I expect people who have been reading the silly questions I've been asking over the past few months will have guessed I've been working on a new full suspension design. I'm not going to discuss details of the design at this stage because I haven't decided whether to apply for patents (yes, it _is_ different enough to be patentable). My question is, is there room in the market for yet another full suspension design?

I've ditched the more left-field ideas I was playing with in favour of something which is practicably and economically manufacturable; the welding should actually be somewhat less complex than on many current full suspension designs (fewer frame components); so it should not be any more expensive to build than other limited production full suspension frames.

The design is optimised for cross-country, especially very technical cross country; it's not a downhill design. Although it would be possible to deliver it frame only, the front and rear suspension systems are designed together to work together and the bike would not work nearly as well with a conventional fork. The basic geometry is similar to a family of designs which has been very successful, although with a tweak to address a particular failing of that family.

It looks radically different. There's no question of you mistaking this design from any angle for any current design. So from the looks point of view it is marketable. It will also work substantially better in some conditions than current designs, so from the tech point of view it should be marketable. But the components needed to deliver the concept are not cheap so it's probably going to need to retail in the
US$2500-US$3500 range.

At this stage I have a number of options, from least to most risky/rewarding:

* Treat the idea as yet another air-dream and forget about it

* Publish the details on the Internet in the hope someone picks it up and runs with it

* Apply for patents and try to flog the concept to an existing manufacturer

* Get together with some engineering friends locally and start manufacturing

Any advice?

Oh, and, before you ask, no I don't have a prototype yet.