|
|
Knolly Bikes
10th December 2004 - Dud
Back to articles
There's recently been a bit of forum chat about a very specialised bike company, Knolly bikes. Considering they've only made the one frame there's been a lot of positive feedback. If you have checked out www.knollybikes.com you will have seen the V-Tach, a big hitting precision made frame from Vancouver B.C. I mailed Knolly to get a little more info on the frame and here's the lowdown. I have left the email as sent because he describes it best (Noel Buckley).
- Rear travel is 190mm (7.5") - Travel is fairly linear - only slightly progressive. The bike is designed to not run too much sag - this keeps the rear end highly manoeuvrable at low speed which is very critical for stunt riding. The fairly low BB keeps the bike stable at high speed.
- It uses a 1.5 head tube. We CNC machine the bores in the head tube so that they are perfectly sized and concentric - no reaming is required by the shop upon delivery of the frame.
- Retail in North America is being set at about $3900 CDN or around $3150 USD (this is for the frame and the Progressive 5th element rear shock). We are currently working out retail prices with several European distributors. It is an expensive frame, but as you can probably tell, is manufactured by highly skilled fabricators and from the highest quality components available. The frames are manufactured 100% in Vancouver BC Canada.
- Availability: We're just finishing off the first commercial run - that run is 100% sold out. We have started our second run which is scheduled for delivery in April/May of 2005: we have already started taking reservations on that run. We will be doing a third run for delivery in July/August 2005 as well. The V-Tach will be a fairly limited production bike.
- We do not have dealers lined up in the UK yet, though we have had several inquiries from customers and dealers. As I mentioned we're still trying to work out the details of setting up several European distributors.
- We are currently working on a couple of new frame models but they are still early in the design process. I don't think that we'll dabble too much in components - Knolly is being set up primarily as a frame manufacturer and I think we'll focus our energy there for the next few years until we have a solid line up of frame models available.
- Of course the main feature of the V-Tach frame is its patent pending "Four by 4 Linkage" design, which allows it to run a full length seat tube while using a four bar linkage design. The Four by 4 Linkage ensures that there is no tire/linkage contact with the seat / seat tube even under full compression and allows the bike to be made in small frame sized. The seat is in a normal pedalling location when raised (for climbing) and in a slightly forward DH location when lowered. Additionally, we can keep the rear linkage elements reasonably short (i.e. don't have to run the seat stays past the seat tube) which keeps the rear end very laterally stiff.
We like what we see and hope that someone gets it together to import this into the UK. Thanks to Knolly Bikes for taking the time to answer some questions.
|
|
|
|
