2006 Sea Otter Classic - Syndicate PUSHer

Not only did the Santa Cruz Syndicate team add a big name to their 2006 roster, but they also added a few new sponsors. One of them is Push Industries who is responsible for dialing-in their rear Suspension. Team riders will be utilizing PUSH Tuned FOX DHX and FLOAT units equipped with PUSH Factory Components. I caught up with Darren Murphy, President of Push Industries, and asked him if he’d be willing to give us the low down as to what goes into these pro-edition dampers.
What Push Industries has done with the DHX is remove the stock boost valve assembly and replaced it with a totally new compression valve that has 32 position of adjustments (e.g. clicks) which increases bump performance.

PUSH Compression Valve vs Stock FOX DHX Boost Valve
Some of the feedback Darren gathered during DH testing was that most of the guys weren’t really concerned about pedaling efficiency. Most of the DH bikes these days are descent pedallers – what racers care about is improving the overall traction characteristics. Darren was saying that when you change boost pressures and volumes it still give you some sort of a pro-pedal effect. That’s where the idea of the new compression valve assembly came about. Now you can have an external adjuster to tune how the bike works in bumps, which is completely independent from the rebound and also completely independent from Push bottoming system. So the new DHX has rebound adjustment, Compression adjustment and Push bottoming out system (which I will talk about later).


The compression changes will have very little effect on those “parking lot” tests – that is where Push does the main valving - but has a tremendous effect on how the bike performs in bumps (Mid and High speed). All compression assemblies are specifically tuned for each application – e.g. compression range for a V10 will be different than say one for a Sunday.

The rebound knob on the Push damper has the same amount of clicks as the stock DHX, but different range or rebound since there is a different rebound piston assembly in the shock. This rebound piston assembly is the same one Push uses in their Push Factory Tunes, they just increased it to work with the new volumes.


The stock shock allows the main piston to control rebound, but with their system they do both compression and rebound. What they’ve done, much like the works motocross, they’ve build a piston bolt that has a check valve that allows Push to control both damping characteristics. So when you crank your rebound adjuster it has absolutely no effect on the compression circuit.


For the race team Push has molded some “race day” seals for their Vault Seal Housing which is good for about two race weekends. It’s a super slick urethane material that has been molded with a lighter squeeze/seal at the shaft to reduce friction. They also have a consumer version which is good for annual usage. This, combined with polishing the shafts and shock bodies, high grade Torco Racing Fluids, and high end piston glyde rings allows them to maximize the dampers small bump sensitivity.

The main reservoir is gas charged with nitrogen. The Schrader is still present, but Darren assured me it’s a preset pressure and is not meant to be adjusted.

To control bottoming out Push uses "Works" conical bumpers. The same design used by the Factory Motocross squads. They have 12 different bump stops to choose from, all with varying densities and different heights. All these different size bump stops allows Push do dial in the bottoming out by choosing when it comes in and how hard it comes in.


Last year I tested a custom Pushed Fox Vanilla RC on my Iron Horse Sunday. The damper worked great on small to mid size hits/bumps but failed miserably on drops and hard hits - I would bottom out pretty harshly. The Sunday already has great pedaling characteristics and a nice light mid stroke, but needs good ramp up for controlling bottoming – this is where longer and stiffer conical bumpers comes into play! The bottom out bumpers will take care of the bottoming out issues independently of the compression/rebound setting. So you can run super low compression, have the bigger volume reservoir deal with heating issues without worrying about bottoming out issues.

Pushed Fox Vanilla RC
Most racers run high compression and air pressures in their DS/MTX shocks to prevent bottoming, but that also adversely affects small bump traction characteristics. So what push has done is incorporated their "Works" conical bumpers in the air shock to control the bottoming out, again independently from the compression and rebound. With the Push damper you can now run the proper sag setting and not have to over spring to control big hits.


PUSH Industries
6760 North Franklin Ave
Loveland, CO 80538

Phone: (970) 278-1110
FAX: (970) 278-9450

General E-mail: info@pushindustries.com

www.pushindustries.com
Dave Weagle & Darren Murphy