Sea Otter Classic: PUSHing the Honda/Turner Team

The Sea Otter Classic unofficially marks the start of the new racing season. Companies are showcasing their latest & greatest products; teams are announcing their new members; factory teams are flashing their new team kits and if you pay close enough attention, you might even spot prototype stuff on some bikes - In a way, it’s almost like an early season Interbike show!While doing my early Thursday morning expo/pit round, something at the Honda/Turner tent caught my attention! A few of their team DH bikes had this ‘trick’ looking rear shock on them! After taking a closer look, I determined it was from Push Industries.


Turned out, when I stopped by, Darren was in the process of fitting all the team bikes with them. This season, Darren Murphy from Push Industries will be working closely with the Turner/Honda team as their “suspension guru”! Let me tell you, if there is one team that will be dialed when it comes to suspension, it’s the Honda/Turner team! Oh…and may I add that he’ll also be working with Eric Carter of Mongoose/Hyundai.


By the end of the day, every Honda/Turner bike was mounted with a new Push Industries shock. Each and every shock is custom valved and built by Darren to rider specifications.


When dialing and testing suspension, Push doesn’t play any guessing games! They use on-board data acquisition instrumentation to analyze the bikes suspension – all downloadable on his handheld computer!!


How cool is that? No need to wait until you get to the bottom of the hill to get some readouts, simply take your handheld out and download everything on the spot. Darren was nice enough to take a few minutes out of his busy schedule to give me a little demo and briefly explain to me what all this high tech data meant!! Although it’s still pretty much over my head, the demo helped me understand the advantages of using data acquisitioning tools such as the one seen in the pics.


Data doesn’t lie, but if you don’t interpret it properly it could give you false impressions. Like when you bottom out your suspension? You can clearly see on the graphs where the suspension bottomed out, but was it caused by a hard sudden hit? A drop? G-Out? Well when you know how to read the data you can easily tell and decipher what the cause of bottoming out was. This helps Darren associate data with rider feedback such as “when I hit this rock section, my suspension spikes at certain spots?”


Later in the week I chatted with a few of the Honda/Turner team members to see what their initial thoughts were about the shock, and all were extremely pleased! For some of them this was their first time on the shock. I also got to pedal one of the team’s bike around and it felt pretty darn good - and it can only get better from here since I’m sure Darren will refine them with the rider feedback he gets throughout the season.


Although Push Industries offers many services and shock upgrades, don’t plan on seeing these babies on many bikes this year since they are for the race team only. This is only the beginning; plan to see more cool stuff coming out of Push Industries.

Next time you are at the races, make sure to stop by the Honda/Turner booth and check them out. Also take the time to chat with the races, as they are super cool and always willing to answer any of your questions.

Check Em Out!!
PUSH INDUSTRIES WEB SITE
TEAM HONDA/TURNER WEB SITE