Legend MkII Update

I know i’ve been getting a lot of emails about the MkII and I can only suspect Keith is getting more then twice as many as I am about our progress.

Well hopefully this gets all those new Legend MkII riders a small taste of what they can expect.

First let me just let you know a few things that have happened over the past few months. Now its no secret that we have our stuff manufactured in Taiwan but what you might not know is that I have moved to Taiwan permanently. I figured it is – at least in my opinion – important that if you want to really be involved with your production and really excel in having a premium product go out the door you need to be involved with it and be your own production manager – something that I have a long history doing. In fact I’m far from a sales guy and my comfort zone is among wurring machines, grease, dirt and sometimes even fire :P

I’ve been meeting, watching, measuring, and inspecting throughout the whole process putting the MkII into production and we’re definitely working with some real talent from the manufacturing engineers at our factory, to the forging houses, to well basically everyone that has helped in their way –sometimes big sometimes small- getting it together.   That includes the riders on the MkI that without their valuable feedback we definitely wouldn’t have near the machine that I present to you here today.

I have to say it will be nice to finally close the many years developing the bike and finally get them out to you. I can’t wait to start reading in magazines and especially on forums what peoples impressions are about this bike.

I’ve even worked on special packaging for this bike because I want whoever decides to buy a Legend MkII to enjoy the whole process of not only buying it but getting it home, opening it up, looking at it for the first time and just getting excited for when they get to build it up and ride it. I will personally be doing 100% inspection on these bikes and its the least I can do to make sure you get something that is completely dialled.

So the Legend MkII has been touched on in a previous post about the changes in geo etc that Keith has made…. Just search or hit the label Legend to the side to get the history on the bike.

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We’ve opened forgings on all the NC’d parts to make the strong and light. We’ve had a little back and forth with a couple changes but for the most part things have gone extremely smooth. When i first saw the forged “blob” and picked up the portly part I was very concerned that the finished part was going to be a pig but a few days later the almost finished part showed up and it was 600 grams for both canoe parts together. All 6 parts jigsawed together with just clear tape holding them in place because they fit together so well.

Legend MkII first article

The Ti hardware is sheer jewelry and went together pretty easily on the first article which is what i’m showing pictures of here.

We’ve gone through T4 and need to wait 3 days before sticking it back in the oven to get it to T6. Then it will be off for the team paint finish.

With the links attached and the bearings all nicely seated and everything bolted together people sometimes say the suspension is buttery… the legend is slippery. That doesn’t mean its sloppy… the backend is super tight and flex free. Basically whatever you can get out of the shock is going to go straight into moving the backend.

I weighed the Large… no paint, shock or seat collar at 4083 grams [4.083kgs / 8.98lbs] The MkI was 4013 so I figure while we managed to take weight out of the overall frame the weight of the bearings increased our overall weight. That being said there should be a ton of places where we can get the little FEA going over it to start shaving down parts. However for now the frame at under 9 is pretty light and is VERY strong… I would suggest its almost overbuilt but still light. Under 9 is a very competitive weight… check out here for some comparable weights http://www.sicklines.com/weights/fullsuspensionframes/

The weight is still though in the right places … low and centered and that means a very well balanced and easy to corner bike.

This one is the first article which is the first one we check in a production run. The rest just got the green light from me now that i’ve checked it over and am happy with how I was able to put it together and everything fits like it should. It will be about 2 weeks until they are ready to ship. Just waiting for its special boxes to arrive, the CCDBs and RC4s to show up, I even have an Elka on the way to check for fit. Its gonna almost be like a 2nd Christmas… yeah i get excited about this stuff… can’t help it… i love bikes!

Anyway I gotta get back to the shop floor so thats it from me right now.