Dynamic characteristics of modern mountain bikes rear linkages

Abstract

Recent years have seen a tremendous development of full-suspended mountain bikes, especially for downhill and free-ride market. These mountain bikes strongly rely on the ability of the rear suspension shock absorber to manage extremely large forces and wheel travel. Wheel travel is generally achieved through the geometry of the suspension linkage; whereby forces are counterbalanced by the shock hydraulic and spring. The Sports Engineering Research Group (SERG) at the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT University has investigated the dynamic characteristics of different rear linkages suspension geometry. The kinematic analysis has been performed using different programs. A customised Matlab™ code has been developed to analyse in detail the kinematic of the linkages, a MSC.Adams™ simulation has been conducted to better understand the kinematic and kinetic behaviour. After-market shock absorbers are becoming more and more popular but how their performance is influenced by the rear linkage geometries is often underestimated or not even considered. The results of this research aim to investigate and compare the dynamic characteristics of rear linkage of modern full-suspended mountain bikes. © 2006 Springer-Verlag New York.