szvenig7

I've dreamed for a while now of building a custom bike frame, and I decided that I want to make it a full suspension. I've done a lot of research on different rear suspension designs, and that for me thinking, why not use a front suspension fork as the rear suspension. It would be attached in almost the same way as on the front, and would solve the problems that each rear suspension has. I was just interested to hear what your guys' thoughts were.

Thanks,
Serge

Andrew R Stewart 

This has been done before, Manitou comes to mind. But the issues involved with rear suspension are rather different then the front. Hub width, chain tug, direction of bump forces WRT the "fork", the need for a swing arm and the changing CS length resulting are just some challenges. Andy.

fietsbob

Problem (hashtag) 1 ... a front fork has a 100mm wide space to put your wheel in .. rears are 135.

Andrew R Stewart 

IIRC the bike that I read about that used a Manitou fork as the basic of rear suspension also used a crown that had clamped stanchions. So a simple machining of a wider "crown" (yoke?) was the solution back then. Today most forks have pressed stanchions/crowns. So today's solutions will be different. Andy.

szvenig7

Ok. Thanks. I just wanted to know if it was theoretically possible to do something like that. I'm still trying to figure out what my options with this bike.

Jax Rhapsody

The best rear suspension(by design), I've ever seen on a general non specific(such as downhill, trials, etc) general purpose mtb, although it was implemented on a crrappy bike, with poor thought, is the rear suspension of aa Mongoose xr250.

Andrew R Stewart 

While I am no avid mountain biker I do find the design aspects very interesting. There are so many elements to play with, many are not understood well by the buying public. So enters the marketing department... Andy.

Jax Rhapsody

I'm the same, I don't have a dedicates off road mtb, I'm not at a point in life where that is feasable. A lot of the designs are interesting, many look like they should work. I'm not to sure what you'rw getting at, not going to pretend and look a fool, I understand the marketing part, though. I'm saying if someone else did the xr250 rear suspension, it would've been a great bike. I loved the bike, it just wasn't a strong frame. I believe it was the best cheap f/s bike you could get, it had the best suspension.

Mongoose tend to use Element forks, many here may say they suck- I say they are pretty good, they are, or act progressive rate. The frame was aluminum, the rear suspension was steel(I still broke one of the control arms) and acted like a sla car suspension, or a bmw motorcycle rear suspension, eleminated the arching motion of most f/s rear ends. personally for a mountainbike that isn't a downhill, I would copy that suspension. Hell I want ti build such a suspension fir my moped.

you can zoom rhe pics in this thread www.bigboxbikes.com ? View topic - Mongoose xr250