After shifts in ownership and business models, it appears that Intense is playing the long game and building up to what could be a resurgence of aluminum bikes. The latest announcement is the soft-release of their prototype downhill bike project. The production bike uses the prolific M1 model name, which rolls off the tongue better than the M279 HP6, and is slated for release in the spring of 2024.
The 6-bar high-pivot differs drastically from the previous JS-Tuned and four-bar high-pivot prototypes of the past, but is the same frame that factory team rider, Dakota Norton, took the US Open win aboard this season.
Intense M1 Details• Frame: 6061-T6 aluminum
• Travel: 203mm
• 6-Link High Pivot suspension design
• Mixed wheeled setup (29" front, 27.5" rear)
• Linear and progressive shock mount positions
• External cable and hose routing
• Sizes: TBA
• Weight: N/A
• Price: TBA
• More info:
intensecycles.com Few details have been shared, but Intense did share some basic suspension info. The bright red aluminum frame rides on mixed wheels and achieves 203mm of rear wheel travel. One single adjustment built into the frame lies at the lower shock mount in the form of a two-position progression adjustment.
Mechanics have weighed in with their input and asked for all of the torques to be printed on the 6mm allen key bolts. At the front end, there's a full 56mm head tube to allow for offset headsets to fine tune the sizing.
Geometry, pricing, and build kit information isn't available at this time, but we'll be sure to keep you in the loop when that's released.
Also Everybody: Only if they are as at a high end, generally expensive bike shop with limited purchasing power!
minesafetydisclosures.com/blog/2018/6/18/costco
They probably sold enough that way to cover the cost of a few carbon molds and make the company financially sustainable. Good on them. Personally, I’m glad to see them return to their aluminum glory.
You haven't heard of them?
www.mec.ca/en/product/6018-056/951-trail-bike?colour=Grey
1. Costco =/= Walmart. Costco sells premium products and strips away as much overhead as possible to lower prices. Walmart cheapens prices to hit a price point.
2. You were likely handling a display mock-up, not the actual product
So I hope they’ve greatly improved.
But I've met enough people that religiously use a torque wrench, but don't think a second about how the bolt and thread should be treated. Most torque specs are conservative enough for that to not be a big issue luckily, but still it annoys me that many manuals and tutorials don't specify it.
Turner Bikes did something similar in 2021. They ceased production of all their carbon models and turned to titanium. Rather than paraphrase Dave Turner's words, here it is verbatim, which might apply to a lot of companies recent decisions to go back to alu:
“Due to the rapid changes that the industry was creating, I was never on pace and the commercial success of the three carbon designs never met sales expectations,” he said. “For this new phase, I wanted to return to metal, where changes can be quickly implemented to meet yet another new standard, or where a change in geometry is just a matter of adjusting the miter and weld fixtures.
“With a carbon design, one has to look into the future a couple of years when creating a new model and accurately guess what will be in style. Miss the mark, and basically throw away six figures in tooling when the market shifts.”
But I guess that's also a reason why companies outsource to Taiwan instead of producing everything domestically.
I have nothing against aluminum. But carbon isn't weak.
I've blown up every aluminum wheel I have put under it. The carbon hoops are the only thing holding up.
I'd buy an aluminum DH bike because I'm only going to ride it a handful of times a year, so I'd want to save my money. That's my use case for aluminum. One of these days I'll get one, I just hate lift lines and prefer to pedal up (my preferred way to ride Summit), so I'm not in a rush.
If there is a legitimate warranty claim, a company should handle quickly.
Purposely abusing it to get a new frame is whack. I hope they deny you when you try.
I would also like to know some facts around if its better to build better quality/qc frames and have less Warranty frames, as 99.9% of warrantied frames are made unridable and are usually binned.
Have to add though, lugs isn't exclusively something for carbon frames. Many steel frames are also lugged. A friend of mine rode a lugged Al2xxxT3 series frame (Al2025T3 I think). This is a more fatigue resistant alloy allowing them to work with thinner tubes (hence allow for more flex) but it can't be welded hence it was lugged.
The issue with carbon, at least in the modern age, its a very human labor intensive process. Some companies have experimented with doing CNC material application (like Guerrila Gravity), but all the major brands rely on manual labor of laying up pieces. The issue with manual labor is that humans are very error prone, and you can get things like voids or poor layer adhesion in places that can cause delaminations, which are stress concentrations. Companies rely on the fact that few people ride hard enough to break bikes, and for the ones that do, they offer warranty replacements (which is really just frame insurance that you pay for in the original bike cost, since the warranty is not transferrable and only applies to the original owner).
Technically, companies could do a safety factor on the manufacturing and add more material to account for this, but then your fancy carbon fiber bike weighs as much as aluminum, and they can't justify the extra cost. Instead, they aim for some degree of lightness, while still marketing carbon fiber bikes as premium items and upcharging the shit out of them.
As far as metal goes, steel is way better than aluminum for anything except race bikes.
Turner dhr
Yeti 303
Azonic ht
Specialized fsr
Specialed fsr dh
Specialized fsr enduro
Never from a crash the just cracked around the rear suspension or head tubes. The finite fatigue aspect is a real concern for people putting a lot of stress on the frames.
The kinematics of the Demo and Enduro bear a strong family resemblance, but the Sender isn't as similar as it might appear from the linkage.
If they do an Uzzi SL in this style, I'm going to be in trouble.
All full suspension bikes 20 years ago had serious reliability issues, but Intense had DH performance figured out something like 6 years before any other brand.
These days-their fit and bearing alignment is good, they hold up fine. You’ll break one if you thrash it, like any other bike (and I’ve cracked a few, various brands).
It's shown with a coil shock in "Lin" mode... but doesn't the combo of a [linear] coil and a linear frame not exactly cooperate for a good mid-stroke and a nice bottomless feel?
The support has to come somewhere. Some +/- trade-offs:
+ Plush off the top and in the middle.
- Low ride height and rapid ramp-up at the end.
+ Firm mid-stroke.
+ High ride height.
- Firm off the top.
- Narrow tuning window to access full travel while maintaining "bottomless" feel.
+ Plush top, bottom, and middle.
- CLANG CLANG CLANG
Yes, exactly. But usually when people talk about a suspension feeling bottomless, it's relative to having a normal spring rate to give a fairly normal top end. Just like as you mentioned, you can have plush top and middle and bottom with lots of clangs, or you can never bottom-out but get rattled on every small root.
But I'm talking about more useful set-ups, and a linear curve with coil is usually not ideal for that. Which makes me think that this "LIN" setting is not truly linear, just less progressive than the other setting.
or
Intense Reintroduce the M1 to their Catalog
Possibly in there to support the welded machined tunnel. They might have found those welds were cracking due to flex and adding the bolt holds the tunnel together? I do recall Aaron talking about cracking frames etc on a Downtime Podcast, er, podcast.
Or it's holding the battery in place?
https://www.pinkbike.com/photo/24179995/
https://www.vitalmtb.com/photos/features/g-out-project-downhill-southeast-rock-creek/g-out-project-downhill-southeast-20
https://intensecycles.com/blogs/news/searching-for-speed-intense-m279-hp6-dh-prototype
Maybe a better bike comparison would be the Canyon Sender CF but with the main pivot moved up to a high pivot position
Jk, this looks great.
Can you please make an aluminum Primer 29 inch?
Will I get faster? No!
I have money? No!
But I want! S2
No wait...
Looks like a Demo!
Or...
An Enduro with a dual-crown?!
Yet another four-bar with moto-style linkage. Seems to be a pretty capable and versatile setup, probably going to see more.