Outland

I believe that Outland was a Canadian company, I know the concept originated with Canadian designers anyway. The Outland was based around the Virtual Pivot Point concept, which promised to isolate chain and brake forces from suspension action. Outland didn't last long, and to add insult to injury, Mountain Bike magazine recently named them one of the worst bikes ever. [edit] what i didn't mention is that the reason for that was the poor pivots and bearings used in the system. fast forward to 2004 (roughly, i can't remember) and santa cruz buys the outland patents and the blur is born. and oh yeah, everybody and their dog builds a bike with a 'virtual pivot point'

VPP5 - It's a poor pic, but a rare bike, so deal with it. I guess one of the downsides to this bike was the frame weight, but it's hard to keep the weight down on anything with 5 inches of travel.

VPP5 - This one has more of a XC feel for sure. It looks like a pretty good bike, though apparently one of the bad things about it is weak pivots. Bad news for a bike that has zero support.