Friday, September 28, 2007

Tomac Primer 220

Many people have been anticipating a release like this for some time - myself included. Tomac's bikes have always been very, very nice... and the new lot look to be on par.

Can I explore some suspension with you?
Some of you may remember the days of old - when Tomac Bikes originally released their 204. It was a Lawwill design, also used by Schwinn (I have a customer built Schwinn Lawwill DH rig) and now by Rotec.

Schwinn's Design (they had 2 vesions) was by far the most inferior from a frame design standpoint, but given the rear shocks available at the time - was the best implementation for the day and thus was th best performing.
Tomac had a much better design (front traingle AND rear neo-floating shock), but the dampening was always overwhelmed due to poor shock design.
Rotec's got it nailed - almost. The frame uses a concentric bottom bracket, floating shock, and a stiff front end with low clearance. Rotec should also offer a version that sheads a few pounds as well as offering a frame that will accept multiple shock types (now limited to 1 choice)

Tomac did see their shortcoming and envoked a simple single pivot later (no real leverage problems here) - but still ran into shock limitations.

I digress - on to the new shizzle

Tomac's latest offering looks to be similar to Commencal (single pivot, with modified linkage to lower the leverage ratio) - but I haven't seen a pic that shows the non drive side of the bike.

The photo's that Tomac released show a full build - but their site details frame only info. No Smalls? WTF?



The geometry seems to be "race" specific - and thank god. I thought Devinci was the only company out there that understood DH race geometry.


Some spy shots up in Whistler show a differnt build - with a craptastic crapitou at the helm. Manipoo has failed many of my friends and fallen to the wayside.... I hope they get their act together... back to the bike. The pivot looks a little high for my taste... but who knows. Maybe that kind of placement is working better these days.


I'm toying with the idea of getting one... but the Devinci design is spot on - and very light this year...
single crowns are cool too - and they are getting more attention from manufacturers lately.

Whatever I decide - I'll have a nice little rant for all my dedicated fans

Today's Words of wisdom -
Don't poo where you sleep

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tomac are bring out small frames and the reason I know this is because my son is getting one an we should receive it within the next 4 weeks.
cheers!

Anonymous said...

It is possible to tell, this exception :)

 

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