Based in Finland, Pole is a brand new company created by Leo Kokkonen, an engineer and passionate rider himself. The Rinne Ylä is Pole's flagship enduro bike, with 27.5" wheels, a slack, 65° head angle, and 153mm of rear travel via a concentric pivot that rotates around the bottom bracket. Our test bike arrived direct from the company's headquarters with a SRAM-heavy build that included a 160mm RockShox Pike, Monarch Plus RC3 rear shock, Guide brakes and an X01 / X1 drivetrain, finished off with DT-Swiss wheels and Maxxis' High Roller II tires front and rear. It's lighter than it looks at 29.4lb (13.35kgs) for a size L, and it retails for €4390 ($4970 USD approx), a competitive price from a niche brand.

Rinne Ylä Details

• Intended use: Enduro Race / Adventure

• Wheel travel: Front 160mm / Rear 153mm

• Wheel size: 27.5"

• 'Pole Link' Suspension

• Full 7005 aluminium frame

• ISCG-05 chain guide tabs

• Rockshox Pike RCT3 / Monarch Plus RT3

• SRAM X01 drivetrain

• Reverb Stealth dropper seat post

• SRAM Maxle 12mm X 150mm

• Weight: 13.35kg (Large size tested)

• MSRP: $4970 USD (approx) / €4390 Euro

• www.pole.fi, @polebicycles • Intended use: Enduro Race / Adventure• Wheel travel: Front 160mm / Rear 153mm• Wheel size: 27.5"• 'Pole Link' Suspension• Full 7005 aluminium frame• ISCG-05 chain guide tabs• Rockshox Pike RCT3 / Monarch Plus RT3• SRAM X01 drivetrain• Reverb Stealth dropper seat post• SRAM Maxle 12mm X 150mm• Weight: 13.35kg (Large size tested)• MSRP: $4970 USD (approx) / €4390 Euro

Frame Design

Suspension Layout

Geometry

From the Engineer

Why did you start the company; what was your inspiration and goal? Why did you start the company; what was your inspiration and goal?

What inspired you to use a concentric pivot and why? What inspired you to use a concentric pivot and why?

How did you choose the geometry? How did you choose the geometry?

What are your thoughts on anti-squat? What are your thoughts on anti-squat?

What testing did you do? What testing did you do?



Components:

Specifications Release Date 2015 Price $4200 Travel 153mm Rear Shock RockShox Monarch Plus RC3 216×63 Fork RockShox Pike RCT3 Solo Air 160mm Headset Cane Creek 10.ZS44 / 10.ZS56 Cassette SRAM XG1180 Crankarms SRAM X1 1400 T32 170mm Chainguide N/A Bottom Bracket Pole®Link Pedals N/A Rear Derailleur SRAM X01 Chain SRAM PC1130 Front Derailleur N/A Shifter Pods SRAM X1 11-speed Handlebar Raceface SIXC ¾” RISER 785mm Stem Raceface Atlas 50mm Grips Raceface Half Nelson Brakes SRAM GUIDE RS F180mm / R180mm Wheelset DT Swiss EX 1501 SPLINE® ONE 27.5 (12x142mm) Tires MAXXIS HighRoller II 3C/EXO/TR Seat Pole “Cheek” Ukko Kokkonen Design Seatpost RockShox Reverb Stealth Compare to other All Mountain/Enduro/XC



The Rinne Ylä's tube set is full 7005 aluminum alloy, with a few chunks of CNC'd billet to link the swingarm together. A 150mm Maxle is used in conjunction with the 12 x 142mm hub. This allows the dropouts to be wider, and adds stiffness to the back end, also facilitating fitting the rear wheel by letting the axle stay on a straighter path and finding the threads on the opposite side more easily. The Monarch Plus pierces through the interrupted seat tube, with the Reverb Stealth hose running nearby, up into the bottom end of the seat tube. All of the cable routing is external, located on either side of the down tube. It is possible to mount a water bottle cage to the Rinne, but the shock layout forces these mounting points to the underside of the downtube, mud's favorite place to accumulate.For any bike-mountaineers out there, removing the shock bolt allows the rear wheel to be folded under the bike (also useful for putting it into your car). Pole are working with a backpack manufacturer which will have fixing points so you can throw it on your back and get hiking into uncharted territory.The 'Pole Link' is the heart of the bike, a concentric pivot that rotates on cartridge bearings that also double as the bottom bracket. The axle of the cranks run on the inner race of the bearings, and the swingarm pivots on the outer race; this means there is zero interference between the two as they are always active together.The 'Pole-Link' is not a new idea by any means, but it's a lesser explored avenue when it comes to suspension design due to the dreaded, inefficient pedal-bob demon, although it does offer many advantages from an engineer's point of view - the suspension is completely isolated from any drivetrain forces, creating a more active and supple suspension. Where many bikes currently are designed with some degree of anti-squat in order to prevent the suspension from compressing during pedalling efforts, the Rinne Ylä suspension configuration means that the chain has no influence, either positive or negative, on the suspension.Does pedal bob mean that the bike is inefficient? According to designer Leo, no. He believes that a bike with strong anti-squat can actually be less efficient, as there will always be a downward force on the bike as you pedal; if your bike doesn't squat, there is energy being lost somewhere in order to support your body weight. He feels that with a concentric pivot the bike will bob, but more of the energy from your legs will be transferred into the chain and cassette to drive the bike forward rather than prevent the bike from sinking under your weight. More importantly, does pedal-bob really matter on a mountain bike? Bobbing around on a smooth climb might not be ideal, but modern shocks, with all their different modes and tune-ability are able to do a fair amount to negate this. With an isolated drivetrain, when you're pedalling over bumps the suspension is free to move, sticking to the ground and allowing the tire to grip.The Rinne Ylä is certainly unique in the looks department, and though it may not the most pretty up close, it certainly has stance, maybe enough to warrant a generic 'Low is a Lifestyle' sticker from a Japanese driftmobile. It’s clear that Pole don't give a damn about trends, and have done it how they wanted, creating close-to DH geometry on a 153mm bike: 65 degree head angle, 460mm reach in the large size, and its 1237mm wheelbase (I measured the wheelbase at 1250mm) is longer than many DH bikes and all of its 160mm rivals.While many bikes claim to be low, long and slack, the Rinne truly is, with its reach numbers placing it up there with boundary pushers like Kona, Mondraker and Orbea. That long reach is only part of the story, and where a long front center combined with short chainstays is the current prevailing geometry trend, Pole have gone the opposite direction, with a chain stay length of 450mm. Leo suggests that the chainstays should be even longer with his larger frames, and has some prototypes in testing.Let's put it this way. Q: Why does a dog licks his balls? A: Firstly, he can do it, and secondly he likes it. We can do it because I'm a designer myself and I have an industrial design company and we love bicycles.I loved the idea of a bike which was easier to tune and handle. The concentric pivot point answers to these questions.Professional rider Matti Lehikoinen consulted us at the beginning. We started off with the geometry design of a downhill bike with 26" tires at first because that was the field we knew the best. We had cooperation with BTR Fabrications from UK to help us with the prototypes and finalizing the design. We asked Matti which bike he liked to ride the most from his past and we started to find out the geometry on that bike. That bike had a custom geometry made for Matti and the bike was still in Finland so it was the best place to start.At that time we didn't think about the overall concept that much. We found out that the bike Matti liked had a long chainstay. As we wanted to create something different we started to analyze motocross bikes as well because this industry has a longer pedigree in the geometry and wheel size debate. Motocross bikes have fairly long chainstay compared to the front center and short stem or no stem at all (compared to the average mountain bike). As the mountain bikes have been evolving to have shorter stems and slacker head angles the chainstays have stayed short, and we think that the balance between the front and rear center has been missed.The long chain stay on a concentric bike doesn't mean the same thing as in high pivot point bicycle. The concentric system shortens when compressed and the high pivot point bike extends. This is why a concentric system is easier to corner - it gets shorter in the corners. Also you get better grip because the rear wheel doesn't escape to a different "orbit."I've obviously had different bikes with different suspension concepts. I've raced downhill and have been a mountain biker for a while. I have noticed that many bikes have a tendency to slow down in rough sections and they feel very hard to pedal uphill if you compare them to hardtails. I studied the mechanisms of bicycle suspension and I had an insight that if a bike has high anti-squat rate and chain stretch it slows the bicycle down. The more anti-squat you have the more it slows you down. If you exceed 100% of AS you are extending the swingarm by every pedal stroke. Also, the anti-squat affects the suspension dynamics and the shocks are not easy to tune. In a concentric system the pedal kickback is counter clockwise. This way the bicycle doesn't slow down on bumps and the shock is not affected by the transmission that much. The downside is that you can feel the bike compress with the first pedal strokes and you lose some of the power, but it'll pay off in uphill and the rough places. The lack of anti-squat hardly matters when you get the bike going and it's not that bad in the beginning either.We wanted to know if my thoughts were correct or not. I think the best way to make sure is to ride the bikes as soon as possible. We had different bikes to test and we used a stopwatch to do it. I think this is the only way to tell the differences between bikes. We ran timed runs downhill, enduro and XC. Also we did short uphill sprints to see if the anti-squat has a big influence. We compared the times to different bikes and riders. We tried to conceal the rider effect from the study. Our next goal is to study the energy put in compared to the time with different geometries and suspension types.