K2 / Proflex Riders Group
General => Tech Forum => Topic started by: martin on October 08, 2005, 05:07:02 am
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hi i live in little olde england uk
ive a 97 proflex beast which i havnt ridden for 4 years but have decided to get back into mountain biking.
A few years back can remember a company in the uk Rapid Decent Innovations or some such name that did adaptors so you could run disk brakes on the frame and chubby triple clamp forks, as the standard frame didnt have the "is" mounts.
Dont think they are in business anymore - does anyone know of a company doing something similar?
Also is the chubby fork just a rebranded rst hi-5 (thought the rst had 5 inches of travel but the girvin pipe line chubby is listed as 4 inches, although can remember taking out a spacer when i first got the bike to add extra travel) again where can i get spares for these forks as RST no longer has a UK importer.
Thanks for your help
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Your in luck Martin,
they've moved and the new site is RDS.
you need to correspond with Callum.
Here's a link to the disc adaptor products page.
Not sure about an adaptor for the chubby though.
http://www.rapiddescentscotland.co.uk/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=4&MMN_position=7:7
For Chubby spares try CVI they are the UK suppliers of spares for Proflex and Noleen products,
http://www.cvi.co.uk/cvi/contact.html
Simon.
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cheers for that Simon.
Move back up to the Lake District early next year so will dust off the proflex, ordered a giant terrago fs1 2003 model brand new but old stock for £249 for the other half, was originally a £500 bike with disc brakes etc and won bike of the year in its price band back in 2003.
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found an adaptor for mounting a front disk brake onto the chubby fork on the K" site, but doesnt look like they ship to the UK [smiley=disbelief.gif]
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Ahhh what you need to do is ask nicely on this site (maybe starting a new thread)if you can purchase the item and have it shipped to them and then they ship it to you, obviously you pay all the shipping,I've done this and you will find everyone very helpfull.
Simon.
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hiya,
the girvin chubbie. or RST Hi-5 if we are to be pedantic. There are a few important points with this fork:
+ all chubbies are not the same. Martin's is the original chubbie which came on the 1997 proflex beast and animal and one of the x-series (UK) bikes.
+ it has brake disk tabs but it is hard to say what standard they were thinking about when they designed them! We did do disk brake adapters for this fork and I have a bag of them somewhere - but - we discovered that a standard IS2000 disk brake hub with a rotor bolted on will not fit properly because the bolt heads will foul the really thick legs on the fork. Mike (Hammer) came up with a solution to use an older 4-bolt formula standard hub and machine down the rotor adapter but it was quite complex and wouldn't have sold. I think nowadays we can use high quality but low profile bolts and that may work.
The upshot is that I have a bag of chubbie adapters which never sold.
+ We did do a spring kit for this fork (and RST Hi 5) and we sold about 20 of them in the late nineties. Essentially, the fork has two long elastoner stacks and it was simply a case of swapping out elastomers for steel springs.
T h e o t h e r thing is that the chubbie went through a big change in the 1998 bikes. It was a re-badged something else with proper oil/valve based damping and so on.
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http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml99/99080.html
came across the above link relating to RST Hi 5s being recalled due to serious fault, also mentions they are no longer in business (RST USA anyway) however you still see RST forks on low end mtb.
Will have to see what forks are like when get back up to the Lakes, if the elastomers are knackered may swop forks to something with disk mounts and v brake mounts, rather than trying to adapt and repair them. Then list them on ebay lol :D :D
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I know this is an old thread but it may help anyone else looking for an adapter.
Basically i spent about a year trying to get rappiddescentscotland to supply me the correct disc brake adapter for my 1997 Proflex Beast (which i think is a 757 frame) after having spent a few hundred on some new hope disc brakes. As you can guess i got no where with a rear mount but they did supply a superb front mount to install on my Bomber Z1's!
As i got sick of the fact i had a rear disc brake just sat doing nothing i decided to go out and custom build a mount to fit. This was time consuming and i have only tested it a few times so far but yes it works and yes i now have front and rear disc brakes on a bike which would not have been able to take them.
I can supply anyone with a 757 with one of these however there would be a small cost involved, for full details please contact me via e-mail simonlpearce@btinternet.com. I cannot promise you will have it next day there may be a few week lead time as i dont have as much spare time as i used to but i will try to send them out as quick as i can.
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holy thread revival BAtman....How on earth did you find It!?
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what sort of price?
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is that for the carbon swingarm - I wanted to get a rear adaptor for a 957
cheers
Ade
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thanks to 'Simon' I have a template for an adapter if that's any use?
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Thanks Orange - I have that template from you. Just not the facilities to make an adaptor. When I get close to wearing out the current rim I'll get serious about making one. At the moment I was being a bit lazy. (Actually lots lazy!) and seeking to buy one. I'd have had one off Callum but he's not making them anymore 'cos it's only me that's asked for one.
cheers
Ade
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d'oh! forget who I've sent it to!! A mate of mine just knocked one up out of sheet steel with a hacksaw. Should be easier if anything with 4mm aluminium if you can find a small square of it.
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Mr Orange,
I have a copy of your fine template, but that calls for 4mm Stainless Steel rather than aluminium. Can you use aluminium and does it matter what spec material you use ? I'm sure i can find some 4mm Aluminium or even 6mm but i'm not sure what the spec will be and wouldn't want it to fall off at a critical moment (although i assume the rear is taking less braking load than the front)!
While we're on disc brakes how have people routed their rear brake hoses ? I bought some hope hose adaptors but they don't fit the Frame - have people modified the rear brake cable stops ? The idea of tiewraps doesn't really appeal as i'd like it to look "designed in" rather than "stuck on".
Cheers
Timbo
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I think others are better placed to answer on the aluminium front, I just know mine is made of that, but not what type etc.
Re. hose adaptors I just use the cable ties :-\
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terry(shovelon) is prolly your man for material spec...aluminium places wil often hve an "ofcuts bin"Callum may also have some input on material
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6 mm would work fine. 6061 is really good stuff, and most common too.
If it is me, I would opt for 2 or 3 mm 4130, and slip bewteen the dropout and hub. But 4130 is not as easy to fab as alum.
Terry
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4130 being a stainless steel?
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isnt 4130 chromoly steel?
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Okay thats my template ;D
Aluminium is fine (well so far) I only said steel as a precaution, aim for thicker the better,
don't forget the area the skewer mounts against needs to be thinner other wise the skewer won't be long
enough to go through the nut end.
Failing that you may need to get a longer skewer (Hope use to do some)
Simon.
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Oh and this is one of my ways I routed a hose
(http://idriders.com/proflex/galleries/Simon/Phto105.jpg)
Simon.
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And another one
(http://idriders.com/proflex/galleries/Simon/Phtocaliper.jpg)
Simon
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6mm 6061 seems a little fragile to me, we always used a rather expensive steel (which won't cut with a hacksaw!) and made the HammerHead adapters 4mm on the rear and 5mm on the front.
The thing to watch out for if you are making these for carbon bikes is the heat transfer - if you use aluminium you *will* melt the epoxy glue on the swingarm and it will end in tears. This is why we used the expensive stuff because it did not transfer heat. With the old formula B4 brakes with the wee 140mm rotor we did think about attaching heatsinks to the end of the hose but in the end it was not really needed.
Obviously, Al swingarms aren't affected by heat.
we only have a few Hammerheads left now and we're not going to be making any more because we very rarely get asked for them now.
callum
rds
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4130 is a steel alloy and will rust, but it is stronger than mild steel and conventional stainless steel.
6 mm alum should be good enough as long as you don't soften it with welding, and you have enough material around the bolt holes. But 8 mm is rock solid, and you could always reduce the thickness later for some wieght savings.
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wow just noticed simons disk mount allows the hose to go through the swingarm!
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don't know how the *hell* he got that snaky thing through!!!!!
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Man, I did not catch that till you pointed it out. Very interesting.
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don't know how the *hell* he got that snaky thing through!!!!!
::) ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D Easy ;)
Simon.
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Wow, This forum has a great collection of material specialists (probably better than many aerospace companies). Thanks for all the info guys, Simon Pearce has made a neat adaptor which I can hopefully purchase (or else it down to the Aluminium scrap bin and see if i can identify a suitable piece of 6mm that is unwanted).
I love Simons solution for the 856 swingarm, super neat and tidy (this seems to be a common theme of Simons work!) and i must wonder why proflex never did a production version like this. It would be great to route the disc hose through the 857 swingarm, but there's nothing at the pivot end to get it out of (and without knowing whether there was reinforcement for the gear side cable exit i wouldn't like to drill the swingarm).
Hopefully with all this info i can egt the rear disc brake sorted andthe 857 back on (or with this rain "In") the trails.
Cheers all
Timbo
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I love Simons solution for the 856 swingarm, super neat and tidy (this seems to be a common theme of Simons work!) and i must wonder why proflex never did a production version like this.
Cheers all
Timbo
;D you wanna checkout my suspension then ;D ;D ;D
Simon.
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Hay i've seen some of the piccies of Simons suspension work and it is indeed super cool work, and I would suspect Simon was employed at the Proflex/K2 "Skunk-works" producing secret protoype suspension set-ups and it was only after the companies exit of the market that the pictures were allowed to be published. (These rigs were tested on the ultimate singletrack is contained in Area 52 which doesn't even appear on Google Earth!!) 8)
Timbo
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I live near Area 52 (well, the A52 in Derby anyway!)
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Hay i've seen some of the piccies of Simons suspension work and it is indeed super cool work, and I would suspect Simon was employed at the Proflex/K2 "Skunk-works" producing secret protoype suspension set-ups and it was only after the companies exit of the market that the pictures were allowed to be published. (These rigs were tested on the ultimate singletrack is contained in Area 52 which doesn't even appear on Google Earth!!) 8)
Timbo
Damn secrets out ;D