Kind of confused here. Aluminum bikes of this type have what? a twenty year history of excellent reliability. So saying the carbon bike is stronger just tells me it's too heavy. Now if you want to optimize the carbon design to break at the already safe levels of the aluminum bike then you are talking. Of course doing this requires substantial efforts in FEA and manufacturing process to really get carbon to its real potential. If you are going to to 'throw carbon at it' to keep your analysis costs down and piece of mind up, then it seems kind of waste. In the aerospace business, we spend insane amounts of time analyzing carbon to the nat's ass. It is exceedingly expensive compared to aluminum and titanium which we use as much as possible- counter intuitive given the seemingly huge budgets we deal in.

Yes- rationality good, marketing bad.

OK thats the marketing hype and the verbage from the patent. However in this case the lower link essentailly does not move during travel. Any "J" shaped axle path is due to the main pivot being placed relatively high above the BB. The effect would be the rear axle gets further away from the BB for the first portion of stroke.

Just curious. The lower link is perfectly in line with the chainstay. It's virtually useless in that there is no mechanical advantage on it. This looks just like the Turner 5Spot in that it is essentially a single pivot design with extra complexity.

Back the truck up... You have a guy whose livelyhood relies only on making 29r's against a guy who does both? C'mon. The whole "truth" line of reasoning is a bit tortured as well..... As for the traction thing... "rolling over" thing easier does not neccessarily mean "better traction". Imagine a giant wheel. The big wheel will only hit the crests of the bumps, a smaller wheel with good suspension travel will be in contact with more dirt a greater percentage of the time.

Nice to see bushings used. They are thin and take a lot of load. Sounds like they need to loosen the fit up a bit.

Magura brakes rule

Absolutely ove the place. The pavers are a great idea. The place would blow out if they did not have them