SussMyBike Data Acquisition - Eurobike 2016

Sep 3, 2016
by Paul Aston  
Eurobike 2016

Eurobike 2016

There are thousands and thousands of crowdfunding projects being launched every day, many of them being, well, junk. But, occasionally something pops up which causes people to take notice. The SussMyBike data acquisition unit was one of those projects when it appeared last November, raising a £28,000 chunk of capital to get production underway. Since then, development has continued with Edinburgh Napier University, injection moldings have been finalized in Hong Kong and electronic board building and assembly is being taken care of by Zot Engineering in Scotland. The units are available to order now, and shipping should start in October.


SussMyBikeDetails
• Air and coil suspension data acquisition
• Bluetooth 4.0
• iOS and Android app compatible
• Multi-mount kit
• Weather proof
• Replaceable batteries
• Pre-order now
• Shipping mid-October
• UnoSuss Single unit £169 / $225 USD (approx.)
• DuoSuss Double unit £329 / $437 USD (approx.)
• www.sussmybike.com


Why do you need data acquisition? Well, if you're reading this, it's likely that you have a full suspension bike that costs well over the three figure mark; and is setup incorrectly. You have probably convinced yourself that you like your special setup: "I ride it super stiff like Gwin," but at 5% of his pace and never use full travel. Or "I like reeeaaallly slow rebound for hitting things hard and not getting bucked," when you just need more compression damping. I'm far from perfect, often riding bikes that feel amazing for weeks, only to start twiddling knobs in a gondola to find the bike has much more in the bag than I thought.
Eurobike 2016


So how might SussMyBike help? Well, It might not help at all, continuing to lead you down a winding path of incorrectness. Hopefully, the guys behind the project know what they are doing, so when you receive the units, fit them to your bike and make way to the trailhead. Head down your favorite trail, check the app at the bottom and follow the instructions accordingly. After a few runs, and a few minutes of tweaking and tuning, you should have the best possible settings for you, your bike and the trail. Voila! The app will be updated as and when new suspension technologies appear, making the system somewhat future-proof.

There is a similar system called ShockWiz from Dusty Dynamics, which was recently acquired by Sram. The ShockWiz is currently only compatible with air suspension systems and works by measuring the change of pressure in the air chamber. The SussMyBike system has the advantage of working with any type of suspension, collecting data by measuring the movement of the shock shaft/stanchion, a slimmed down version of systems used by expert tuners for years, notably Loic Bruni and his mechanic Jack. The proof will be in the pudding, though, as to how both systems collect, analyze and feedback the data.

If either system performs as promised, they will be one of the few things to spend you hard earned money on that could really make a difference to your riding speed and enjoyment.

Eurobike 2016
Simply attach the SussMyBike unit to your damper, as the suspension moves, the small metal rod measures shaft speeds and relays the data to your smartphone.


Posted In:
Reviews and Tech First Looks


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48 Comments
  • 86 13
 I thought someone zip tied a pack of Lucky Strikes to the fork. Could that be a new bro thing? Park rats smoking on the lift as a protest to proliferation of Enduro, new standards and wheel sizes? I think it would look pretty authentic. I'd start a brand of cigarettes: 264Life with two models: Flats and Senders. Flats without filter off course, cuz so bro.

Then a brand of beer 26ain'tDead, with 9,5% alc. "FEST Double" and 11,5% "HCKLRs Rock"

Tobacco and beverages for real MTBers. Because you send it!
  • 12 0
 I'd start smoking for this.
  • 3 0
 I have been wondering how many world cup racers smoke.
  • 8 5
 @milanboy1986: Honestly, I doubt any do.. At least not regularly. I smoked a pack or more a day for years, and almost from the get go, it annihilated my lungs. I still rode, but I was definitely slower.

And for the record, I'm more of a downhill/freeride dude than xc/all mountain/enduro.. And that's thanks to having started smoking. Don't smoke, kids!
  • 3 0
 I bet ratboy would be on that in no time
  • 16 16
 Saw the first few pics in the article and totally knew I'd scroll down to see Waki passive-aggresively or sarcastically talk anti-freeride/dh/flats/etc.

I get your anti-circlejerk, I think I asked you about it on one of the comment sections of some fest highlight vid. I've noticed this flavor of posts a lot, and I get it to an extent. lots of 26-fo-life kids are just flat out young and annoying. A lot of the fest kids can be annoying, the bro-stigma is real in that realm. But your comments have passed from subpar dad jokes to teen angst with a side of salted superiority complex issues.
  • 2 0
 @milanboy1986: smoke what lol?
  • 6 5
 @anchoricex: I have absolutely nothing against FEST series, you misinterpreted my post entirely...

We can love it on downs yeah
'Til the sun comes down yeah
And if you think this life I love is not enough cross country

TRUCK YEAH
  • 1 1
 beer cans in "boost" size only
  • 2 1
 @WAKIdesigns: if you had said something negative to say about fest series it would have got moderated out anyway as it is against pinkbikes terms of use
  • 22 0
 Cool as! And it does air and coil...

Review please! Will I go faster if my brother uses it first?
  • 17 0
 suce ma what ?
  • 4 0
 Google Translate: LOL
  • 4 0
 Drôle de nom!!! ahaha
  • 15 1
 The last image, will that band not blow off the end of the shock body at full compression?
  • 7 0
 It will, I was thinking the same thing, and also, on some forks, when you bottom out that o ring goes tight to the upper crown, with that thing in there, it will probably damage a seal under bottom out. Figuring out a better mounting spot for the other end would be a good idea I think.
  • 1 0
 yeah.. that's usable travel where those zip ties are attached.. Needs a different mounting method or location, for sure.. Cool Idea though. I'd love to run one and see where I'm at.
  • 2 0
 On most shocks and forks, yes. On my MRP Stage I peg the ring to the bottom of the fork crown. On the Fox Evol on my Ripley LS though, the shock has a 48mm shaft, but only a 44mm stroke, so there's actually a 4mm of shaft that doesn't get used (I guess it's lighter than having a longer body instead of longer shaft? or just cost because it would otherwise be an odd size...) so it may be one of the few bikes where that mounting system would work.
  • 2 0
 According to their Facebook page, that location was just used as a mock-up for the show; the final mounting designs are still being finalized. I imagine it's quite a challenge too, given the number of shocks on the market!
  • 6 0
 Just a small point: that's not a metal rod, it's a thin cable (presumably on a sprung bobbin with a rotary position sensor). It was more obvious from some videos the kickstarter had up earlier in the year. Also, that Fox 36 has got to be 160-170mm travel - there's no space for that 180mm+ rod to go into that tiny box Wink
  • 6 0
 Yup, string potentiometers. The problem with most of those is that they have a very limited top speed in retraction particularly. Completely usable for car suspension where the velocities are very low, whether it really works out for MTBs I don't know yet.
  • 4 3
 @Socket: The velocities on a car/truck suspension aren't low when you're doing freeway speeds offroad though! Wink
  • 7 0
 @Socket: I built something very similar during a hackathon. We were very impressed with the retraction speed we got out of our prototype. The trick is to have the lowest friction possible for the sensor. Instead of a traditional pot made of wire windings and wiper arm we used a capacitive encoder. The increase in durability and lower friction of that approach made extension and retraction surprisingly accurate. Not sure what they are using as a sensor for this but I imagine it is something similar. Check out a video of our prototype www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzF9AYtiXwo Our project can be found at picorico.io
  • 1 0
 @Socket: Agreed. I'm definitely curious to see a real review of this thing. Opted not to back it & wait for reviews because of the string pot issue. Maybe they built something like @mrprometheus , or maybe they built something as cheap as possible. Or maybe it doesn't matter, & the inaccuracies are small enough to not skew the data heavily enough to matter. We will see.
  • 1 0
 @mrprometheus: I've been paying attention to what you guys have been doing. I think projects like this and the ShockWiz thing have potential to help people with setup for sure, in spite of their limitations, because any help at all is usually better than none. For dedicated suspension specialists or R&D work I have doubts about their usefulness because in those cases you need to measure all data points accurately at high resolution & high sample rates whilst undergoing high velocities (8+m/s is common for forks) at extremely high acceleration rates (50g+ also very common, 100g occasional), but to give the average rider some idea of which direction to move I think they're a very cool product.
  • 5 0
 I've used one of these www.thepocketlab.com and some math to get pretty much the same info. It really helps to dial in other riders setups (like my wife and daughter) who have no idea how to verbalize what the shock "feels" like. You can also strap it to your frame and get a pretty good idea on how well you corner, how hard your g-outs are, the pounding your hucks to flat are and all kinds of other useless, but interesting data.
  • 2 0
 Hi,
That sound really interesting! How did you know how to read the suspension data?
  • 2 0
 @Raffe: I actually use two of them for shock tuning. I put one on the "sprung" half and one on the "un-sprung" half, line them up on one axis, them subtract the readings to get the actual shock response. By riding trail sections that stress particular settings I can get dialed in pretty quick. I actually like following Cane Creeks Field Guide, but instead of feel I have empirical data. I'm an engineer so i like geeking out on this stuff.
  • 1 0
 @marmoset: Cost wise you're not far off with two required units for one "sprung" half (fork or damper) compared to the single unit offered by SussMyBike. Although you can probably do some other useless but fun stuff with the PocketLabs as well. Wink
  • 1 0
 @sp00n82: Agreed. Mine was a case of using what I had and tinkering around with different sets of data I could play with. Another interesting data set is putting one on the bottom bracket and putting one on your "belt buckle". Gives you interesting data about body position in turns, drops, jumps, etc. Tech is fun :-)
  • 1 0
 @marmoset: Which type of measurements do you use? Velocity? Acceleration?
  • 1 0
 @Mettwurst82: I think you could use the Altitude measurement with the pocketlab one or the IR range finder function with the pocketlab voyager to gather this data. I'm going to order a classroom set for my kiddo's science tutoring and also put it to use on my bike stuff.
  • 3 0
 Looks like it uses a linear pot. I've been thinking aboit putting one of these together for myself. Not hardening for real world use, but just getting something to work to tune my own suspension. Anyone have recommendations on good linear pots for this purpose that I can hook up to an Arduino or aomething?
  • 5 0
 How is that going to attach to my coil?
  • 1 0
 Coil forks will be fine, at least :s
  • 2 0
 With gaffa tape. If that doesn't work, use more gaffa tape.
  • 1 0
 I think suspension tuning is missing the mark for this sort of tech. They should use it for coaching. Compare your bike handling to somebody else doing the same trail/jump better. When and how exactly do they push/pop compared to when you did?
  • 3 0
 I am predicting this will attract some definitive interest from French speaking riders.
  • 3 0
 I've ordered one of these, looking forward to trying it out.
  • 3 0
 suce mon bécik
  • 1 0
 It's like a pre shockwiz historic piece. Be in the same skip as elastomers and rim brakes.
  • 1 0
 @prophetwarning - unlike the shock tuning product you brought to market ahead of schedule and under budget?
  • 1 0
 Mine's in the pipeline. Give me £160 and I should ship it end if the month. Should.

They have my money - not as a Kickstarter backer, but as a pre-order back in May. I don't mind waiting, but would rather they stopped naming dates they don't make.
  • 1 0
 Intriguing product - will be interested to hear some real world feedback once it's released.
  • 2 1
 'Should' start shipping. It's already months late.
  • 1 0
 ？？？
  • 1 0
 sus... lol
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