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By Jeri Lynn Canfield-Martin
Origin & Outcome
I was sitting on the sofa, channel surfing, when I first came across competitive downhill biking, shown as part of an “Extreme Sports” show. After commenting to my husband, how those bikers were “crazy people” and how I would never, ever attempt such insanity myself, my husband said, “You realize that’s what your brothers do.” “NO WAY!” was my reply.
But I should have known better. After all, my brothers are Lance and Chris Canfield, owners and designers of Canfield Brother’s Downhill Bikes. I was still skeptical of my husband’s assertion until I attended one of their races at Snoqualmie Pass. We hiked up a rocky, steep hill in the blazing sun just to get a good vantage point of the racers on an especially rough jump. As the bikers sped past, easily half of them ended up in heart-stopping crashes. A spectator next to us was on crutches (how did SHE get up that hill? I wondered). She had broken her leg on this same hill during the practice round. As Lance and Chris both successfully navigated the tricky spots, I realized my husband was right. This IS what my brothers do.
Lance and Chris are an unlikely pairing to start a company. They couldn’t be more different in personality. Lance is a “live-and-let-live” kind of guy, accepting of all types of people and lifestyles. He is quiet but certainly passionate about certain things (bikes, snowboarding, his dogs, his girl, really good Thai food). As a kid we used to compare Lance to Huckleberry Finn, as he would often convince his friends to help him with his chores so he could get out to the bike track sooner. Complete with ramps and jumps, Lance and his buddies had created “the track” on the one empty lot in our neighborhood. They spent every sunny afternoon there and it was a sad day when the builder laid a house foundation and the track was no more.
Chris on the other hand, is very outgoing. The guy will talk to anyone…at length. His I-Phone is an essential part of his work uniform! Chris is the spokesperson for Canfield Brothers and understandably the top salesman as well. Customers are always shocked when they call Canfield Brothers and Chris answers the phone. There is something to be said for skipping straight to the person who knows the answers and makes the deals! Chris also handles the marketing for the company and often travels to Taiwan to manage the production of the new bikes.
Chris’s passion for biking started from his childhood hopes of hanging out with his big brother but Lance has always been passionate about bikes. In October 1999, Lance was riding what he thought was the best bike on the market but he was not satisfied by the performance of the suspension. After getting a Mechanical Engineering degree, he put his talents and ideas to work on designing a better bike. Lance began designing suspensions in his spare time and drew up the bike that started it all. Lance and Chris joined forces and started Canfield Brothers Downhill Bikes by introducing the “Big Fat Fatty Fat” (this unusual bike name stemmed from the boys mocking the chubby family dog). This bike was a race bike with 12” of rear travel, unheard of at the time.
Back then everything was getting bigger…larger tires, larger forks and the 3” stroke rear shock had just come on the scene. Race courses were rough and challenging and racers were finding that “bigger” often resulted in smoother and faster rides.
In less than a year, Canfield Brothers had two prototypes of the “BF3.” The bike rode great. The first time I got on the Fatty Fat, Lance told me to ride straight into a curb. Now as a strictly recreational Schwinn owner, this went against everything I had ever learned about biking (i.e. protect against injury at all costs). But I went for it, and sure enough, I went up and over that curb. The pedaling was nice and stiff and, according to Chris, had “tons of travel.” My brothers started to get a lot of attention from the media and the riders. At races, other riders would want to try out their bikes and afterwards would ask when they could get one of their own.
But the bike needed a few revisions before they started building them for customers. The bike had quite a bit of pedal feedback with 12” of travel and the wheel path swung forward pretty hard at the top of its travel. So, Lance and Chris started learning everything they could about suspension design. Due to the fact that they had both started as riders, they could “feel” the riding characteristics first hand. They used this knowledge to examine what was happening during pedaling, braking, and cornering. Back then, there were only a couple of parallel link bikes on the market. No one had done much research on how to design one to work well in all the performance features.
Lance soon realized that parallel link suspensions were the holy grail of suspension design. With the boxy solid rear triangle structure that is stiff but lightweight, this type of suspension can lean the bike frame back for smooth, steep descents (the key to downhill racing!). The parallel link suspension is efficient in pedaling and extremely stiff side to side, but it can be equally horrible if done incorrectly. After a couple of years of designing and riding every bike they could get their hands on, Lance and Chris had a revelation – the mechanical lockout! They found that if a certain combination of components were in balance, the suspension would not be effected by the rider pedaling the bike. Thus they could let their un-coordinated sister head straight into a curb or over a boulder without having 911 on speed-dial.
These days, having a conversation with either of my brothers is challenging. They speak a language I do not understand. Chris says things like, “All designs are still using a degree of anti-squat and pro-squat to produce efficent pedaling. But with our bikes, we don’t have to rely on the chain-torque line and instant center to be balanced. The bike can be shifting into any front chain ring and still have the same lockout feel. The suspension also is allowed to move through its travel when pedaling in the bumps.”
It’s pretty amazing what they’ve accomplished as a rider-owned company. Amid certain circles, Chris and Lance are like rock stars. It’s strange to see your own brothers giving out autographs and signing posters. But they’ve earned it. Their bikes are incredible and allow them to do what they love…ride downhill fast. My Canfield Brothers…it’s what they do.
The following is the list of frames produced by Canfield Brothers. Each details what type of riding they where built for, so please check them out.
Current 2010 Line-Up
Formula 1 Jedi- (Magic DH)
-Built 240
-7.75” vertical and 2.5” rearward travel
-The perfection of 10 years of development.
ONE (XC/AM)
-Built 150
-7-8” travel
-Longest travel AM rig on the market
Nimble 9 (XC)
-Still in process- 6 so far.
-Shortest chainstay 29er on the market for sharp steering.
Check them at CanfieldBrothers.com
