Silvio update - second prototype completed

This past four months have been a journey of design and discovery. We embarked on a redesign of the front triangle, which might not sound like much but involved a number of design challenges. The principle of the design is that the pivoting front elements actually pivot around the BB shell and the front axle, rather than on seperate pivots. And that the chainstay is carbon fibre, designed to accommodate the suspension travel of the front fork. Sounds simple and elegant but designing each item was not quite so. We do have a solution now, alloy has been extruded, machined into shape, anodised and fitted together.

There is also a novel solution to fitting the handlebar, this design dispenses with the stem completely, and this created its own design issues. We modified the design of the rear triangle, introducing a carbon chainstay designed for a 100 mm rear dropouts, taking a 'front' wheel.

Because these design efforts were beyond what we anticipated, we elected to build a second prototype. This prototype has now been sent off to the paint shop. Production will take 40 to 60 days and will commence once we have evaluated the second prototype.