8 mountain bike tech fails that their manufacturers wish you’d forget

While the sport of mountain biking is constantly developing new technology that makes riding faster, more fun and safer, occasionally there are developments that are, how can we put it, misguided. 

In fact, sometimes brands get things so spectacularly wrong that they enter history as a facepalm of the highest order. We’ve rounded up eight bikes and products that aimed for stars but fizzled like a soggy bottle rocket. 

1. Cannondale Raven

In the year 2000, things were riding high for Cannondale. The brand was busy developing a motocross bike to rival those made by the giants like Honda and Yahama, all based off a bicycle building business that was the last word in high tech.

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The Raven was a carbon dream of a bike, with futuristic look that dripped in advanced technology. The main frame was build around a magnesium ‘spine’ onto which a carbon fibre thermoplastic shell was laid. This meant that compared with the previous year’s model it dropped a fairly staggering 590g from the frame alone. However, the headline weight savings quickly looked a touch foolish when the frames began breaking at a staggering rate, triggering a product recall.

The solution offered up by Cannondale to owners was to inject the area with an expanding resin to boost strength. It worked – to a degree – but the fix was extremely weighty and the bikes already had a reputation for failure. Strangely enough, this wasn’t the worst news at Cannondale at that time as the motocross project had turned into a huge and expensive failure, bankrupting the company in the process…

2. Whyte PRST-1

In many ways, the Whyte PRST-1 was a groundbreaking bike. Designed by a pair of F1 engineers, it had a number of innovative features than put it years ahead of its rivals, with everything from clever quick release bolt up axles to an innovative aluminium monocoque frame.

3. Klein Mantra

4. Crankbrothers Kronolog dropper post

5. Shimano Dual Control shifter and Rapid Rise derailleur

6. Specialized Future Shocks

7. ISIS bottom brackets

8. Slingshot bikes

You can read more at BikeRadar.com