Lightweight rear-wheel bicycle suspension

Claim 1

A rear-wheel suspension for two-wheeled vehicles comprising: (a) a vehicle frame; (b) a rear-wheel support frame pivotally mounted to said vehicle frame for arcuate upward and downward movement relative thereto and supporting a rear wheel on its rotation axis; (c) a tubular hydraulic shock absorber housing rigidly affixed to said vehicle frame and serving as a structural member of said vehicle frame; and (d) a sliding hydraulic damping piston assembly, the upper portion of which remains bathed in hdyraulic fluid as the assembly slides within said housing, and the lower portion of which protrudes through a seal at the bottom of said housing; wherein the arcuate movement of the rear-wheel support frame is translated through two interconnected levers into linear movement of said sliding hydraulic damping piston assembly, which levers comprise a triangular-shaped lever plate which is pivoted, respectively, at its three apices, to the rear-wheel support frame, to the lower end of said sliding hydraulic damping assembly, and to one end of a lower lever having two parallel pivot axes which said lower lever connects said vehicle frame to said rear-wheel support frame, all of said apices being pivoted on an axis parallel to the rotation axis of the rear-wheel support frame; wherein the longitudinal axis of said tubular hydraulic shock absorber housing is coincident with the linear movement into which the arcuate movement on the rear-wheel support frame is translated; and wherein said rear wheel is rigidified hydraulically in relation to said vehicle frame by a hydraulic rigidifying means comprising a hydraulic fluid and gas reservoir connected via a first hydraulic line to said tubular hydraulic shock absorber housing and means to block said hydraulic line.