Manitou Mountain Bikes, Inc.

Answer Products, Inc.

Manitou Maountain Bikes, Inc.

E Douglas Bradbury

Scott M Boyer

Steven J Behrens

Gerald M Stewart

A bicycle fork for interconnecting a bicycle wheel to a bicycle frame. The bicycle fork includes first and second leg members slidably engaged with each other, an elastomer spring for providing a biasing force when the leg members are compressed toward each other, and a damping mechanism for providing a damping force to resist relative movement of the leg members. The damping mechanism provides expansive damping greater than compressive damping and further allows for adjustment of the expansive damping to fine tune the suspension characteristics of the bicycle fork.

Suspension fork for bicycles

A bicycle fork for interconnecting a bicycle wheel to a bicycle frame. The bicycle fork includes two leg assemblies, each having first and second leg members slidably engaged with each other, an elastomer for providing a biasing force when the leg members are compressed toward each other, and a fluid-based damping mechanism for providing a fluid-based damping force to resist relative movement of the leg members. The damping mechanism in one of the fork leg assemblies provides the primary compressive, fluid-based damping characteristics for the fork, while the damping mechanism in the other fork leg assembly provides the primary expansive, fluid-based damping characteristics for the fork. Each of these damping mechanisms may be adjusted without disassembling the fork to vary the damping characteristics as desired.

Suspension fork for bicycles with dual, fluid-based dampers

Brake arch for bicycle suspension fork

Bicycle suspension fork

The present invention is a precision suspension fork for bicycles. The fork utilizes a telescoping suspension system for each of its fork legs. The telescoping suspension system includes an outer tube, an inner tube slidably engaged with the outer tube, and a compression rod slidably engaged with the inner tube. The compression rod has a compression flange and a spaced apart rebound flange at a first end, and a positive stop clip at a location adjacent to, but spaced apart from an opposite second end. The suspension system also includes a compression elastomer assembly positioned between a first end of the inner tube and the compression flange of the compression rod to provide a compressive damping force when the outer and inner tubes are compressed from a balanced condition, a rebound elastomer assembly positioned between the rebound flange of the compression rod and an opposite second end of the inner tube to provide a rebound damping force when the outer and inner tubes are extended from the balanced condition, and a second stage elastomer assembly positioned between the second end of the inner tube and the positive stop clip to provide a secondary compressive damping force when the inner tube crushes into the outer tube. An adjuster assembly is further provided to fine-tune the preload on the compression elastomers. The present invention also provides a method of quick conversion between standard and long travel configurations by modifying the configurations of the compression and rebound elastomer assemblies correspondingly.

Precision suspension fork for bicylces

Growing community of inventors

Colorado Springs, CO, United States of America

E Douglas Bradbury