[Super E]

Anyone see these...Moots Slider Dropouts ? SS to geared with disc brakes and no EBB...looks interesting. On a Mooto-X YBB this would be interesting.

 

[BThor]

are those not paragon machine works dropouts?

 

[Bigwheel]

Yup and available to anyone.

http://www.paragonmachineworks.com/

 

[donkey]

I believe the hooded paragon dropouts seen in the pic are only available to Moots at this time.....I could be wrong though.

 

[DWF]

I believe the hooded paragon dropouts seen in the pic are only available to Moots at this time.....I could be wrong though.

Correct.

 

[Bigwheel]

OOps

My bad . Totally missed the memo on the hood detail.

To me the hooded drops look like trailcrap collectors. I prefer the cleaner, stock setup as shown here on a steel bike.

It also looks to me like ultimately both setups will perform the same function in the same manner?

All I know is that I am awaiting a custom US built Ti hardtail frame that has the regular old workingman Paragon dropouts speced so I guess I will be going hoodless, but for less than half the cost, I guess I'll manage.

 

[Padre]

My bad . Totally missed the memo on the hood detail.

To me the hooded drops look like trailcrap collectors. I prefer the cleaner, stock setup as shown here on a steel bike.

It also looks to me like ultimately both setups will perform the same function in the same manner?

All I know is that I am awaiting a custom US built Ti hardtail frame that has the regular old workingman Paragon dropouts speced so I guess I will be going hoodless, but for less than half the cost, I guess I'll manage.

According to a phone call I had w/ Moots, the hoods provide significant strength stability for the rear end and the drop out area... FWIW

 

[LJintheUK]

Anyone see these...Moots Slider Dropouts ? SS to geared with disc brakes and no EBB...looks interesting. On a Mooto-X YBB this would be interesting.

It may just be the pic but it looks like the hoods limit how far the dropout will slide on the disc mount side.

 

[Bigwheel]

I agree

According to a phone call I had w/ Moots, the hoods provide significant strength stability for the rear end and the drop out area... FWIW

It sure looks like that is the intention of the hood design to me also.They especially need the extra strength due to the cutouts (another dental floss detail) in the dropouts themselves?

Just how "significant" their proprietary design is over what a skilled builder can acheive using the stock dropouts without the crudcatcher motif could be debated, especially for another grand or so less $$......

Personally I doubt I would ever feel the difference and I am afraid sales pitches usually don't impress me too much.

 

[Onetrack]

Strength and Welding

The most important reason behind hooded/Breezer dropouts is that they provide a larger surface area in which to weld the seatstays and chainstays, thus providing more strength and stiffness

 

[Juan Speeder]

According to a phone call I had w/ Moots, the hoods provide significant strength stability for the rear end and the drop out area... FWIW

You would expect them to say something else?

 

[brant]

The most important reason behind hooded/Breezer dropouts is that they provide a larger surface area in which to weld the seatstays and chainstays, thus providing more strength and stiffness

I always thought it was to make "one size fits all" with easy alignment in the welding jig.

 

[Fluid Dynamics]

Everyone seems to be so down on Moots?

Moots has been using Breezer style drops on it's bikes for ten plus years. Perhaps they wanted to stick with a tradition that they have established?

On a conventional, non sliding dropout I will bet that a breezer style drop would be stiffer torsionally, if you put a torque on just one of the dropouts. Of course I doubt that there would really be too much of a difference with a solid hub installed.

I do agree that the cutouts on the Moots sliding drop look noodly, but who knows? The clearance issue that someone raised also seems to be valid. The bottom line is that Moots has been making superb quality bikes at a reasonable pricepoint with respect to their competition for many years, and they have stuck with their chosen design details the whole time. I dont see any of you guys saying "I could go out and buy a great riding Ti frame from someone other that Jeff Jones and save 4K!" or complaining about Black Sheep's designs being all marketing.....

 

[Bigwheel]

I dont see any of you guys saying "I could go out and buy a great riding Ti frame from someone other that Jeff Jones and save 4K!" or complaining about Black Sheep's designs being all marketing.....

There is no doubt that Moots has a plan and is sticking to it. It works for them and their customers. When people buy into any type of brand loyalty they have to be able to take a few jibes from people that haven't, it's the old Chevy vs. Ford syndrome.

The origin of this post was to my mind someone thinking, hey, look at what Moots has done now. That person was answered with, it is not just Moots, then the hooded proprietary design issue was brought up. If there is such a thing as a sliding drop, and BTW Paragon is by no means the only one to make the hardware for one eh Brant, and many companies use them to good effect then it makes good sense for a company like Moots to try and make theirs stand out and appeal to their customer base by using the Breezer style hood that they are known for.

My personal take is whether or not the hoods are worth the hype. There seem to be some obvious details like the fact pointed out about the non-drive side brakemount clearance and I stll maintain that the design would be hard to keep clean, but to justify it all with regards to the "extra strength and stability" and "proprietary" design, when other builders do just fine in this area with the stock hardware is just pure salesmanship. Caveat Empor and all that.

I am not down on Moots, they are a great company full of folks that care about bikes and do whatever they can to support the bike industry. The fact that they have a sales and marketing plan to further their goals is only good bizness.

Take a look around here on this site. There are industry peeps all the way from GF his ownself to the current Intense barrage that post/monitor here and for the most part this is a pretty brutal audience. Always seemingly at the ready to let those peeps know how to do their bizness. In other words I doubt that Moots is going to go back to the drawing board on this design because some crusty buttian is not buying into it, but someone elses use of the same concept that is to his mind cleaner and more utilitarian at a substantial savings. To each his own.

And I think that you will find plenty of content buried in the archives from those who would not spend the extra dough to get on a 2 year waiting list for a Jones and those that don't think that James designs are to their liking.

If everybody rode a double diamond frame fixed gear perhaps there would be less bike snobbery around? But I doubt it.

 

[DWF]

The most important reason behind hooded/Breezer dropouts is that they provide a larger surface area in which to weld the seatstays and chainstays, thus providing more strength and stiffness

Exactly. Hooded dropouts make a stronger joint for Ti bikes and provides more weld area than the other options like notched & capped. Not necessarily the case for steel bikes where you can notch the dropouts and then braze & fill.

 

[the_eleven]

... and for the most part this is a pretty brutal audience....

no doubt.

 

[Soupboy]

I think that is a good thing

Generally speaking, folks here are bike nuts and have very specific asks as to the details. Some functional, some aesthetic, almost all dealing with acute bikeoholism.

Opinions abound and the industry folks probably dismiss outright 99% of them (and they should) but every now and then I'm sure a few are deemed reasonable and maybe even thought provoking.

Moreover, these same bike nuts are often not too shy with their wallets - i.e. early adopters willing to pay the price of admission.

If you don't ask...

and for the most part this is a pretty brutal audience.

 

[Bigwheel]

Busted?

no doubt.

Production bikes that appear to be not as well thought out as one individual might think and ones in the prototype phase are two different animals.

All are entitled to their own opinions of course.

 

[the_eleven]

The repost of your statement was an agreement; and affirmation of the state of affairs herein. Thank god for all of the information/opinions available on this board

Snow ski design is similar to bike design. A bunch of things have already been tried. Some worked and some did not.

For example, powder skis have gone wider and wider, and then Shane McConkey designed a reverse-camber, reverse-sidecut ski called the Spatula. It looks really wierd. All of the pundits said that it wouldn't work, but guess what? It rocks.

Maybe it is the same with the Intense geometry. A new idea that is a bit of a paradigm shift...? Calling all early adopters.

 

[Fluid Dynamics]

Hype

If everybody rode a double diamond frame fixed gear perhaps there would be less bike snobbery around? But I doubt it.

Probably more I would guess.

I would reserve the term 'Hype' for some of the larger companies that are always proclaiming their 2-years-too-late suspension design as the bee-all and end-all.

That being said, I can't really get into the Moots slider drops, mostly because of the clearance issue and I personally just dont care for the aesthetics. It kooks like they spent alot of time on the fixed part of the drop, but not on the sliding part.

Is there any thing wrong with companies like Moots and Paragon getting together on projects like a proprietary dropout and then keeping the results to themselves for a time? I dont think so, especially if its a gentlemans agreement and not some patent issue. (Assumptions here)

I know that this may sound contradictory to my last post, but it doesnt mean that I will think that Moots is all marketing from here on out, nor attribute their design process to hype. It just seemed to me as though people were slagging the entire company on account of one aspect of the latest addition to their dropout lineup.