspension

5) integrated Shifters and brake levers


Worst:
In no particular order

1) Biopace chainrings
2) Downhill bikes (most environmentally unfriendly beast in the cycling world)
3) Single pivot rear sus
4) lycra covered Helmets
5) anything purple / pink and goes on a bike

Originally posted by TimB
Best:) in no particular order

1) Front suspension (in particular cannondale Headshok and derivatives including Lefty.)

2) V-Brakes

3) Integrated oversize BB's Aka Cannondale Hollogram and Shimano XTR (M960)

4)4 Bar link rear suspension

5) integrated Shifters and brake levers


Worst:
In no particular order

1) Biopace chainrings
2) Downhill bikes (most environmentally unfriendly beast in the cycling world)
3) Single pivot rear sus
4) lycra covered Helmets
5) anything purple / pink and goes on a bike

HMMM Funny, Downhill bikes...... well buddy without DH bikes and the DH sport you would still be riding biopace chainrings on a non-oversized BB with canti brakes to stop you........ oh and you'd still have that rigid fork too...



:crash:

The worst that hasn't been mentioned yet would have to be grip shifts.

Originally posted by Nic
The worst that hasn't been mentioned yet would have to be grip shifts.

While I personally don't like twist-shifters, I wouldn't say they're bad inventions. They seem to work quite well for a good many people. As far as shifters go, I think the old SunTour Y-shifters were a horrible idea.

DH bikes ruin nature? Damn i am sick and tired of this crap that bikes ruin nature and soil. GROW UP and stop pissing people off that really care about nature. If anyone cares about nature then they should address or protest seriously to responsible authorities or persons high up. And ofcourse bikes are the least of the worries that nature has.....we have cars, chimneys, leaking tanker ships, ozon layer, etc etc....... i suppose that these are more harmful to nature than bikes....however nobody NOBODY does anything for those kind of crimes ,,,instead some sorry people say that mtb ruins nature....
NOTE: This does not refer to TimB personally in anyway, he just triggered me, i remembered a guy with a phd that posted an article somewhere about the mtb menace....

"listen me god, tell me why ,why are the innocent dead and the guilty alive, where is justice? where is punishment...."

Good:

Kryptonite's New York Chain and Lock
Panaracer Fire XC tires(low price and great all around tire)

Bad:
mass produced poor quality bikes
Noleen offset suspension forks

Originally posted by jcivic00

Bad:
mass produced poor quality bikes
Noleen offset suspension forks

I have a K2/Noleen Carbon Crosslink fork. It's a great XC fork. It tracks better than any other fork in its category. The steering is lightning quick. It does have a limited amount of travel though so I wouldn't advise it for your freeriders or downhill types.

Best:

On-line Forums for advice!

Worst:

On-line forums for advice!



IOW, just a whole bunch of opinions, and we all know about those!

L8R

Originally posted by bac
I have a blur on order with a Fox F100X fork. Do you have any experience with this, or the F80X fork? I took a chance on this new technology, and I'm looking for some reassurance that I made the right decision!

ThanX! :)


Hey Bac go to the Bikemag.com forums and check out the "Garage" forum and theres a discussion about the F80X in there.

Good:
(1) The horst link suspension system. Simple, reliable, and just flat out works
(2) Air sprung forks. If you get a good one they're dam fine to ride on and its a major plus to be able to adjust the spring rate to exactly how you want it. FOX FORX RULE!
(3) Disc brakes. Strong in all conditions and not too heavy and east to work on
(4) This isnt really a innovation but the progression of cranks is nice. Now they're stiff, shift well, and hold up a lot better than they used to

Bad
(1) Specialized Epic, more importantly the Inertia Valve. Complex and it cant really decide anything especially in stutter bumps. It weighs more and allowed specialized to put sky-high on its bikes. Think about it would you rather spend 5K on an Epic, or a Truth of Blur with better parts, welding, and finish
(2) 9 speed. Who had the bright idea of adding one more speed and complicating shifting forever. 8 speed just worked and thats wll the gears an MTB needed
(3) Purple anodized parts. Can you get any more gay?:rolleyes:

Plenty of bests out there, A2 nailed it with the removable faced stems though. Rohloff Speedhub is another, along with air cartridge front forks.

Worst; purple ano, 9 speed, Shimano. They didn't add any range, just stuffed one more gear into the pre-existing range.

I absolutely hate 9 speed... freaking sucks. 8 speed was set it and forget it, and the right gear every time. Oh well..

Thats too funny. I never used 8 spd and find 9 spd totally reliable. I never have any problems with it.

Its so funny to read through these in general. You can tell a lot about a rider by his or her choices in bests and worsts. For example I hate air shocks and forks and prefer the feel and strength of coil. But some people consider them the best. Just a funny observation.

Well, reading some of your posts and seeing where you are from, I'm guessing you ride North Shore type stuff. If that is true, it proves you are totally nuts and we can discount anything you say. ;^)

:D...True enough. I won't discount that.

I prefer the feel of a coil sprung suspension myself, and I ride XC. I guess it's just a preference. Coils are heavier, tho.

Me too. I think if you weigh over 200 lbs, then air sprung shocks are SATAN!

However, my 120 lb wife loves hers.

L8R

Well, I have both, actually. Air is smooth, but I just don't think it's as progressive or responsive.. just don't like the feel of it.

I'm mainly a cross country guy and I have oil-damped coils front and rear. Yes, coils are heavier but I find them less finicky and once tuned will stay tuned. I also agree that the progressive feeling is nicer for me. BTW, I weigh 145lbs.