# Evil Undead...................... died @ La Bresse



## Iggz (Nov 22, 2006)

http://www.the-locs.com/2011/08/evil-undead-died-la-bresse.html

"MS-RACING:

The rear triangles (which are broken at this weekend) were obtained from a development stage, which were not planned for the series. We test different versions to see what is feasible, what makes sense and what does not. Probably many of you have seen the drop of Cam zinc in Chatel, where the frame has survived the drop without any problems ...
For those of you who ask why we test at World Cup races: the rider and Brook have the feeling that they really only in the World Cup "press on" and go to their limits. Therefore we have tried something in training. After the disaster with the aluminum frame, nobody wants to put the bike on the market before we are completely convinced of it and if it can withstand even someone like the Brook, then we know we are close to the series.

The parts break and are destroyed during a test, is a part of development and happens with any other company-added degree not as obvious as with us. We want and not just rely on what we promise and what engineers at a test at the test comes out, but also want to know how the thing works in racing and what it can stand under conditions Cup.
Soon more news will come on this topic, stay tuned."

Bummer...... Hopefully they get their sheet together and restore the og Evil legacy and my bad for the terrible translation


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## Moosey (May 18, 2010)

its sad they can't spell their own riders name right...


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## Quarashi (Aug 23, 2006)

I don't think the break was a mistake or something that went wrong Iggz. Sounds more like a success. You can't make a frame stronger effectively without finding where the weakest link is. More like effective prototyping. Shame it had to snap in front of a camera for the world to see!


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## Iggz (Nov 22, 2006)

Quarashi said:


> Sounds more like a success. You can't make a frame stronger effectively without finding where the weakest link is.


Brook landed on pretty decent tranny though, nothing too harsh. It's pretty intuitive that everything mtb breaks at some point but in this case I really don't think it should have snapped in the first place..... Especially considering the Revolt went through such a rough life I would have expected something burlier but what do I know...


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## drsmonkey (Mar 21, 2008)

Iggz said:


> Brook landed on pretty decent tranny though, nothing too harsh. It's pretty intuitive that everything mtb breaks at some point but in this case I really don't think it should have snapped in the first place..... Especially considering the Revolt went through such a rough life I would have expected something burlier but what do I know...


Agree, that was not a big hit. Anything from a reputable manufacturer getting to proto stage in the WC should survive that for sure. Shtiff happens though, bit of slick PR happening there.


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## ARider (Feb 28, 2005)

Quarashi said:


> I don't think the break was a mistake or something that went wrong Iggz. Sounds more like a success. You can't make a frame stronger effectively without finding where the weakest link is. More like effective prototyping. Shame it had to snap in front of a camera for the world to see!


By that line of reasoning the Revolt must have been a screaming success since those broke left and right. 

You generally don't bring a new product out into public (much less a World Cup) if you expect it to fail. Sounds like Evil is trying to spin it in their favor. Doesn't one of the owners run a marketing company as well?

At any rate the bike _looks_ cool, hopefully it is released in functioning form someday.


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## nicolais2000 (Dec 18, 2010)

The whole bike industry is just a big joke from a engineering standpoint. Not only one of these "so called engineers" would survive in the automobile, aircraft or machine building industry longer than 6 months....
Did they ever heard from FEA Analysis? I bet NOT!


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## illnotsick (Mar 28, 2011)

nicolais2000 said:


> The whole bike industry is just a big joke from a engineering standpoint. Not only one of these "so called engineers" would survive in the automobile, aircraft or machine building industry longer than 6 months....
> Did they ever heard from FEA Analysis? I bet NOT!


You can do FEA all you want but the only way to verify the forces you're using in your FEA is to ride the bike for real. Evil is a small company and can't afford the testing equipment the likes of spec, trek and other manufacturers have. It's a prototype. If they knew they weren't going to break they'd be selling them already. Sh*t breaks, then you make it stronger. 
I'm sure nothing that you have ever designed and built (if you ever even have) has broken.


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## Rob-Bob (Jun 11, 2004)

Did evil ever take care of the owners who had problems with their revolts or are they still waiting for new frames?


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## deadatbirth (Jul 23, 2007)

Moosey said:


> its sad they can't spell their own riders name right...


Zink doesnt ride for the MS-Evil race team. he does ride for Evil though



Rob-Bob said:


> Did evil ever take care of the owners who had problems with their revolts or are they still waiting for new frames?


no, they are waiting to give them Undeads. i feel real bad for all those people waiting on frames. i know, ive been there :madmax:


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## dth656 (Feb 12, 2009)

illnotsick said:


> You can do FEA all you want but the only way to verify the forces you're using in your FEA is to ride the bike for real. Evil is a small company and can't afford the testing equipment the likes of spec, trek and other manufacturers have. It's a prototype. If they knew they weren't going to break they'd be selling them already. Sh*t breaks, then you make it stronger.
> I'm sure nothing that you have ever designed and built (if you ever even have) has broken.


why can't you simulate the forces via FEA? given that the frame is made out of aluminum, whose material properties are isotropic and well understood (and therefore easier to simulate). maybe, given the expense, it might be easier for them to build+test prototypes, since they are a small company.


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## Quarashi (Aug 23, 2006)

dth656 said:


> why can't you simulate the forces via FEA? given that the frame is made out of aluminum, whose material properties are isotropic and well understood (and therefore easier to simulate). maybe, given the expense, it might be easier for them to build+test prototypes, since they are a small company.


The Undead isn't Aluminum. And even companies that extensively use FEA analysis test stuff in the real world. It would be difficult to simulate every force the bike experiences, especially in crashes or hitting trees at weird angles etc.


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## Largextracheese (Feb 4, 2004)

The thing that comes to my mind is regardless of intention or hope. If a frame snaps like that it could cause some serious injury to their riders. I think the Undead is sexy as hell but man that's some bad juju if it breaks off of a big drop or gapper.


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## ianjenn (Aug 1, 2004)

From DW himself!!!!!

"Yes, some of the prototypes have broken, that's the goal, to start light, and add material after issues are found. It's pretty much impossible to start heavy and then try to reduce weight and pray for no failure. It just doesn't work that way. Plus, FEA with composite construction is dodgy at best. Testing is just a far more efficient means of arriving at the end goals that we're shooting for. So to answer the call for "transparency", here's what I've got for you: 1) I didn't design the bike, I just act as an advisor to Evil, just as I do with Ibis, Pivot, Turner, Morewood, Devinci, BH, Spooky, IF, Seven and a couple other brands that you don't know about. 2) We've seen the bikes have failures in a couple areas. The chainstay yoke was too thin on one version and that cracked. It wasn't as stiff as we wanted anyways so that's a good thing. We removed material in the front end to add flex and changed the stiffness profile of the swingarm mounts in the front end as well. I think that one early frame may have cracked up by the seat tower, it certainly was blemished. We added material just to be safe as it was an area that did not make a stiffness change. The front of a couple of the swingarms broke where the aluminum insert will be. Brook did break one but the other is all good. 3) To answer the conspiracy theorists questions, no, I did not know that Brook broke one of the two swingarms until after I was on here last, but it was not unexpected. The swingarm Brook broke had almost 300 runs on it so honestly I am completely amazed that it lasted that long given that initially they were just for stiffness testing and not for big hits. They seemed to be holding up so Zink, Strobel, and Cam and Mason have been riding them without inserts. I rode it hard myself and it held together. That being said, the insert design was signed off on in June and new swingarms and frames with the latest layups will be here in the next week I am told. 4) I expect at least one more revision after this, maybe two. 5) We don't learn anything if nothing breaks in testing, so I am hoping for more failures.


Dave"


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## ebxtreme (Jan 6, 2004)

I like how Brook never even looks down at the frame....he just looks back. Don't want to call too much attention to that! 

Glad I'm not waiting for a Revolt replacement....

EB


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## ARider (Feb 28, 2005)

nicolais2000 said:


> The whole bike industry is just a big joke from a engineering standpoint. Not only one of these "so called engineers" would survive in the automobile, aircraft or machine building industry longer than 6 months....
> Did they ever heard from FEA Analysis? I bet NOT!


You know nothing of what you speak. Half the bike engineers I know started in aerospace or automotive and came to the bike industry because they love to ride. There are lots of smart and competent people here.

FEA with composite structures is not an exact science. You can run all the FEA you want, and your part can still break after 10 hrs of riding in a spot you never would have suspected from FEA.

Nice engrish by the way....


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## deadatbirth (Jul 23, 2007)

ARider said:


> FEA with composite structures is not an exact science. .


F1 engineers are laughing at this


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## BIKESerFUN (Sep 5, 2007)

Everything coming out of the Evil camp just makes me upset. As a person in the industry for a long time, I think they are dulling the value of what other companies do to keep their customers both happy and safe. I just don't see how they can , among many things-leave current unhappy customers in the dark, stretch out a proto test for ages, show failure of said proto and still be a positively discussed brand in mtb.


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## Lunchbox362 (Jun 27, 2009)

deadatbirth said:


> F1 engineers are laughing at this


I doubt Evil's engineers have comparable resources


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## essenmeinstuff (Sep 4, 2007)

dth656 said:


> why can't you simulate the forces via FEA? given that the frame is made out of aluminum, whose material properties are isotropic and well understood (and therefore easier to simulate). maybe, given the expense, it might be easier for them to build+test prototypes, since they are a small company.


The problem I imagine is not simulating the frame, but figuring out what forces are acting on it.

You're right, the FEA part of the simulation, ie the model and calculating with some certainty the forces in the material is very good these days (even for composites), however figuring out what the forces are that are acting on the frame, is a little bit harder.

As always with simulations, you can have the best models, computer and software, but if you put garbage numbers in, garbage numbers come out... half the skill is knowing how to interpret the results and how to constrain the simulation such that its not going to take all year to run.

For example you could simulate teh terrain, the jump the rider mass, etc, then send your "test bike" and "rider" off the jump with a tail whip and it could in theory calculate all the wind drag, the impact forces, the tire deflection and end up with the shear force on the shock bolt, and it would also take years probably, or, you could guess what the landing impact is, hold (ie constrain) the shock bolt, apply the force to the other end of the shock, and simulate just that little bit, and have an answer in a half hour.

The comparison to automotive is not really fair, we spend years and many $ on EV/DV/PV testing with hundreds of samples for thousands of hours in HALT tests, somehow I don't think anyone but maybe the largest bike companies have that kind of resource. Also these tests are run from very well defined and heavily researched test plans that have been developed over 10's of years of doing it wrong!


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## ARider (Feb 28, 2005)

deadatbirth said:


> F1 engineers are laughing at this


Yeah, and how many F1 engineers do _you_ know or have worked with.

The guys from that "M" company are not laughing. They realize no matter how big or expensive the computer program you have running FEA is, at the end of the day it is still a simulation and cannot cover every variable in the real world. It is just a tool to help the design process.

And Evil has nothing near the scope of what they use.

No go flip your burger, it's burning and customers are getting pissed! :thumbsup:


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## deadatbirth (Jul 23, 2007)

Lunchbox362 said:


> show failure of said proto and still be a positively discussed brand in mtb.


they didnt release the video of the frame breaking, its just a side effect of testing on a huge public scale like a WC race.
i havent heard too many positives things about the brand and im very surprised there hasnt been any law suits brought against them by the people who have been waiting for a year for a replacement. :madmax:



Lunchbox362 said:


> I doubt Evil's engineers have comparable resources


thats not what i said.



ARider said:


> Yeah, and how many F1 engineers do _you_ know or have worked with.


only know 2. both composites engineers


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## ebxtreme (Jan 6, 2004)

Lunchbox362 said:


> I doubt Evil's engineers have comparable resources


Evil has engineers? ut::shocked:


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## Gemini2k05 (Apr 19, 2005)

Oh man this thread is gold


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## dth656 (Feb 12, 2009)

essenmeinstuff said:


> The problem I imagine is not simulating the frame, but figuring out what forces are acting on it.
> 
> You're right, the FEA part of the simulation, ie the model and calculating with some certainty the forces in the material is very good these days (even for composites), however figuring out what the forces are that are acting on the frame, is a little bit harder.
> 
> ...


ahh, ok makes sense. i'm coming from the civil eng world (mostly static loading cases, very few dynamic problems, simple materials like A36 steel + concrete, ha ha), so I just assumed there was some computer magic that might be applicable here.

in the example you give, could you simplify the problem slightly (lets say ignore wind effects), and only look at point loads/impacts applied at the pedals/bottom bracket, wheel skewers and handlebars and still have useful output from a simulation?

i guess i'm amazed that small companies continue to innovate, ship products and not have more catastrophic failures take place..


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## Lunchbox362 (Jun 27, 2009)

deadatbirth said:


> thats not what i said.


The point I was trying to make, is that you cannot compare bike engineering and automobile or airplane engineering, the funding and research is not even comparable to eachother, in terms of scale or experience.


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## deadatbirth (Jul 23, 2007)

Lunchbox362 said:


> The point I was trying to make, is that you cannot compare bike engineering and automobile or airplane engineering, the funding and research is not even comparable to eachother, in terms of scale or experience.


once again, thats not what i was saying.
FEA analysis on composites _is _a science. saying something failed because the bike industry doesnt have the obvious money/experience, is just a lame excuse for building something *****ty. if you cant build it right, dont build it...regardless of industry.

the Undead is still obviously a proto, so seeing something fail is no big surprise.


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## tacubaya (Jan 27, 2006)

Lots of retards in this thread.

You can't design a frame, run FEA, build it and sell it. Running FEA with expected forces and good boundary conditions will just tell you what areas you should watch out for and avoid building stress risers.

Carbon fiber is a material difficult to simulate with because the quality of the carbon fibers, the direction of the fibers and resin preparation changes the mechanical properties of the material greatly. It is so difficult to work with that Specialized is working with Mclaren composite engineers to develop helmets and frames.


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## baboon69 (Mar 29, 2008)

OK, this is my first ever post.

There is NO WAY that the Evil riders were "product testing" you'd have to be very, very stupid to do product testing at a World Cup.

1. Your riders are focussed on racing! If I change my seat height or bar position at a national race it's enough to take my focus off the track let alone "testing" products to destruction.

2. Media. Why would you try and break a bike in front of the most important press in the MTB world? You wouldn't.


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## wasea04 (Apr 2, 2007)

What's all this and that about stimulating your frame, stimulate yourself by riding your frame


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## deadatbirth (Jul 23, 2007)

tacubaya said:


> . It is so difficult to work with that Specialized is working with Mclaren composite engineers to develop helmets and frames.


they made one bike together.


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## Quarashi (Aug 23, 2006)

baboon69 said:


> OK, this is my first ever post.
> 
> There is NO WAY that the Evil riders were "product testing" you'd have to be very, very stupid to do product testing at a World Cup.
> 
> ...


Then what were they doing? :skep:

Plenty of prototypes get tested at high level competitions. It's where the hardest riders in the world rider their hardest. I think this was just a very unlucky case of having a big failure in front of someone with a camera during practice. I'm sure there have been plenty of bad protos from other companies that have gotten back to the pits without the media seeing them.


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## nicolais2000 (Dec 18, 2010)

deadatbirth said:


> once again, thats not what i was saying.
> FEA analysis on composites _is _a science. saying something failed because the bike industry doesnt have the obvious money/experience, is just a lame excuse for building something *****ty. if you cant build it right, dont build it...regardless of industry.
> 
> the Undead is still obviously a proto, so seeing something fail is no big surprise.


Thank youf!!!


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## meeeeep (Apr 22, 2011)

I hope Dave Weagle gets on the phone with Boeing and EADS and tell them that FEA is dodgy at best with respect to composites. I'm sure they will be greatful to hear from such a luminary in the bike industry that they need to fix their new airplanes.


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## deadatbirth (Jul 23, 2007)

meeeeep said:


> I hope Dave Weagle gets on the phone with *Boeing *and EADS and tell them that FEA is dodgy at best with respect to composites. I'm sure they will be greatful to hear from such a luminary in the bike industry that they need to fix their new airplanes.


boeing might not be the best example  
Boeing 787 Dreamliner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## BIKESerFUN (Sep 5, 2007)

deadatbirth said:


> they didnt release the video of the frame breaking, its just a side effect of testing on a huge public scale like a WC race.QUOTE]
> 
> Exactly, A world cup race is a terrible place to implement something in that stage of prototyping. Well, at least something like that _should_ be considered early stages if you have failures that prominent. I said SHOULD>


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## deadatbirth (Jul 23, 2007)

BIKESerFUN said:


> deadatbirth said:
> 
> 
> > they didnt release the video of the frame breaking, its just a side effect of testing on a huge public scale like a WC race.QUOTE]
> ...


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## his dudeness (May 9, 2007)

Look, I'm not an engineer. But at some point you have to take anything in a prototype stage out of theoretical testing on a computer or inside this FEA analysis and put it in a real life scenario. Can a computer perfectly simulate me and my riding style? Where I ride? Any leg length discrepancies or differences in strength between one side of my body or not? Maybe, but maybe I'll corner differently than a computer would think to do, maybe I'll case a jump when a computer wouldn't. 
Any bike company that strictly does all of their testing in a theoretical world is in for some harsh times. Heck, any company would fail if all their composite testing was computer based and didn't involve real world testing. Even F1 companies do real world testing before the race


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## Bortis Yelltzen (May 18, 2004)

Ok folks, as a research and development engineer specializing in design and processing of composite structures for a large aerospace company I'll throw my $0.02 in. I have worked on many parts for/with Boeing, EADS, Lockheed, etc....

While FEA for composites has reached a very mature level, simulating manufacturing variability and accounting for that is an entirely different and larger challenge. Another big deal is having good data for the materials being used, generating A-basis allowables for a single composite material that covers all the variability you're likely to see lot to lot in a material with a specific manufacturing process could cost millions of $. Then if you alter the manufacturing process on that material the data is essentially useless. After you have that a-basis data, you can start doing meaningful design work. But even then in my business we spend millions $ more building and testing parts with defects likely to be seen in part manufacture. Once we have the data on how defects affect part quality, then we apply knock-down factors and re-run all the FEA and redesign the product. This is a cycle that takes years, and there is not a bike company on the planet that can afford that.

In aerospace another big focus is automating the manufacturing process to bring consistency into the products, robots lay-up the carbon prepreg the same way every time. The fact bicycle frames are built by hand means that there will be much more variability in the product, making designing a highly optimized complex structure even harder. So my take on it: cut the Evil guys some slack, they are in the middle of a very difficult problem, and most likely under-funded, over budget and behind schedule taking a beating from their $-men.

Sucks to see parts break, but that doesn't mean they're idiots. This is a very difficult project. SC and Trek etc... Are all using AL rear ends, and not by accident is my guess, I think they know how hard it is in this application.

My $0.02


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## deadatbirth (Jul 23, 2007)

Bortis Yelltzen said:


> SC and Trek etc... Are all using AL rear ends, and not by accident is my guess, I think they know how hard it is in this application.


both companies have said they arent made of carbon because they were too stiff and didnt save any weight by going the carbon route.


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## Bortis Yelltzen (May 18, 2004)

deadatbirth said:


> both companies have said they arent made of carbon because they were too stiff and didnt save any weight by going the carbon route.


Yeah, I think that is partly marketing speak. I interpret that as "the carbon rear end we could make affordably in the time and development budget we had was too stiff and provided no weight savings." The orthotropic nature of carbon composites allows the stiffness and weight to be tailored, providing you understand the loads and environment the part will see. Trek has some smart people and deep pockets, I'll be surprised if we don't see a carbon rear end on one of their DH frames in the future.

Given enough time, money and the right people it could be done. Can Evil do it? Time will tell.

Another part of composites that the bike industry hasn't really started in on is non-destructive inspection (NDI), this helps manufacturers better verify that the part they made doesn't have any manufacturing issues that would compromise the part. Once this 
technology starts to make it into the bike biz expect weights to decrease and performance to increase. Unfortunately NDI typically has a pretty steep learning curve and high cost of entry.


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## JMH (Feb 23, 2005)

Bortis Yelltzen said:


> Yeah, I think that is partly marketing speak. I interpret that as "the carbon rear end we could make affordably in the time and development budget we had was too stiff and provided no weight savings." The orthotropic nature of carbon composites allows the stiffness and weight to be tailored, providing you understand the loads and environment the part will see. Trek has some smart people and deep pockets, I'll be surprised if we don't see a carbon rear end on one of their DH frames in the future.
> 
> Given enough time, money and the right people it could be done. Can Evil do it? Time will tell.
> 
> ...


I wouldn't let those NDI guys anywhere near my carbon prototype frame. I've heard stories.


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## chuky (Apr 3, 2005)

I love when BY issues the knowledge smackdown. It makes me happy.


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## Bortis Yelltzen (May 18, 2004)

JMH said:


> I wouldn't let those NDI guys anywhere near my carbon prototype frame. I've heard stories.


Awe man, I was just starting to get over that incident and able to sleep through the night and you go and mash broken glass into an old wound... :madman:

Damn destructive non-destructive Inspection...

BY

P.S. Another valuable lesson: robots move from point A to point B regardless of what's in-between, make sure your robots are programmed correctly folks, they can pack a hell of a punch!


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## essenmeinstuff (Sep 4, 2007)

Bortis Yelltzen said:


> P.S. Another valuable lesson: robots move from point A to point B regardless of what's in-between, make sure your robots are programmed correctly folks, they can pack a hell of a punch!


Like this?

Robot Ride - YouTube

heh


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## SHIVER ME TIMBERS (Jan 12, 2004)

watch this whole video.....awesome


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## JMUSuperman (Jun 14, 2008)

SHIVER ME TIMBERS said:


> watch this whole video.....awesome


That was awesome.


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## Nagaredama (Aug 2, 2004)

Quarashi said:


> Then what were they doing? :skep:
> 
> Plenty of prototypes get tested at high level competitions. It's where the hardest riders in the world rider their hardest. I think this was just a very unlucky case of having a big failure in front of someone with a camera during practice. I'm sure there have been plenty of bad protos from other companies that have gotten back to the pits without the media seeing them.


Pure and simple marketing. Bike racing isn't Formula 1 that limits how much testing could be done. Monday after the race once all the fans and media have left Evil could test on the same track or something harsher and not have to worry about the press a frame failure would get. World Cup racing is not a good place to test products that may fail (like the Undead did). World Cup racers are great to use for testing at tracks with no media or fans around to witness when something breaks.

Seeing the Undead failure at La Breese tells me either Evil has a lot more testing to do than they expected or they were careless in having their team riding a frame that wasn't ready. With their horrible reputation they need to be extra careful!


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## Bortis Yelltzen (May 18, 2004)

deadatbirth said:


> both companies have said they arent made of carbon because they were too stiff and didnt save any weight by going the carbon route.


Marketing speak confirmed.

More time + $ = 104bronson » ProtoHype, World Cup Style


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## euroford (Sep 10, 2006)

i'm stoked on the new frame, and that evil is so open about the development process. i wish them the best of luck on getting the frame to where they want it to be!


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## 'size (Oct 10, 2005)

deadatbirth said:


> both companies have said they arent made of carbon because they were too stiff and didnt save any weight by going the carbon route.


sc is going to a carbon rear.
Santa Cruz V10 Carbon Swingarms - Features - Vital MTB


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## deadatbirth (Jul 23, 2007)

i just saw a link somewhere showing the new CF swingarms for the V10...cant remember where i saw it.

and its not called marketing. its called dancing around the answer


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## deadatbirth (Jul 23, 2007)

it wasnt about making it stiffer. it was about making it lighter...and they are one-offs for Val di Sole and possibly World Champs
Developing the Santa Cruz V10 Carbon Swingarms - Mountain Biking Pictures - Vital MTB


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