THE SPOT ETHOS

COVER MORE GROUND

Every bike we build is designed to protect your most precious resource as a rider: energy. More energy means bigger adventures, longer rides, taller mountains — and more fun getting there. Everything we engineer flows from that one idea.

OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLE

More than a catchphrase, Cover More Ground is the idea behind everything we build: protect a rider's most precious resource — energy. More energy means bigger adventures, longer descents, and more freedom to chase them.

We cover more ground in all sorts of ways. Living Link suspension delivers a better blend of capability, pedaling support, and traction than other designs — and does it the simplest possible way. Fewer parts, less weight, better long-haul reliability.

And because we're small, rider-owned, and beholden to no investors, we get to build with intention, taking the time to get things right instead of rushing to market with unproven designs. We'd rather make something that outlasts trends than something that follows them.

HOW WE THINK

So how do we cover more ground? It starts with how we think. Whether we're designing a transformative suspension platform, pioneering breakthroughs in drivetrains and geometry, or simply refining pivot hardware, our approach is forward-thinking, unconventional, and always done in-house. A handful of principles guide every decision — and every one of them ladders back to saving your energy.

Keep it simple, make it reliable.The most elegant designs solve complex problems in ways that last.
Everyone appreciates efficiency.The more energy we save on the climbs, the more you've got for the descents.
Lockouts are a design crutch.A suspension system worth its salt should never need one.
Optimize the whole ride.What's the point of a bike that climbs well if it can't crush the way back down?
Weight still matters.A lot of brands forgot that. We didn't — maximum capability at category-leading weights.
Make more fun.At the end of the day, our job is manufacturing fun.

THE PHILOSOPHY

ADVANCED, IN THE SIMPLEST WAY POSSIBLE

We do all of our engineering under one roof. We aren't licensing someone else's suspension platform or handing the hard part to an outside design firm. That's a harder way to build bikes — and it's the only way we're interested in building them, because it lets us chase one goal above all others: the most capable bike, built the simplest way it can be built.

Simple isn't a compromise. Simple is the point. Living Link gives us more kinematic control than other dual-link designs — and better control than a Horst link — usually with fewer bearings and fewer pivots than the bikes we're up against. Fewer parts to wear out. Fewer things between you and a good ride.

It shows up everywhere once you start looking. We run just six pivot bearings, all the same size. We don't press bearings into the frame — they live in the aluminum links, where they're easy to get at and easy to replace. And we design our suspension so it never needs a lockout lever to pedal well. The less you have to think about the machine, the more you can think about the trail.

6

pivot bearings — all the same size

0

bearings pressed into the frame

0

lockouts required to pedal efficiently

100%

designed & engineered in-house

LIVING LINK — 3RD GEN

THE HEART OF EVERY SPOT

A patented leaf spring at the lower pivot. Ten years and ten bikes of refinement. Living Link is the reason a Spot rides like a Spot.

We've always liked dual-link suspension. Two compact links keep everything stiff, and a single solid rear triangle is stronger, lighter, and more precise to build than a jointed one. But we noticed something: on most dual-link bikes, the lower link barely rotates. So we replaced it with a flexing member — a titanium leaf spring built right into that lower link. That leaf spring is the heart of Living Link, and it hands us a lever on the suspension that an ordinary dual-link bike simply doesn't have.

What that lever buys us is control. We can place peak anti-squat exactly where you spend your time pedaling and let it fall away everywhere else. We can shape the leverage curve through the middle of the travel instead of just ramping it from top to bottom. More watts to the ground. Less chain growth. Traction where other bikes slip. And no lockout lever in sight.

We launched the first Living Link bike at Sea Otter in 2016 and have been sharpening it ever since. The third generation is the most evolved version yet — and it's still the same simple idea at its core.

Our bikes climb like they have less travel than they do, and descend like they have more.

The leaf spring flattens the leverage-rate curve through the middle of the stroke, opening up more usable shock travel right where you spend the most time. It's why a 140mm bike can feel like a 150. And at the very top of the stroke, the spring pushes about seven pounds against the shock to help start the travel moving — so every touchdown is soft, controlled, and asks less of you before the suspension goes to work.

SEE IT WORK

THE LEAF SPRING THROUGH THE STROKE

Drag through compression and rebound to see what the Living Link leaf spring is doing — and what you feel on the trail.

COMPRESSION

0%

What's happening

The leaf spring pushes on the shock to help initiate travel and reduce breakaway force. From 0–20mm it acts as a negative spring, softening the beginning of the stroke.

Rider benefit

Low breakaway force means incredible small-bump compliance for traction on climbs and descents. Soft, predictable landings blur the line between air and ground.

KINEMATICS · A DEEPER LOOK

KINEMAGIC

The science behind Spot Living Link.

What kinematics is, and why it matters

Kinematics is the nerd word for what your suspension feels like and how it behaves. It's also where most of the bad behavior in a bike comes from. If you've ever felt overly squishy suspension every pedal stroke, or a harsh ride even though you're using all the travel, or a total loss of traction while pedaling or braking — that all traces back to choices the designers made, or didn't make, about kinematics.

Spot Living Link bikes don't do those things. We obsess over the nuances of suspension behavior because it makes the difference between a confident bike and a sketchy one. As riders, our most precious resource is energy, so we toil over the features that preserve it.

Anti-squat, focused where you need it

Anti-squat is the parameter that makes suspension bikes pedal efficiently. Too little and the suspension bobs and saps your energy. Too much in the wrong part of the travel and the rear wheel can't track the ground, sacrificing grip. Either way, you lose.

The third-generation Living Link layout lets us place peak anti-squat directly in the sag range — where you spend nearly all your time pedaling — and let it drop off cleanly above and below. The result is a bike that converts your power efficiently when you're putting it down, and stays free to absorb the trail when you aren't. No lockout lever required.

Leverage rate, and the leaf spring

Most suspension systems give you a steady ramp of force from top to bottom of the stroke. Living Link uses an inverted leaf spring layout that lets us change direction along the curve.

At full extension, a steeper initial curve makes the suspension easy to initiate — soft hands, soft touchdown. Through sag, the curve flattens and stays linear, giving easier access to the deeper parts of travel. Then, around three-quarters in, the curve switches direction and ramps up, building bottom-out support without compromising sensitivity earlier in the stroke.

The leaf spring itself does double duty — a negative spring at top-out for soft initiation, and a positive spring partway through the stroke to straighten the mid-travel curve. Traction when lightly loaded, support when you drive into it, bottom-out protection when you finally need it.

FRAME ENGINEERING

EVERY OUNCE EARNS IT

A frame is more than a stack of tubes. The way forces travel through it, and the way its mass is distributed, decide how the bike feels underneath you. We engineer around those two ideas, then take material away from anywhere that isn't earning its keep.

MASS CENTRALIZATION · CENTER OF GRAVITY

Pulled in, dropped low

One of our biggest design goals is getting mass low and centered — packed in tight around the bottom bracket. It lowers the bike's swing weight, so it steers faster and feels more maneuverable even when the geometry isn't especially aggressive. And it makes the bike feel lighter than the number on the scale. We chased this hard starting with the Ryve and have pushed it further on every bike since. It's the same logic Buell used putting the shock low and central on a motorcycle: centralize the weight, and the whole machine wakes up.

FORCE FLOW

A frame that shares the load

There's an enormous amount of force moving through a frame when you're hammering a descent. Through the suspension's leverage, a 200-pound rider can put thousands of pounds into the structure — and a lot of that wants to bow the down tube out. So we engineer the load paths deliberately, focusing forces into the central frame sections and giving them more than one tube to travel through. Strength from how the frame is shaped, not just from how much material we pour into it.

PACKAGING

Room for everything that matters

Good engineering disappears into a bike you can actually live with. Generous bottle access, room for bigger bottles, low standover across the size range, and space for the gear you carry — packaged so every rider gets the same benefits regardless of frame size.

THE SLAYBAR

STRENGTH FROM SHAPE

The Slaybar is a frame member that bridges between the down tube and the seat tube, low in the front triangle, with the shock mounted on top of it. Its job is to brace the frame against the loads coming out of the suspension and spread them across more of the structure.

Think of the difference between a girder bridge and a truss bridge. A girder gets its strength from sheer material — a big, heavy beam. A truss gets its strength from geometry, using shape to carry far more load with far less mass. The Slaybar works the truss way. By tying the down tube to the seat tube, it brings a second tube into the fight and dramatically reduces the down tube's tendency to bow under load.

That means we don't have to build a thick, heavy down tube to survive those forces — we can use lighter carbon layups and let the structure do the work. And because the Slaybar sits low in the frame, it pulls double duty, keeping mass centered and the center of gravity down.

Girder vs. Truss — where strength comes from

Girder — strength from material

Truss — strength from geometry

SIMPLE, DOWN TO THE DETAILS

The small choices that make a bike easy to own.

SprockLock Pivot Axles

Pivots stay tight and quiet because that's non-negotiable. SprockLock replaces friction-based hardware with a true mechanical interlock — a splined axle and locking cap that key directly into the frame so nothing backs out under load. Fewer parts, simpler service, failsafe. Fasteners are accessed from the non-drive side, so the drive side stays clean.

Six Bearings. All the Same. All External.

Six pivot bearings — all the same size, all mounted in the aluminum links rather than pressed into the frame. The frame never sees a bearing bore, service is simpler, and your spares drawer only needs one part. Simplicity you feel every time you wrench on it.

Cables, Managed

Nobody does cable ports cleaner. Instead of molding metal threads into carbon, a single fastener ties both sides of the port together and threads directly into the drive-side cover. Less material, more reliability. Port covers are interchangeable to fit any common cable configuration.

An Efficient Brake Mount

The brake mount transfers braking forces into the chainstay, letting us lighten the seatstay, and it's positioned to protect the caliper and hose. Built into one machined part with the axle bore and dropout, brake alignment stays true while we reduce the number of threaded holes in the frame.

Swing-Link Mounting Cones

Placeholder — needs your real copy. You mentioned the cones used to mount the swing link, with the same load-spreading idea as the Slaybar. There's no existing copy for these in the theme, so I haven't written the engineering claim. Give me the gist — what they do and why — and I'll write it in your voice.

Molded Frame Protection

Custom molded rubber shaped to the chainstay, chainstay bridge, and down tube. It deadens chain slap, quiets trail chatter, and protects paint in the spots that take the most abuse.

BEYOND THE FRAME

RIDE-READY, OUT OF THE BOX

Covering more ground doesn't stop at frame design and construction. We spec every bike with performance, function, durability, and value in mind — down to the grips. Our builds are curated to be ride-ready straight out of the box, so the energy you'd spend second-guessing parts goes into the ride instead. You won't find better build kits at more reasonable prices anywhere else.