Morewood and BOS Engineering Partnership Yields a New Dawn
It’s official. Morewood Engineering has confirmed their involvement with the French World Cup gravity team, Team Pyrenees Morewood: an all-French outfit with riders Fabien Pedemanaud and Devin Danh Pha at the helm.
Of equal interest is the resultant partnership between Morewood and Bos Engineering, who will be working very closely together in supplying the team with their latest and greatest offerings. Other sponsors include Funn, Formula, Espace Bikes, Troy Lee Designs, Best, Bolle, Dakine, 5.10, Wurth, Maxxis, MRP and Aptonia.
The development has heralded great excitement among all parties involved, not least Jean Christophe Charrier (aka Jaycee) of Bos, who says “The new Morewood DH bike will feature the brand new Bos Idylle fork and Stoy rear shock, to create what’s potentially one of the best performing DH bikes ever!â€
After a week of non-stop testing with Fabien Pedemanaud on backyard tracks in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, Richard Carter (Morewood’s co-owner) didn’t hide his excitement about the project either: “We couldn’t be happier with the combination of the Bos suspension with our prototype frame. This is by far the fastest bike we have ever made! Even Fabien commented on the speed the bike was able to maintain through corners, and its remarkable exit speeds.â€
Fabien Pedemanaud, who surprised many people last season with a 4th place finish at the Maribor World Cup in Slovenia, will be making a debut appearance on Morewood’s yet-to-be-released prototype downhill frame at the Maribor World Cup later in the year. “This frame is a new direction for us,†commented Patrick Morewood, frame designer. “It stays well within our ‘simple is better, single pivot’ approach, but has a completely new layout taking our recent low leverage ratios (on the 2007 and 2008 Izimu DH and Shova LT frames) even further. The new frame has an extremely low-slung centre of gravity with race-inspired geometry, and is sure to raise some eyebrows with interesting new design features.â€
“This is a new dawn for us,†says Carter. “Working with Fabien has already proven its worth - he is a phenomenal talent. We are extremely excited to see what the season will hold for us.â€
Later this week we will bring you an exclusive profile of Fabien and his new Morewood prototype rig with Bos suspension, including a full technical breakdown of the bike by Mr Morewood himself. Keep posted!
Previous Coverage
Facebook
Newsletter
RSS Feeds
Twitter
New prototype looks a lot like a Commencal design. Can’t wait to see how this new BOS suspension plays out.
Ditto on the BOS Suspension. Looking forward to ride reports!
Who’s Commençal?
that looks 100 times cleaner than the commencal.
Look’s sick!! I want one now
http://www.foromtb.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=633522&stc=1&d=1205132426
looks like she has quite a high bb hight
i like the commencal better
Nice post!
Andrew: the Morewood proto, although possibly similar in looks and general layout to the Commencal has some pretty significant differences. Take a close look at the link which works the shock and you will see some of the major differences; the Morewood for one is not a push link, but rather a pull link, and the leverage ratio on the Morewood is radically lower than then Commencal. Not to mention geometry and serviceability…
Expect to see some tech details on Fabien’s bike here later in the week.
The design is a little more than looks I suspect. probably they are actually using a Commencal swing arm and linkage. Given Oliver Bossard’s involvement with this project and his close connection with Max Commencal (they consittuted the original Sunn factory team) I imagine that they are simply buying the swing arm/linkage in and bolting it to their own front end. And given the Commencal’s pedigree, there’s nowt wrong with that.
I can assure you the linkage wasn’t bought, its designed to Morewood’s specifications. Look at the commencal linkage here and you can see its different.
You’ll see soon some of the differences although the linkage does look similar from afar they don’t produce the same results, or use the same shock size for that matter.
Greg, I’m afraid you couldn’t be further off the mark. This frame design and manufacture is completely our own, and differs significantly from the Commencal. But in time you will see… full tech specs and bike press release should be on Sicklines soon!
Fair play Andre. The swing arm does look a lot like the Commencal though I dare say it was a bit fatuous to assume that the linkage was also the same. So just to clarify, does Morewood manufacture the swingarm in house, or does it outsource this bit?
Morewood does not outsource one bit of its production. Every process of frame manufacture is kept in house. Infact we probably do more ourselves than many other big name companies. We machine all of our components, weld every tube and cable guide, QC, heat treat, age, powder coat and package our frames all in our factory, under our own roof, and under the watchful eye of Mr Morewood himself.
I understand how there are some visual similarities between the Morewood and Commencal swingarms, but I can assure you as soon as the press release with regards to the frame hits the media all of these similarities will be lost in the differences between this frame and what other manufacturers are offering. We really believe that this is a truly unique product, and with extensive in-field testing and feedback in store this season we are sure that the final product the consumer will receive will be FAR better!
Thanks for the questions and feedback! Be sure to check out the press release of the frame specs later in the week and feel free to comment!
Hi !
Andre, thanks for answering that way, I wouldn’t have been so patient…
Everybody’s saying that it looks like a Commençal, but nobody has ridden it yet… Quite strange!!!
I’m sure there are a lot of other bikes in the worldwide production that look similar to another…
Isn’t it the same suspension design as a Turner DHR? Rocky Mountain RMX?? etc, etc… Aren’t Turner RFX, Kona Coiler and old Trek fuel using the same system???
Here is not the matter to know if “it looks like” or not, but just to know if it works!!!
So, please, wait and see
All bikes have two wheels,therefore they must all be the same.Yes it looks very similar to a Commencal as well as alot of other brands.But the difference between run of the mill products and very good ones is in the design,execution,materials and the details.Hope to see more on this soon.
Yeah, both the Morewood and the Commencal look pretty similar… then again, so are many suspension/bike designs.
I think most riders out there would agree that both Morewood and Commencal are making some pretty incredible bikes these days. I don’t think you could condemn the quality of either company. Both are awesome.
bos forks and shocks are amazing looking, saw them in taipei over the weekend
pictures at
http://www.pinkbike.com/photo/1837753/
http://www.pinkbike.com/photo/1837751/
http://www.pinkbike.com/photo/1837749/
http://www.pinkbike.com/photo/1837740/