Handmade Alloy Downhill Bike for the 2022 MTB World Cup - Neko Mulally
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- Опубліковано 31 гру 2021
- Neko Mulally leaves Intense Factory Racing and starts his own World Cup downhill program where he will race on an alloy bike that he designed himself. The bike will be fabricated by the legendary Frank the Welder. #MTB #DH #USDH
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Yyyyeeeesssss Neko. So stoked for this!
What I find super cool is that you get to find out what World Cup racers would run if sky is the limit. The frame is obviously his and you can tell he only reached out sponsors he wanted to run on his bike.
I agree for the most part. But also disagree with the idea of "sky is the limit." Horst link is a very capable suspension platform, and you can get a lot out of it. But at the heart of it, even Neko admitted to using it out of simplicity. There are many 6 bar designs that allow you to tailor shock rate, axle path, anti squat, and antirise to such a degree that the options are almost limitless. But, it would require exotic materials and machining and go against Neko's simplicity.
@@Jwmbike14 how many 6bars you think are on the wc circuit? I count 1.
@@jakubgabris6901 You missed the entire point of the video. Cycling companies tie their hands with profitability, branding, etc. Look at companies like Specialized who will live and die with Horst Link. The only company readily willing to change suspension in a major way (and not tie themselves to one design/branding) is Yeti.
Even short link 4 bar designs are currently under utilized by design. The point of the whole matter is that companies tie themselves to one system and improve that one system over time.
If sky's the limit, Horst link ain't it. Horst link is a well rounded platform that is easy to manufacture and design.
@@Jwmbike14 I either missed the point or I don't think there is any benefit in going to 6bar from 4 bar, just like 99%of manufacturers seem to think as well. Adding more complexity and weight for next to no benefit is hardly a win win scenario...and I'm well aware of what S is (and canyon for that matter), the first is perfect example how wildly different can 2 horst link bikes be, no need to go anywhere else, just look ad how recent demo compares to previous one... They are nothing like each other despite being horst link, but of course they being specialized they had to find a way to make the frame more complex when the exactly same results could have been achieved by simpler design. It's in their genes I guess.
@@jakubgabris6901 I disagree. It is necessary to have a shock linkages separate and independent of your Horst link linkage if you want to tailor leverage curve independent of kinematics. Horst link Is a great and simple platform, but certainly not "the limit," not even close. Like I mentioned, companies are tied to certain designs through marketing. Specialized had more power than anyone else to develop new suspension and they won't. I encourage you to venture into suspension design and you'll se what I mean. A frame I'm working on is 6 bar Horst link hybrid that mixes in a lower short link. It allows me to have 18mm of "Elliptical" rearward axle path (rearward axle path that recovers by more than 50% near bottom out), it allows me to tailor antisquat to around 120%, and keep anti-rise digression starting at 100% and falling to 50%, meanwhile giving me the freedom to tune the leverage curve as I please. All of that is only possible with 6 bar.
I think what Neko is doing takes a lot courage, dedication and commitment, big time props to Neko for undertaking this new journey, the bike looks awesome and I’m glad to see that aluminum still alive. No offense to almost every other bike company out there, but in all honesty even though they are pretty looking bikes I don’t trust those “plasticky carbon fiber-like” bikes that everybody now manufactures in Asia, that’s why to this day I stay faithful to the handmade aluminum bikes made in America, such as Foes. Good luck to Neko, I hope he succeeds.
Love Neko's passion for mountain biking! Looking forward to seeing the progress in his frame designs and watching him this season. Have fun and ride fast Neko.
STOKED !
Thank-you for finally giving some much deserved credit to F.T.W. Frank has been quietly building rad next-level frames for decades !
I wish Neko a ripping 22 season and to see him team-up will F-Wad reminds me of early Yeti race team days when NOBODY had as cool a bike.
Please Vital MORE coverage please, please, pleeeese
Frank is a great guy and I was happy to buy my first new downhill bike from him. I broke the rear end on it when the shock rebound froze up and I came down a 12 foot drop. Frank designed a new beefier rear section for like $200 and I never had a problem again and raced three years on that beast
Frank the Welder is a legend! Strong work Neko!
As a Tool and Die Maker and a bike racer that comes from motorsports, this makes me VERY happy. Being beholden to a bike co. when known good geos exist that suit Neko, just seems wasteful. Besides that, this is re-cycleable and gets its pro exactly where he needs to be. The similarities to 70/80s F1 are quite striking. Great story and best of luck Neko!
I love the pure love and passion for racing that Neko has! I think he’s going to gain a lot of fans this season purely because of that! Also he’s doing something different from the other big teams and who doesn’t like an underdog story!!! Stoked to see him race! He needs to make some Neko merch!!
Neko's bike park kanuga has become a drug for me..I've learned a lot riding there..love that place...thanks neko🤙🤙🤙shot out to Dave the trail master over there
What a legend! So stoked to watch this play out!
Super cool. You guys just made my morning! Can't wait to see how does and watch those videos from the season.
Neko really explains kinematics and tradeoffs! Super cool bike!
I still have my Motorhead. Frank is the best. Builds a beautiful bike
Great hearing about his learning curve when designing the bikes! Especially the compromise between things he wanted the bike to behave like.
This will be awesome to watch this year, cheers to Vital for getting the scoop on this!
Well done Neko….. have a great future and good luck with the next season…!!!
What a beast. That is one of the coolest things ive seen a racer do.
Damn I'm so excited to see you at MSA racing this bike, keep up the good work Neko and Frank 😃👊
That brings me back to the old times when the blacksmith would forge your set up, hence it'd be unique and legendary.
Wow finally! im riding DH bikes for 21yrs and tried many brands on demo day and i always hated compromise trail braking. I have been told to change my rear braking technique but i prefer to brake less for a longer period to have more stability than brake super strong for less time and being all over the place. 👌
Im really curious to see how stiff is the rear left and right.
Good luck Neko! It takes a lot of courage to put it on the line like this!
A true National Treasure
Excellent.. I often think about a way to grip my dh bike with my legs as extra contact points.. That's the first thing I do on my dirt bike when hitting a rough patch of rocky decent.
This is so awesome… good luck!!
Congratulations. Well done. Have a lot of fun on the new bike. Will be nice to see how it rides.
Wow, looks like a dream machine :)
I’m so jacked on this! Good luck my dude! I hope everything goes well!
Saw him testing it at Kanuga this week. Was absolutely ripping.
WOW ! Looking nice !
Something cool 😎 on DH W/C track this season 👌
Bike looks sick ! So good!
I wouldn't expect anything less from Neko! When the announcement came out that he was leaving Intense, I knew he was up to something big. Can't wait to see the final product and get my name on the list to buy.
Dam I can’t wait for the season, stoked
I Love Geeking out on this stuff!! I also get to see this stuff at Foes all the time!! My Bike of choice and only 10 minutes from my house!!
this is gonna be sweet ! dont get injured haha wanna follow this all season
Reminds me of my d GT downhill frame from the 90s in some ways.
Reminds me of my grandfather's bike workshop when I was a kid. He used to face, team and flare all by hand back then.
I apprenticed to a frame builder 20 years ago, building a bike just for yourself is amazing and extremely educational. Good luck, go fast!
That’s sweet. Was it all manual TIG welds or did you use any robotics/orbital welders?
All fillet brazed. We machined the 44mm head tube and the thru axle dropouts. Pretty experimental for the time.
@@danwebber9494 interesting, do you remember what filler?
That was a lot of years ago. I’m trying to dust off some skills for a enduro hard tail build this year. We’ll see how it goes.
Stoked for this!
So cool!!
Yea Neko! Good luck!
Ahh explains the re posting of the FTW podcast. Sick 🤘🏼
+1 to the kitty sweeping shop shavings
OMG! This is so exciting
Looks like a session.
yes it does
Good job !! I want one!
This could be the start of a major trend. No doubt other riders will follow his lead to have total control over bike design which makes bike performance.
Cool!!
Looks like a session 😉
Epic!!👍🏼👍🏼💯👏👏👏
It's soooooo coooool bro done good
This is RAD! My uncle lives a mile from Kanuga.... I think he's been wondering why I've been visiting more?! Lol... Hopefully I can meet this guy sometime. Great to see he's a student of frame design...
get some of this boys!!!!!!!
You sure sound like an engineer 🤔… Neko, looking forward to you cleaning up on the World Cup this year🤟
I always felt the stiffening under braking wasn’t an ideal situation. Since everything it seems in the bike world comes back into style I wonder when we will be seeing floating brakes again? I liked the one I had on my Bullit before.
FTW is a legend!
Awesome dual suspension bike you guys made.What Grade of aluminum alloy did you use for the frame and pivot link pieces?Thanks.💯💯✌
Super happy to see an other world cup racer riding what he wants to ride!
Hope also to see if it makes a difference in results too?
Fresh awesome you designed your own bike, it's aluminum not carbon SO COOL
Super stoked to see this! Also, did anyone notice in the image of the BB at 2:04, it looks like the lower bead of the weld is cracked......
Falcon’s eyesight! I think it is not cracked, I think the weld is detached.
This project is cool.
If vital mtb or Neko wants coverage from the Mont Ste Anne race, let’s hook up!
Cheers
So cool. I raced BMX in the early-mid 80's. I had 8 semesters of Drafting/Advanced Drafting design in highschool. Most of my projects were frame design, stems and flat petals. Making dreams a reality. Jank on Neko. BTW, Windrock is the shizzle!🤙
Looks fun. Still riding a 2007 26er ellsworth empathy, so I can agree that suspension is playful.
I just went to a bronson from an empathy!!! That's a great bike. Also this video looks like an old design
3:19 It's an interesting solution, I assume the tubes are not butted (since such a process demands machinery you typically only find in industrial frame manufacturing), so he welded a piece of tube as 2nd layer on top of the tube and got the same effect.
Pumped to see what Neko does this year!! I'm a local at Kanuga, (#djmeowmix) so I've known about it for a bit.. but can't wait to see what goes down!!! Great interview and glimpse into the madness that is Neko's mind when it comes to bikes!!
good game Neko!
Cool, can you please post where can I get the components to try the same project with my local welder?
Forgot to ask ... how was the solution heat treatment handled? Assuming that there is a bit of stress left in there post-weld.
This is so cool but I would really like to know if thought about building in some more ,,crazy" stuff like a gearbox. I really think the could bring a huge advantage because on the one hand side you got way less unsprung mass and on the other hand you can simply turn of your pedalkick. This seems especially like a good point because he talks so much about how the pedalkickback comes in the way of the axle path..
Should be interesting to watch and see if he's competitive on his own from.
This is the way it should actually be. If you think about it
Go Neko,, 💯🇺🇸👍🥇
Out for justice 😮
Neko already won 2022
This is awesome but is there no UCI rule that requires that DH bikes be publicly available like they do for other disciplines?
Try this on for size.... the back wheel needs 2 pivot points... to properly " absorb " the shock.. the rear wheel needs to move backwards as well as up and down to crawl over an object.... it's like reversing the front shackle on a jeep or 4 x 4... doing this allows the leaf springs to travel backwards a slight bit as well as lifting upwards.. with the backward pivot centred on the bottom bracket, the shock and travel adjustment can be mounted on the front of the downtube using cantlever arms, I dont think it would need more than 2 inches of travel, probably even less, around an inch... like hitting a log, sure you can lift the front end up and over but the back end has to " bounce over it " because it can only travel in one direction, up...
Why is the seat tube split in half, doesnt seem necessary to me
I am curious how they are handling post-weld heat treatment. Most pre-made bikes come with heat treatment which does help stiffen/harden up aluminum
It also depends on the alloy. If he used 7075 (what I assume because it's good weldable and it has a high strength if it's heat treated) the frame is heated up to 470°C for 2 hours, put into water at full temp and gets heated up again to 120°C for 24 hours. After this treatment it is 7075-T6, with an ultimate tensile strength of around 540 Mpa, twice the strength of untreated 7075.
Here it's shown how companies do such a treatment
ua-cam.com/video/Q1QC2IBN02A/v-deo.html
yes neutral or low pivot point to lower that cg and build the bike for yourself. forget brand or product line or if it sells. if it doesnt win it doesnt sell anyways. im riding a 2016/17 yt tues your old bike aluminum converted to a mullet. its way faster now, way easier to ride way more natural and finally i feel comfy. those old yt tues race winning frames are great
This reminds me of the Athertons.
Frank's handmade frames will take Nkeo there.👍.. Just like what Frank's handmade Sinister DNA frame did for me🤘
‘merica! 🇺🇸
Is this different than everything else?
Look s like a kona I would love to make a street trials frame
thinking longterm Future Bike brand...
Cool! Ps. Toss a bit of credit to Horst Leitner and using the 'Horst link'
🙌😍
The frame n swing arm looks so familiar 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
this is something im trying to do rn, and this video just gives me some hope that its not a conplete waste of my time
Drinking game: take a shot every time Nico says "like".
Is aluminum or steel ?
Is he selling Neko the Privateer merch to fund the endeavor?
Are Neko gonna sell this for the public?
Kids :) been playing pivot points in solidworks for 25 years :) fun. Yup. But people over think. Probably for sales because an orange bike can win any race. Just ride. I started long travel mtb. Im back now. Youll see. Highest end. Highest.
Next video: guy designed his own suspension fork and shock for 2022 racing season😃
Does anyone know if you can download like templates for linkage 2d?
👏👏👏👏👏🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷
is there anny way i can get the blueprints?
Looks like a session lol
FTW FTW
"Gnarly" project?????