was looking through the 2004 bike design awards again, and despite their innovative nature, i seriously doubt some are suited for the use that they're supposedly designed for.

e.g. no way i'd DH on this

and i don't see this one being strong enough for practical duty either.

any thoughts?

Seen those before ..very intreresting.

It's an interesting concept that may develop into something. But the thing is, until I see some actual test data on how well the design works under load, I wouldn't be one to try it out. This would go for most any bike design.

Some very unusual designs......

One thing to mention is that many of these designs were submitted as part of an industrial design process and not necessarily the result of a full-on engineering process. Some of this stuff is still in wood mock-up stage. There may have been some computer modelling done on it but in many cases not much more. I would consider it to be more of "functional art" than a consumer-ready engineered product. This doesn't mean that the concepts won't work but they will likely need many refinements before they're ready even ready for a testpilot to take it out into a real environment.

i agree that it's mostly an industrial design process, but i had hoped it would involve a BIT more functionality and less aesthetics.

Despite that, some of the designs are very worthy as they incorporate good ideas - the grand winner is proof of that. but i'd feel particularly cheated if my entry lost out to a bike that looked flash but claims to be able to DH as well - especially if the design concepts involved in it do not support that purpose or are not new and innovative.

/mods want to move this to foo/mechanics/other forums?

I think it's okay to leave it here actually. We're primarily talking about a design concept for a DH bike... well supposedly at least.

Khuon, not my specialty at all but was there not a full production cable downtube bike a few years back?...

Do you want it moved? Its a mtb I don't see why, but you might get some better technical responses elsewhere.

nah not too fussed, primarily the DH bike caught my interest, just thought you might feel it more "fitting" in a different forum. what's this about a full production cable downtube?

Yeah... the Slingshot. It was a great frame idea for XC, CX and road (although I think it's banned by the UCI for road racing) but probably not DH. Some people raced it pretty competitively but the design scared a lot of others. It's still being made today and has evolved into a folding design. As a MTB it shared the same stigma as the Softrides but unlike the Softrides, it actually performed pretty well. At least it didn't catapult its riders on every root like the Softrides did.



Curiously enough, the Slingshot concept started out as a BMX design in the early 1980s. It was grown into a MTB frame in 1990.

Good to see my memory still works. Thanks I figured there was something out there. I was intrigued by the design for a while. Not my style but definately interesting to say the least. Thanks

Slingshot even offered a Ti/cro-mo version. The boom-tube was Ti and the rear triangle was cro-mo. They also modified the downtube cable attaching mechanism to add in some real suspension. That bike actually performed on par with extremely short-travel full-suspension soft-tails but the suspension was really there to absorb vibration and stutters more than hits of any substantial size. In a sense, it was a stiffened-up URT but didn't fall to much of the URT's shortcomings because travel was so limited.

Slingshot's raceteam was actually fairly successful until it got dissolved due to budget issues following the sale of the company.

That concept is pretty cool lookin', but I'd definitely need some hard data before bombing down a hill on it. Got kind of a super funky Lefty on it.


I remember the Slingshot, but I thought for sure they folded(no pun intended) a while back. Haven't needed a bike for several years so I haven't kept up with the latest MTB news for, well, several years. Hmm, haven't seen a Softride in a long time...I wonder why.

Slingshot went through some financial trouble around the mid to late 1990s but they survived and are still making bikes although they're not as popular as they once were which is to say that it's even more rare to see one nowadays. Softride is also still around and mainly market their bikes to the road and triathlon scene. They discontinued MTB production a long time ago I believe. The last time I checked, they had about half a dozen different models. The bikes perform pretty well there. They also have licensed their seat-beam technology to various frame manufacturers... many of them who are building tandems because a tandem is typically built very stiff and stout in the rear end so the stoker gets punished without some form of suspension seatpost. The beam is a better alternative to a pogo-post in such a situation.

Vehry interestink! Thanks for the info, khuon. I thought Softride might still make road bikes, but I can't remember ever hearing anything good about off-road performance.

Slingshot is still in business.... Way back in '93 a friend of mine had a blue one, but it wasn't a folding frame design. It was a trip just to ride with it/him in our group. Sort of defied gravity or something....