Something Old, Something New

I’m not much of a believer in signs and symbols, but I received some positive news over the weekend regarding Project Danzig. At around the same time, I happened to also see the rare and beautiful creature you see above. That’s right, the full-suspension mountain bike equivalent of an animal thought long extinct: a GT RTS-1, circa 1995. And while it didn’t have any sweet Spin wheels, it somehow, miraculously, had a Girven fork.

Those of you old enough to remember this stuff will realize this was a bit like walking through the woods and happening upon a living, breathing Tyrannosaurus Rex being ridden by a Bigfoot.

To be fair, this is Portland, and I tend to see all kinds of things I’d thought disappeared forever here. I came across the RTS while walking through Lloyd Park headed to the Max station with my wife and kids. Lloyd Park was hosting the end of the massive Seattle to Portland ride, so plenty of bikes were on hand. But still. Witnessing a functioning RTS-1 doesn’t happen every day, and I’m taking it as a positive sign for building some prototypes.

I’ve found some partners who’d like to help finance the development and fabrication of Project Danzig prototypes. As the kids say, shit’s about to get real.

I’m particularly excited because my last round of frame redesigns yielded the vertical shock position that appears in the most recent renderings I’d posted.

And I think this is going to make production much easier than I’d originally thought. The entire suspension–including the rockers–is so compact and minimal, that I think some good things can come from it. Even the movement has a simplicity to it. After searching for the optimal shock position for days, I realized that the movement of the swingarm and upper link wanted to drive a shock straight down. No big walking beam levers or anything required. Very, very compact–which was a major goal of the design. For anyone who nerds out on this sort of thing, I’ll try to post some development photos during the week, but for now I’m just very excited about the future. Danzig lives.