Turner Suspension Bicycles

Turner Suspension Bicycles, Inc is an American bicycle frame manufacturer, based in Murrieta, California, specializing in high performance suspension mountain bikes. Turner Bikes was founded in 1993 by David Turner, a successful pro mountain bike rider who had ridden for amongst others, the Marin and Mongoose teams. Turner had also had worked with Horst Leitner at AMP Research whilst Horst developed the Horst Link suspension design. Turner Bicycles have built a reputation of excellent customer service and bicycle frames with superb riding characteristics and exceptional durability. These attributes have resulted in a high degree of success within the competitive cycling arena and an avid customer following.

History

1992 - David Turner starts designing his own bicycles. 1993 - Riding one his own designs, Turner races and wins the Mammoth Mountain Classic Kamikaze Manufacturers Cup downhill race. 1994 - The first 150 production Turner mountain bike frames were built by Ventana Mountain Bikes USA. These bikes were known only as “the Turner bike” until reviewed by the magazine “Mountain Bike Action”, where the magazine dubbed it the “Turner Burner”. The “Turner Burner” name would be applied to many of Turner’s future designs. The Burner has 2.75” inches rear suspension travel with a down hill race option of 3.6 inches.
1995 - To meet demand for Turner’s frames production is carried out by Frank Wadelton (also known as FTW or Frank The Welder). - Bernard Unhasibiscay riding a prototype Turner Afterburner wins the veteran silver medal at the UCI World Championships Downhill. 1996 - Production moved to Sportech. With this move came several improvements to the design of the Burner, including a single machined block to support the bottom bracket, rear shock mount and chainstay swing-arm pivot. - The Turner Afterburner starts production; it is Turner’s first downhill specific frame, has 3.6” of rear wheel travel and is identified by the large plate gussets on the front. 1997 - Turner’s one off tandem the “Twin Turner” produced. - Reflecting the rapid change in mountain biking the Afterburner, is re-designed to have 6” of rear wheel travel and there are now large holes in the plate gussets. - Thomas Misser riding a Kona stickered Turner Afterburner achieves multiple wins and podium places in UCI World Cup races. A limited number of Turner Afterburners were sold by Kona as “ Misser replicas”. 1998 - The Turner range expands to four models as the Burner XC and Afterburner are joined with the; - Turner Stinger, cross country racer, - Turner RFX, freeride bike, 1999 - The Stinger design with its proprietary pull shock is licensed to K2 and produced as the “K2 Razorback”. - The Burner is replaced by a lighter weight Turner O2 and the beefier Turner XCE. - Turner’s first single pivot suspension bike the downhill race specific Turner DH Javelin introduced. one of the first frames to have ISCG. 2000 - Turner DH Javelin renamed Turner DH Racer (DHR)cleaner machining to the rear end 2001 - 2002 - The RFX is strengthened and the travel increased to 150mm - the front triangle of the DHR get its one piece shock mount 2003 - Turner 5-spot is introduced. It soon becomes Turner’s best selling frame, receiving glowing reviews from major mountain bike publications. - the DHR receives its make over 12mm rear end the linkage is altered giving the bike more travel. - Production moved to SAPA who manufactures the entire Turner range with both in house tubesets and US made tubesets sourced externally. 2004 - Geoff Kabush rides his Turner Nitrous to NORBA championships in both the Elite Men’s XC and the Short Track. - DHR remodeled, 8.5” of travel, 20mm dropouts on the rear with a 12mm axle, 1.5" headtube, gone is the "classic" twin toptube and rounded downtube to be replaced with box section tubing - Last year of the 3.5" Burner model. 2005 - Citing increasingly difficult relationship with the license holders, Turner abandons the use of the Horst Link on his designs. Turner adopts the similar seat stay single pivot design with positive feedback from the cycling community. - Turner drop the Romic shock on the DHR to be replaced with the Fox DHX with a remote resvoir - Geoff Kabush wins NORBA championships in both the Elite Men’s XC and the Short Track again on a Turner Nitrous. - Eric Delsouiller wins FFC French National championships in the Veteran DH (over 40) on a DHR. - Flux replaces the Burner to fill the 4 inch cross country slot 2006 - Geoff Kabush breaks all time NORBA short track win record and takes Championship. - The Turner Sultan, Turner’s first 29inch wheel mountain bike debuts at Interbike 06. 2007 - Eric Delsouiller downhill bronze medalist at UCI World Championships MTB Masters in Pra Loup in the 45-49 class on a DHR.

Turner bike models

External links

• www.turnerbikes.com
• MTBR Turner Forum

References