Funny thing is many of the great features you pointed out are basically just stuff taken from the MX world once again. Spherical bearings, perimetric frame and main pivot, triple bold clamps and so on. Imagine if instead of getting influenced by roadies wanabies and weight weenies we just stuck to getting inspired by MX tech ... maybe we would have been riding bikes with decent geo, suspensions and reliability 10 years ago already ...
then there would be no point buying "upgraded" bikes. Now the brand new geo of 0.5* ha and 2mm BB drop is revolutionary. Its great sales tactics, given that a bike costs more than a MX bike :D
Yes, I've always thought this, if we started the MTB evolution from MX instead of road, we would have been in a much better, safer, faster, more reliable place from day one. All those years wasted with long stems, narrow bars, shit suspension, etc etc.
Such shame about the head tube crack.... Vouilloz was an ET back then, so professionnal, and yep the collab Sunn+Bosse for the suspension setup was something else... the all Columbus steel frame making it quite heavy for nowadays "enduro" standards, but what a beauty. I presume the 27.5 or 29 inch front wheel wasn't standard back then? I totally think it deserves a beauty rear derailleur, some mad reverse XTR ... Saw that mentioned EGS derailleur for sale in a french second hand website going for 500€ ... Are you planning to make it a garage queen or perhaps a bit of resto mod to prove that the frame/suspension setup can still be run seriously? the Sunn mantra was "va rouler", "go ride" in 1999. ps: would you be cool if you can vblog your attempt to fix it, there are plenty of nostalgia going on this one... And the challenges involving replacing the braking system (particularly adapting anything to those mounts)
Super excited about the next few videos. I can’t wait to see more about this bike and the commencal supreme. Also, would love to see a brief discussion about the Braking brakes.
Beautiful bike. I had a poster of it on my wall when I was a teen. DT Swiss also use spherical bearings in their 535 shock although it's a trail/xc shock.
Hey Paul, New subscriber here but have loosely followed your work in the past (and recently toured Italy!). At this point, you’ve done a lot of general testing and some prototyping etc. I think you’ve clearly hit on the durability issues but I’m interested in your current geometry perspectives? What are the highlights of your findings on geometry that works best? I’m a taller guy at 193cm, I don’t ride super steep enduro terrain every day but sometimes but have a lot jumpy flow trails and some backcountry riding in the PNW too. As you are a taller guy, whom few in the bike business cater too. What freaking works well for us? I don’t want to drive a bus down the mountain just for stability sake, but I do want a proper fitting bike to have a blast on. Seems like geometry changes every day tho. So what legit works best for an All Around riding style that isn’t just EWS laps at Finale with nonstop rocks? (Geeez there are a lot of rocks in Italy lol)
Top tube kinda similar to the last version of the Sintesi Bazooka that looked like a motorbike frame. Love sunn bikes remember seeing them back in the 90s at the Malvern race. Everyone else seem to be using alloy but they had the polished steel they looked awesome. Recently nearly bought a sunn prism to build but lost out
The thing you said about the linkage unfortunately isn't entirely true. The system is less prone to buckling at the rear shock, yes, but you get other nasty side effects. Basically, there's going to be an absolutely huge amount of stress on that main pivot and the bottom bracket area. And because it's so high up, the further that rear wheel moves backwards, the larger the leverage and the greater the stress is going to become. Think of it the same effect that caused both your Commencal Supreme V4 frames to break. In fact I wouldn't be too surprised if this frame eventually cracked in a very similar way. Max Commencal repeated the same mistake he made over 20 years ago.
I´m a little bit late, but nevertheless a bike with a very interesting and sexy history. Hope to hear something about the capility of the good old sunn on rough DH-trails after you manage to repair it :)
Was worried someone will buy it after you put it on sale in Your insta story. Glad You kept it! Amazing bike, looking forward to its story development. Definitely tech from the past in some ways if more advanced then what we have today... must have been great times when engineering was prioritized over marginal changes driven by marketing departments.
