I think ICT is a mythical concept that TE came up with, after the fact, to separate his bikes from the competition. I don't believe there is any scientific fact to back up his claims.Steve from JH said:Ellsworth does not license from Specialized.
My guess is that Specialized does not want to challenge the issue because some of their bikes fall within the ICT claim. They might end up with each having to license from the other! The Demo 9, for example, is almost exactly like the Dare in pivot locations.
Another consideration is the location of the dropout pivot. On the original Truth, which came out way before the ICT design, that pivot was right in front of the axle, not a bit lower. That should have made it not fall within the Horst link patent claims, which called for that pivot to be in front of and below the axle. Later Ellsworth models had that pivot slightly lower, but by then the ICT patent was filed for. If Specialized had protested, they knew that Ellsworth could strike back by not allowing Specialized to locate their pivots in the ICT manner.
This is all just speculation on my part, but I've read the patents and thought about it a lot.
An auto racing engineer named Mike Kojima (whose name is also on the patent) came to Ellsworth with the idea. Only after that were the ICT bikes produced. It's certainly a scientific fact that in one gear combination the chain line passes through the instant center and stays very close throughout travel.Zeke said:I think ICT is a mythical concept that TE came up with, after the fact, to separate his bikes from the competition. I don't believe there is any scientific fact to back up his claims.
The Demo 9 and 8 have pivots located just like the Dare and are just as much ICT bikes. In the past I believe some of the Enduros also fell within the ICT claims but in their lowest gear rather than in a middle gear.There are no S bikes that would remotely infringe on the ICT concept.
The axle must be mounted on the seatstay link and the pivot on the chainstay link for it to be ICT.Here's another question for you, How come the HL Turners are ICT, but the TNT's are not? DT says the axle path is only 1.1mm different. So how did this drastically change with ICT?