Suspension

When we set out to design bikes around the 29er and 650b wheel sizes, we quickly realized we needed to come up with a suspension system that was different to anything we’d produced before. With our design and development squarely focused on the unique environment that is UK trail riding, we knew weather-proof reliability, a hereditary feature of our Quad-Link systems, was key, and there would be no compromising our contemporary take on frame geometry.
With that in mind, we went back to the drawing board.

It didn’t take long to realize that with bigger wheels and full-suspension systems, the suspension kinematics, the architectural layout of the frame and the frame’s geometry need to be designed in unison, with each small change having a knock-on elsewhere in the chain. Keeping the rear of the bike as compact and stiff as possible with the same dynamic ride of a 26in bike meant minimizing the distance between the rear wheel and bottom bracket centres – a difficult task on a bigger wheeled bike but a cornerstone of the Whyte experience. After much head scratching and late night computer modeling  Quad 4 was born, and it changed the game, with Mountain Biking Australia proclaiming it had “pioneered a new era of progressive genre defining 29er full suspension bikes.”
With our 2018 SRS/SCS bikes taking Quad-4 to the next level, the next new era is already here.