The Sapien
Well this is one special ride , a good mate Steve Hinchliffe test rider for mountain biking Australia told me he had come up with a great single pivot frame idea I was keen as to get involved . Steve had come up with a great linkage design using the linkage programs , I took the points from his design and transfer it to my auto cad program and create a frame based around the suspension positions . Being a prototype I wanted to build a frame for my self to start with to make sure it all worked and nut out any bugs before I built one for my mate . The main frame came together pretty quickly , I then spent a bit of time working out how I was going to construct the swing arm . As with all my builds i like to try new things and test new ideas and this build gave me a chance to try something that I have had in mind for a long time. I love the look of the lattice sub frame on ducati moto’s and had wanted to do something similar on a bike and this swing arm turned out to be the perfect opportunity. This frame was designed to be a 29″ frame but I have been very keen on the 650b wheel size so I added a couple of changes to enable the ability to run either wheel size , to this end I use my eccentric BB to be able to change the bb Hight and with a 200x 57 shock for the 650b and 200×50 for the 29″ wheels and a very short 420mm rear wheel length and 6″ travel this was looking like a great bike .next was the finish, I played with a couple of color ideas but with all the beautiful fillet brazing I wanted to try the clear powder coat again and the boys at advance abrasive blasting did a spectacular job as always 😉
As with all new projects till you get to ride your new creation you can never be sure how it will behave , well first ride blew me away this bike climbed amazingly and held it own even better on the down hill run but being something I had created I needed external input to see if what I thought shared buy others , enter Steve the prefect tester as he is on all the latest industry bikes every for this work , well his first quick test ride ended up stretching out to over an hour ride ( as I sat in the park weighting ) and the smile on his face pretty much told me what he thought 😉 truly a special riding bike . I am refining and modernizing a few things but I will be offering this frame as a custom production frame . Keep an eye out for the next Sapien incarnation .
Stay upright
