The Forbidden Bike Company was established in 2019 and is synonymous with an agile, innovative approach to bike design. 3Sixty Sports is Forbidden Bike’s New Zealand distributor.
Founded by Owen Pemberton, Forbidden is headquartered in Vancouver Island and named after the Forbidden Plateau, a popular local riding spot. The company also has a team in the United Kingdom and a global distribution network.
3Sixty Sports is proud to have been one of the first Forbidden bike distributors, bringing the high-performance Druid and Dreadnought styles to Aotearoa in the early days of Forbidden’s growth.
We caught up with Forbidden chief financial officer Mike Goodall, to learn more about the Forbidden story and what sets them apart.
Good growth
With offices straddling the Atlantic – a team in Canada and a team in the United Kingdom – Forbidden Bike’s has a lot of ground covered. But the company only started out small with everyone pitching in to help out with whatever needed to be done.
Now, there are 14 staff and while they have dedicated roles, CFO Mike Goodall says everyone’s still happy to lend a hand wherever they can.
“My focus is international and USA sales, and I’m also involved with strategy – and admin from time to time,” Mike says. “We’re not a huge team so it’s great that people can be across other facets of the business to learn and contribute.”
And the aforementioned Forbidden Plateau didn’t just lend its name to the company, the trails also serve as huge inspiration for the Forbidden bike designs.
The year-round riding conditions and the huge variety of what’s on offer provide the perfect location to design and develop cutting-edge mountain bikes.
Distinctive Forbidden bike design
The Forbidden team takes a single-minded, no-holds-barred approach to bicycle design. The result is a high-quality product that’s just as adept at dominating downhill as well as traversing trail networks.
They have put a lot of effort into geometry and sizing – one of the major contributing factors behind a bike’s overall ride feel is its weight balance, which is the relationship between the rear-centre and front-centre, and where the rider’s centre of gravity sits.
The combination of the bike’s geometry and consistent sizing offers stability, momentum and confidence for the rider.
And, as our own website proclaims, it’s a ‘damn good bike’.
Riding high
Forbidden is best known for its high-pivot, idler-equipped bikes. The design not only creates some unique performance attributes, it can also take prospective customers by surprise.
As Mike explains, “Because of the larger bike bracket area, and because we use more material in that area with the extra bit of chain and the idler pulley, we often have customers coming in store asking if they’re looking at an e-bike.”
Among the unique attributes of the Forbidden fleet is the proportional rear centre which gives a better weight balance front to back for all riders.
One of the company’s core philosophies is that everyone who rides Forbidden bikes should experience a similar ride characteristic, regardless of their size or stature. In order to ensure a consistent ride experience across all sizes, Forbidden uses a scaled rear-center measurement for each individual frame size.
“For most bikes, they adjust the sizing by increasing the front triangle of the bike so the chainstays never change on bikes,” says Mike. “The feedback we’ve received is that our bikes have a larger sweet spot because of that proportional growth.”
Forbidden has also designed a relative lack of pedal kickback compared with other companies, making a real difference with downhill performance.
“The Druid is 130mms of travel and that’s the comment we get the most – it feels like there’s more travel than what the nameplate says.”
“Our bikes also feature a nice leverage curve and nice kinematics, and that differentiates us from a lot of other styles out there.”
If you know, you know
Given the Forbidden bikes have a slight bias towards descending, they won’t be for everyone. But if that’s your preference, then you’ll be set to enjoy phenomenal performance, unlike anything else in the market.
A lot of customer feedback is that the Forbidden Druid frame is the best technical climbing bike they’ve ever ridden. This is due to the unique combination of high anti-squat/low pedal feedback and fully active suspension. This combination of ride characteristics is not achievable on traditional drivetrain bikes.
Taking testing to the limit
The Forbidden team does a lot of in-house testing, but on the racing circuit is where the bikes really get pushed to their limits.
“Owen has a really good feel for suspension, kinematics and tuning and our engineering staff are great at interpreting the elements we want or think are desirable in a bike,” explains Mike.
“But to really make sure our testing is sound, we engage our pro team. Sometimes it takes racing to find the things we may have overlooked and to seek out things an ordinary rider might not experience.
“World Cup Downhill rider Connor Fearon was involved in a lot of testing for the downhill bike that is still in development and former Canadian Downhill champ Magnus Manson was part of the early testing. Both of them raced downhill on Forbidden Dreadnoughts.
“And our Enduro World Series riders Rhys Verner and Alex Storr have both been part of the development of the Enduro bike.”
Riding the Forbidden wave in New Zealand
So there you have it – from Vancouver Island to the world, Forbidden bikes are producing cutting-edge designs and getting great results. They’ve designed bikes that can be built up for anything and take you anywhere. If you’re keen to get your hands on a Forbidden Druid or Dreadnought, check out all the Forbidden Mtb frames on the 3Sixty Sports site – https://www.3sixtysports.co.nz/product-category/aaa-brands/forbidden/