Chromag Bikes and ‘full suspension’ almost seems like a bit of a contradiction. As a brand who built our reputation on producing only hardtail bikes for the last 19 years, we’ve become known by many as ‘the hardtail brand’
And to be honest, our focus on hardtail design and production has indeed been quite committed. From time to time the topic of a full suspension program has come up. We’ve got together, talked ideas, made some sketches…then came to our senses. Because, while the idea of producing full suspension bikes is pretty exciting, we realized that we simply didn’t have the capacity to go down that path….yet. We were well and truly busy with all the work we had to do making hardtail frames, as well as a growing and diverse component and apparel lineup.
Not to say there hasn’t been some experimenting. In 2012, we did actually make a working prototype that saw a couple of years of test riding. This was quite a robust, single pivot layout with a steel front triangle and aluminium rear. It was a two year process, made entirely here in B.C. It was also a major learning experience. By the time the prototype was made, we realized just how much further we’d need to go to get a proper full suspension program off the ground.
It wasn’t until 2018 that we dedicated some real time and resources towards a committed full suspension program. At the time, we thought we’d be going live with models inside a year or two. As it turns out, it took a little while longer. Part of this was simply due to how much we had to learn in making a full suspension bike precisely and consistently, however a big part of it was our approach. We decided to go at it much the same way we started making hardtails. By producing every part ourselves and having direct involvement in every step of fabrication.
We might have saved a lot of time by simply sending a design to a factory and letting them work out all the details…and in a sense we did benefit from this type of experience that a high-end factory offers when we first produced our Minor Threat youth bike. This was part of the reason we ended up releasing the Minor Threat first, even though that was never our intention. These bikes just took a lot longer to develop than we first anticipated.
We did feel however, that there was something to be gained by making our own mistakes. So we carved our own path…and parts, out of steel & aluminum (and plastic). We welded, tweaked, welded some more…and we built our own bikes from the ground up. We made every part and even machined every nut, bolt and washer in the assembly. The process resulted in many iterations of frames, hardware assemblies, welding jigs, pivot locations, and fabrication techniques. We made bikes, rode them, and repeated and what we thought might have been a year and a half to get off the ground, is now running into 5 years of development. But we learned a lot and we learned it intimately and first hand, and while we may have relied on factory experience to start, we are now in a position to guide our factories to follow specification and tolerance that is tested and proven.
To those of you paying close attention, you probably noticed some of the breadcrumbs along the way. It’s not something that goes unnoticed, we really do appreciate everyone’s passion and enthusiasm. The Minor Threat was a not-so-subtle hint at things to come, and there have been a few spy spots on Pink Bike over the last year or so, conveniently one only a week ago. Taylor leaving his prototype tied to a chair with a piece of string outside his school gave us a good laugh, and displaying a top end Darco Ti in the SRAM booth at Crankworx was too good an opportunity to pass up.