In the nineties, poorly suspended hardtails were the ultimate in cross country, and the locking mechanism only became an indispensable aid years later. Full-suspension mountain bikes only really gained a foothold in downhill racing when Italian bike manufacturer Bianchi developed a full-suspension road bike in 1994. It was intended to help Johan Museeuw, the best classics specialist at the time, to victory in Paris-Roubaix. The race was then, and still is today, notorious for its many cobblestone sections. Bianchi therefore looked for technical solutions to tackle these sections more safely and, above all, faster.

The rear triangle of Johan Museeuw's Paris-Roubaix secret weapon offered a good five centimetres of suspension travel. And if it came to a sprint, the steel suspension strut could even be locked long before the first lockouts for suspension forks were introduced. The front suspension was a Rock Shox fork with just under four centimetres of travel, but without a locking mechanism. According to Robert MacNeil, who was involved in the design and production of the bike, the rear suspension responded exceptionally well for the time and the Belgian cycling star Museeuw would have liked the bike, even though it weighed over twelve kilograms. However, Museeuw was not lucky in the race in question. Riding in the leading group, he dropped out of the decision due to a flat tire and finished 13th, but a crack discovered in the aluminium frame after the race did not affect the Belgian's performance.

Johan Museeuw went on to win Paris-Roubaix in 1996, 2000 and 2002, but on other bikes. Bianchi and the "GB MG" team to which he belonged went their separate ways after the '94 season. Paris-Roubaix 1994 was therefore the first and last race for this special racing bike, which was ahead of mountain bike technology at the time. And it never made it onto the market either, as the bike would have been far too expensive for series production. Nevertheless, Bianchi did not refrain from launching another fully project for Paris-Roubaix. In 1995 and 1996, some riders from the Gewiss-Ballan, later Gewiss-Playbus team, competed in the Ardennes classic on full-suspension titanium bikes, but without success.

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