Felt Mountain Bike part

[Doddy01]

Morning, I have a Felt Virtue Two Mountain Bike, its a bit old (2007) hence my problem. The bike is fitted with a unique Equilink Rear suspension set and a part is broken. You would have thought that it would be reasonably easy to acquire a new part, oh no. I have been in contact with Felt in the USA and they have explained that despite the fact that they make they bikes you have to get parts via a distributor (bike shop in the UK). The part in question is simply called the 'Equilink' it a Red link about 10 inches long, joins lower and upper suspension. Without it, the bike is unrideable, apart from that the bike is fine.
Has anybody come across this, perhaps have the part in question, have any ideas how I can get this fixed. At the moment coming up against a dead wall, although I have got a cycle shop looking into it,

 

[Ajax Bay]

 

[Ajax Bay]

With top end disconnected (image from mtbr)

 

[iluvmybike]

When you say a part is broken - what exactly do yuo mean? The red part shown looks complete. Is it the bearings? these can be replaced

 

[Gunk]

When you say a part is broken - what exactly do yuo mean? The red part shown looks complete. Is it the bearings? these can be replaced

He said that it’s red link that’s broken, if it’s beyond repair, a local engineering company may be able to machine a replacement for you. It’ll be expensive though, it may be cheaper to reframe it, it’s worth saving, I’m a big fan of these 26ers, they really were the pathfinders of the modern mountain bike. My 2007 S Works Epic is still going strong.

 

[Drago]

I reckon it wouldn't be cheap, but probably not prohibitively expensive either to have a machine shop make one for you. Certainly cheaper than buying another bike.

 

[figbat]

When I needed a Felt part I contacted two officially-recognised shops. One never replied, the other could not have been more helpful: http://www.73degreesbicycleshop.com/