First Look: 2015 Canfield Brothers Riot 31

iceman2058
4/24/2015 7:09am

After releasing the world's first production 29er with sub 17-inch chainstays in 2011, the Canfield Bros have cranked out several different wagon wheelers, but only hardtails to date. That is now set to change as they launch the Riot, a full suspension 29er trail bike. In keeping with the company's commitment to producing bikes that are fun to ride, the Riot features aggressive geometry and a frame that should be up for abuse.

2015 Canfield Brothers Riot Highlights

  • 7005 aluminum
  • Patent pending Canfield Balance Formula Suspension
  • 200mm x 57mm Cane Creek Inline included, DB Air CS upgrade option available
  • 140mm travel
  • Super short 414mm chainstays
  • 142 x 12mm Maxle rear axle
  • Stealth seatpost compatible
  • Tapered headtube
  • 15mm pivot bearings
  • Anodized black and factory raw frame options
  • Six link color options
  • Available in Small, Medium, Large and XLarge

“Ever since our first experience on the wagon-sized wheels, we always loved the 29er concept,” said Lance Canfield, owner and designer. “It just screams speed and charges through everything! Uphill, downhill - these wheels are fast. The downside was that most 29ers just weren't as fun to ride.”

In order to put that fun factor back into the ride, Canfield went with super short 16.3-inch chain stays on the Riot, combined with 5.5-inches of travel from their "Balance Formula" suspension. Linear in the early part of travel, it provides slight ramp-up towards the end of the stroke as well as near 100% anti-squat characteristics. Such short stays on a 29er means no front derailleur, so the Riot is optimized for a 1x drivetrain.

Closer inspection of the Riot reveals a 66.5-degree headangle, a 13.8-inch bottom bracket height, and a 140-mm fork that should all help ensure that the Riot is indeed a riot on the fun side of the mountain. The high degree of anti-squat coupled with a 74.5-effective seat tube angle conspire to get you easily back up the hill again for another run.

The Riot frame will retail for $2,100 with a Cane Creek Inline shock, or $2,275 with an upgraded Cane CreekDB Air CS, and is available at CanfieldBrothers.com. Shipping August 2015.

Canfield Brothers Riot Frame Specs

  • Shock Specs – 200mm x 57mm, (22mm x 8mm and 36mm x 8mm hardware)
  • ŸRecommend fork length – 140mm
  • ŸHeadset – Tapered 44mm upper/49.6mm lower
  • ŸFront derailleur – Not available
  • ŸBottom bracket – 73mm, threaded
  • ŸSeatpost – 30.9mm, Stealth dropper compatible
  • ŸSeatpost clamp – 35mm
  • ŸRear dropouts – 142mm x 12mm, axle included
  • ŸISCG tabs – ISCG standard
  • ŸBrake mount – IS, international standard, (different than imaged)

Canfield Brothers Riot Geometry

All images are prototype Riots. Production will see a few minor tweaks including upgraded rear dropouts.

More information at www.canfieldbrothers.com.

Related:
Canfield
First Look
29er
31 comments

View replies to: First Look: 2015 Canfield Brothers Riot

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ChrisG
9 years ago
Canfield clearly believes in short chainstays, the question is why this short? It is commonly held that short versus long will confer some advantages while blunting others - greater agility, less high speed stability, more difficulty in maintaining traction while climbing. Perhaps Canfield would dispute the received wisdom. And is that steep seat tube angle there for its own sake or because the seat tube simply had to make way for the large wheel during a suspension compression? It would be good to hear from Canfield on these issues.
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bturman
9 years ago
A steep seat tube angle will keep your weight forward while climbing, helping to negate a perceived "problem" with short stays. The 76-degree angle is only the effective angle, however, so if you're a tall guy with the seat cranked way up you may be over the rear axle a bit. I'm guessing for the average proportion male they've found a nice balance between effective and actual, traction and wheelie-ing over backwards.

In my experience, wheelbase, reach, and headtube angle have more of an impact on high speed stability than chainstay length.

We'll reach out to the boys at Canfield and have them jump in here for a response.
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Canfield Brothers
9 years ago
We pushed the limit of travel vs the shortest chainstays possible so the seat tube gets offset forward and then slacked out to get your butt in the right spot. The TT is measured level with the top of the head tube but most people run their seat higher than that. If you measure effective seat tube angle at 32" (a typical inseam) the seat angle is closer to 74.5 degrees effective. Although this might still seem a bit on the steep side, with suspension, as soon as you sag into the travel the seat angle slackens out another couple degrees. Now we're down to about 72.5 degree effective seat tube angle which is spot on. All of this is a difficult balance but with our 15 years of experience and prototype testing before production, we knew we were on the right track. However, through our Riot testing, Chris and I agreed that we needed to go 1/2 degree steeper than the protos for the perfect uphill seat placement (the important part of seat angle).

Being a 29" wheeled bike, we knew a greater amount of customers would be on the tall side of the spectrum. We wanted to give a better range of fit for the majority. The reach sizing is one full size bigger than the Balance, however the effective TT is only slighty longer, about 1/4". This helps gives the Riot a "in the bike" feel. This also is a somewhat misleading number as it relates to the seat tube angle; those effective top tube numbers will get longer when you lift the seat to the proper pedaling height.

Both of these geometry aspects are what give you the ability to run a longer reach and a shorter stem, i.e. killer modern geo.

Lance
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ChrisG
9 years ago
Thank you for that helpful glimpse into MTB geometry design. And thank you to @bturman as well. No doubt some of the detail will show up in discussions of mountain bike geometry taking place elsewhere on the web.
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DThuren
9 years ago
So freaking awesome. Not to be a carbon snob, but if it was carbon, my 2015 S-works E29 would be for sale. Frame weight?
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devin-m
9 years ago
I hate to be the comparison guy, but this frame design is very similar to the banshee Spitfire, Rune, & Darkside...
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devin-m
9 years ago
Because the shock is driven by the seat stay, and the rear end rotates on two upward floating links... But yeah they're totally aluminum with horizontal shocks, nice one.
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Colin+M
9 years ago
My point is that although the Formula suspension design and KS Link are similar in that they are both dual link and seat stay driven, I think you are discounting how groundbreaking this bike is by saying it "looks like a Banshee". Which implies no real design innovation. The fact that the Riot has more travel than a Banshee Prime and over an inch shorter chainstays shows these bikes are "similar" in that they are both aluminum and have horizontally mounted shocks;-)

Not hating on Banshee, I've owned and loved 4 of them.
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ChrisG
9 years ago
I think you and @devin-m both have some degree of truth on your side. In the unavoidable trade off between anti-squat and pedal kickback Canfield (initially with the Balance bike) and Banshee have been working with design recipes that are not too dissimilar. I would add that Mondraker despite their different looking bikes also seems to be inspired by a similar design notion. I think you could be overemphasising Canfield's originality in that all three mentioned companies have produced noteworthy bikes. That said this bike looks like it could be the real deal and I eagerly await reviews of it.
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slo_rider
9 years ago
Trying to respond to ChrisG [page won't allow me to respond to his comment directly].

devin-m is right: Riot's suspension looks like Banshee's KS link...
ChrisG is right: form follows function, and if 2 companies designing virtual pivot/"mini-link" suspensions have similar goals, it's not surprising that their final designs will also look similar...

But I agree most w/ Colin+M: Canfield Bros have been breaking ground in bike design since the late 90's. They produced a virtual pivot/"parallel linkage" DH prototype, the Big Fatty Fat, in '99 (3 years before SC debuted they're first 2 VPP bikes in '02), and the Bros been tweaking that design since then. Their 2008 design, "The One", was a virtual pivot design which drove the rear shock off the "seatstay"/swingarm, like the KS link that followed about 4 years later. In '11, the Bros were one of the first (if not the first) to mass produce a 29er w/ sub 17" chainstays, and now with the Riot, they've produced a 140mm travel 29er with 16.3" chainstays. Suspension design aside, being able to produce a mid-travel 29er w/ chainstays that short is groundbreaking.

Thanks Bros! I dug my Nimble 9's geo when I first swung a leg over 3 years ago, and I've been waiting for a 29er FS w/ 16.3" stays ever since.
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grinch
9 years ago
amazing! they didn't miss a thing. no compromise design. ultra short cs inspite of a dbl link. nice tt lengths and really good SO for a 9er. very nice lines as well. could be the small builders niche re; a design that's ahead of the game
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MW
9 years ago
CB just keeps doing so much so right! EPO and now this! Proof that a rider owned company is where its at.
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Canfield Brothers
9 years ago
We are booked to attend the Evergreen Festival at Duthie. It's going to cut it close with Riot production to have Riot demos there, but fingers crossed!
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jojotherider
9 years ago
How is the Effective seat tube angle calculated? In the article, it says 74.5, but the in the specs image, it says 76.

I hope they sell full builds.
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groghunter
9 years ago
Ugh, those sometimes don't play so nice with outboard bearings. probably helps a little with chainstay length though.
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8p8
9 years ago
This bike looks like a 26, perfect proportions... I love it
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