The Sapien

September 6th, 201329er bike, 650b custom frame, bicycle, brazed, custom frame, custom mtb bicycle frame, custom tips, downhill bike, hand built bicycle frame, hand built custom bicyles, lugged, machinery, primate 29er bicycle, primate frame, tools, Welded, workshop0 comments

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