So what do you think about this Weagle versus Trek lawsuit?

Me? I’ve never been so happy not to have to care. Certainly does seem that one of the parties involved had a nice notebook full of evolutionary design steps and reasons behind his thinking, and the other didn’t quite have that covered to the same degree. I’d really like to read Trek’s patent again (read it a long time ago, and remember thinking it was kind of thin), but there are some serious flaws in the U.S. patent process for bicycles.

What kind of flaws? Originally some provisions of my design weren’t approved because the patent office believed a unified rear triangle design held prior art. The examiner wasn’t able to tell from that design’s patent that the whole drivetrain and rear wheel were directly connected in one design and not in the other.

It’s going to be a long and unpleasant process, this.

Why Trek never came out with a blockbuster suspension design reminiscent of absolutely nothing that had come before it, I”ll never understand. They should have been able to do all kinds of interesting things. Have to respect what the company’s done (and is doing), but there’s the sneaking suspicion that if Gary Fisher hadn’t been around to pass them cocktail napkin doodles every now and again, they’d still be making Y-bikes. And so much worse.

Even ABP was basically a Horst-link workaround. Weagle himself had always considered the concentric rear axle pivot design a kind of cheaper to produce B-side to his no-holds-barred DW-link.

In other words, why is Trek even using this design? Whatever amount of money is about to be paid to lawyers could’ve been used to employ some smart people to build something better than ABP, or Split Pivot, or my own new design. That’s right, dear reader. In the time it’s taken me to type this shit instead of focusing on all I really care about right now (cyclocross!), I’ve developed my own system.

I call it Concentric Aligned Captured Axle (C.A.C.A.). It’s the same thing those guys have done, only with a clevis on the seatstay. Or chainstay. I don’t recall, but I’ll probably be able to patent it both ways anyway because it also has a projected instant center that sits exactly 9.422-feet in front of the bike when in the sag position. Everybody who wants to patent the same thing but with a quarter inch different instant center starting point can get in on it, too. Also, I’ve patented the interaction between a bicycle suspension system and any pneumatic tire with knobbies more than 1mm in height.

Still waiting for my patent on a handlebar/stem combo with little light up “app” shifter buttons and a built-in touch screen to be approved. Or my edible helmet.