Ethos Bicycles [NEWS]

Peter Guenthers’ a driven guy. Take one look at this pro-production machine, and you’re flat out telling it wasn’t put together by a team of welders in a noisy factory somewhere. An engineer by profession, Peter spent some time welding up bike parts for Mountain Cycles (makers of the famed San Andreas) in the States, and the experience has stood him in good stead.

The bike is designed as an all-day trail machine, and with the main pivot being in line with the middle ring and big chainrings, the aim is the keep bobbing to an absolute minimum. While we didn’t strip and weigh the frame, with basic build, Rock Shox Sid 100 forks and Cane Creek AD10 air shock had a combined weight of 27lb.

Built in Easton aluminium, the bike is artfully welded, with the work on the rear triangle being top shelf. The unusual chainstay configuration gives the front mech. and rear tyre plenty of mud clearance, and lends a twist to another wise conventional design. Peter has put so much work and attention to detail into the Ethos, it’s entirely impossible to justify in 400 words. The bike you see here is representative of the final product, though there will be a few tweaks to the final product; a slight revision of the main pivot location, a change to a bottom pull front derailleur and an upgrade of the pivot bolts are already underway.

It’s rather mind blowing, actually; a bunch of manufactures claim to have minimal bob, but the Ethos does not bob, full stop. Deliberately choppy pedalling made the rear end react, but nothing else would. With the SID 100 up front, the bike was well balanced on the trail, though if your weight was forward, the tail dot light enough to lock the rear wheel. A fork with better resistance to brake dive - like Manitou’s X-Vert Super - would lessen the tendency, we suspect.
A couple of riders reported a little lateral wiggle on square edge, cross-trail ruts, but in all the Ethos trod right the line between rigidity and weight, without giving much away to either team.

The leverage ratio action the rear Cane Creek shock must be enormous; with 200pounds in the unit, it was still easy to bottom out. A dual chamber SID shock might be the go, allowing the user to tune the spring rate to the bike.
As you’d expect, climbing traction was top notch, thought the bike felt a little long. Peter confirmed that he’s changing the rear chainstay length to reflect that.

At the end of the day, this bike is a bob-smacking achievement. The chainline was good, it uses regular pivot parts, it rode like a thoroughbred, and it’s his third bike! Pete’s even take out a couple of patents to ensure some of the discoveries he’s made on the way to making this very effective four-bar linkage bike stay his.

There are few aspects of life in Australia that aren’t at one time or another put under the microscope then brushed aside just because they’re home-grown. This behaviour is certainly disproportionately aimed at the creative arts, but technology and it’s entrepreneurs are also taking a beating. Sadly, it’s only when much of this intellectual property is embraced or labelled by foreign critics with praise that we tend to welcome it (back) into our homes - often with our ownership tag attached.

For many cyclists, entertaining the idea of buying an Australian-made bicycle (or product) can be a bit like throwing your support behind the local film industry - putting yourself on the firing line for commentary that quality produce comes from either the United States or Europe. Admittedly, the bulk of the world’s finest two-wheeled produce is still imported into Australia. One reason may be that our population doesn’t yet support a market for domestic manufacturing. This premise has strong ties with Australians not yet embracing the culture of cycling beyond the context of sport and recreation (hence per capita demand is limited). Many of us (myself included) just never realised or seriously considered it a tenable option.

However, let's not get ahead of ourselves and proclaim that just because something is made in Australia, it is a starter alongside similar imported products. Be prudent in your approach, least your best intentions lead you to a regrettable purchase.

In an audacious manoeuvre into the dual suspension bike market, Canberra based frame-builder Peter Guenther has created a bike that he hopes will find favour with both recreational and race riders all over this wide, brown land. Ethos cycles are available as custom framesets and full built bike in any range of configurations your heart desires within his fundamental design parameters. Want long to tube to go with those ape-like arms? You got it. Acquired a liking for neon pink along-side lime green? No problem. Just pay the man a visit or shout down the phone and soon you’ll have your very own one-of-a-kind.

After emerging from an upbringing of dirt bikes, mono-shock BMX, snow skiing and aborted journalism studies, Peter turned his attention to an Industrial Design degree about 10 years ago. The culmination of his four-year undergraduate course was the design and manufacture of a mountain bike from carbon fibre and machined alloy. Peter, however, strongly believed aluminium was the best material with which to work, and has not considered otherwise since. All Ethos bikes feature mainframes and seat stays of Easton Elite, with rocker arms and chain stays of 6061 aluminium. All machined parts are manufactured in glorious Canberra according to Peter’s specifications. In fact, even details such as tapping the bottom bracket shell after welding (thereby eliminating heat-related distortion and a potentially poor bottom bracket fit), custom butting of the head tube and customised chain stay stiffness/strength, are addressed.

The Ethos utilises a linkage-type suspension system that initially appears like (yet another) walking beam four-bar design. If you think you’ve heard it all before, think again - the design carries a patent in the United States and has a patent pending in Australia, which more than validates its originality and authenticity. Peter was gracious enough to not only to explain in depth for me the mechanics of his suspension design, but more importantly how he feels other designs throughout the market fall short of what they promise. Like almost all bicycle suspension designs, the mechanics of levers, ratios, spring rates and so forth, are complex in the least, and such is the depth of Peter’s knowledge, I was left with a head full of geometric spaghetti after just his mid-level explanation. If you would like an abridged version of how it works (or the Pythagorean version for that matter) I urge you to contact him, not me. One thing, though, I’m more than happy to do is discuss the ride.

For the purpose of the test, we had the pleasure of riding the very same bike that Peter himself rides. Hard to believe that even after all the battered, broken unreturned, overdue things that pass through my hands, I still end up with the boss’s bike. Wonders never cease to amaze.

The bike is spec’d with a mostly-Shimano XT group set except for DT Onyx hubs on Dice rims, Rock Shox Psylo Race forks (Tullio drop-outs), Hayes Hydraulic disc brakes and a small parts kit of strong yet light alloy accessories. The entire bike weighs in at 16 kilograms, however, the potential exists quite easily to remove a few kilos from that figure, especially in a cross country configuration (eg air shock and fork, wheel-set, etc). The vital stats on the Ethos in the model we tested were an effective top tube of 24 inches, 71 degree head tube (with a 5 inch travel fork) /73 degree seat tube, 17 inch chain stays, a 14.1 inch bottom bracket and an achievable rear wheel travel of 6.75 inches. Essentially what all these numbers add up to is a long travel, yet smart handling, recreational bike, good for pretty much all conditions. However, at this point, I cannot stress enough that all of the above numbers (and subsequent handling characteristics) can be changed to address your own preferences.

Given that the Ethos (in this set-up) is pitched as a long travel XC bike, it was only fitting that it be tested in an area not unaccustomed to that use - Mt Disappointment to the north of Melbourne. Regretfully, the area had seen quite a bit of rain in the days previous and many usually fast and stable sections were not in their prime. However with that in mind, the results in such conditions often help to paint a worst-case scenario, which in my opinion is a good thing with which to work.

Instantly, the first thing I noticed about the Ethos was the very cross country-like riding position for such a long-travel bike. In spite of the five inches of travel in the Psylos (which would typically make the steering lazy), the handling was direct with good width in the riser bars providing the necessary leverage to control the hefty front end. The Dice disc specific rims with IRC Kujo tyres (2.35”) easily ploughed over rocks and other debris that would easily be a pinch-flat hazard for many other set-ups and they combined well with the bikes’ own travel to absorb bumps all day.

On the topic of the Ethos’ suspension operation, my greatest praise goes to the way it worked on the climbs. In spite of the bikes weight and the trail conditions (not to mention my under-whelming mid-winter fitness), the Ethos stuck like glue on all but the steepest gradients, where the slickness of wet clay unfortunately took over. Regretfully though, it was hard to sustain prolonged out of the saddle efforts as the suspension pushed through its travel and sapped a lot of the riders power, but to its credit, the Ethos still maintained traction. Nothing out of the ordinary here: just keep seated and it’s easy to forget you’re carting a near 7-inch travel bike up a hill.

Descending and coasting provided few surprises on the negative side or the positive. The handling was lively and predictable and was underpinned by a real sense of strength - no mystery sounds from the suspension and drive train (no chain-drops) was a pleasant feeling. Rear shock damping adjustments were easy to effect, even whilst riding, with both rebound and compression kept moderately low to enhance the bikes potential travel. Also worth noting at this point was the performance of the forks. The Psylo Race is the top model from this new range of freeride forks, differing in that it is a Dual Air fork - both positive and negative spring are air chambers adjustable via schraeder valves. It also features the ‘Climb-It Control’ lockout/compression damper dial and incremental travel from 80 to 125 millimetres (3.2 to 5.0”). As mentioned above the Psylo also sported Tullio dropouts (‘quick’ release through axle) to enhance front-end stiffness, but for my money I recommend staying with conventional dropouts for their ease of use unless slalom racing or jumping is your thing. All things considered, the fork definitely warrants its’ price and stature as one of the best.

On the down side there are few to mention. The use of an ‘E-type, down-pull front derailleur coupled with a frame-mounted pulley wheel to re-direct to top fed cabling gave the appearance of over-complication, and leaves me feeling that maybe there was another way around it. Also, the difficult access to the front derailleur limit screws by the position of the right side swingarm seemed an ominous design for future maintenance. With respect to the componentry in general (keeping in mind you can completely pick your own), the DT Onyx hubs were a joy to roll on, but I found threading the 20mm axle through the body a little tedious. This was due to a couple of floating washer/spacers inside the hub making a nuisance of themselves (I’m sure they play a crucial role). Also the middle to granny shifting of the front derailleur was poor, even by dual suspension standards.

The Ethos as a complete package unquestionably fills a void in the domestic frame building scene, but is much more than a way to give patriots who are considering dual suspension options a warm fuzzy for supporting a little Aussie battler. On its’ own merits, Ethos bikes are intelligently designed and well made and are deserving of a closer inspection by prospective buyers. Like the cultural cringe away from arts and technology, it would be a shame to see something this good passed up just because it didn’t carry a ‘Made In...’ sticker from somewhere else.