Trek Full floater - the bottom line?

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Trek Full floater - the bottom line?
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flag dbuenoba
Posted: Mar 2, 2020 at 11:36 Quote
Fellow Mountain Bikers!

Trek owners or owners to be!

After searching online for a definitive answer to Trek ditching the full floater, reading and listening to the arguments from Trek management and still without a clear view of the bottom line of the story, I wanted to start this thread to see if somebody can provide a more in depth explanation or reasoning behind this move. I realize that there has been some talk about it, but want to see if a more clear explanation could be available!

For those of you that haven't read about this, a bit of history. For years, Trek in their site (youtube included), every dealer, distributor, or pretty much anybody trying to get you into a Trek have been nothing but ecstatic about the awesomeness of the full floater suspension. Furthermore, in particular for the combination of the full floater and their very own inspired Re:Aktiv shocks, that when you were getting a top model in every line. Everyone that has a Trek in the Remedy, Fuel or Top Fuel flavors up to 2018-2019 models have heard about this. But in 2020, something changed! What was sold as amazing, just went away with a very catchy statement "Advancements in shock technology allowed our engineers to achieve the SAME performance of the full floater platform, while switching to a fixed lower shock mount".

Re:Aktiv technology has been around with Trek bikes for few years now. This new claim begs the question "Was the Full Floater actually needed in the first place"? Or, are we being brain washed now and there are other "good" reasons to ditch the floater (lets say manufacturing costs and/or profit?). If somebody is going to mention the gained stiffness, it is fine, but again, Trek frames were sold as very well designed and the small possible added reinforcement that the lower mount offers, well, does it really makes such a big difference in the already reinforced bottom bracket area? Attachments for the seat-stays remains the same and almost at the same point.

Then we can talk about the lower models in the lines, those that doesn't get the Re:Aktiv shocks, let's say a new Fuel EX 5 or even 7. What will be the story for those of us that can't afford a model with an "advanced" damper. - Due to the fact that we ditched the full floater, you need now to get quite a bit more money to achieve the same performance? - Or, is it there a more convincing argument now for those not top of the line models.

Personally, I haven't been able to get into a 2020 model with the Re:Aktiv and the fixed mount. Maybe some of you will have more insides and have more arguments to support the change or not. For me this is a big move, not a.k.a Santa Cruz lower link in the VPP, it is just ditching a signature suspension technology that was at the core of the brand for years. Are all those arguments given or the new statements and newer ecstatic awesomeness just a result of a marketing strategy?
flag mickeyrat
Posted: Mar 24, 2020 at 11:07 Quote
I have just the pair to test the difference: a 2020 Fuel Carbon and a 2019 Fuel 9.8

My customized Fuel EX carbon build.
My customized Fuel EX carbon build.

photo

To minimize variables, I'll use the same wheel set on both. (Line 30 Carbon, 2.6" & 2.4" XR4 tires)
flag XDeltaFactor
Posted: Aug 7, 2020 at 14:33 Quote
dbuenoba wrote:
Fellow Mountain Bikers!

Trek owners or owners to be!

After searching online for a definitive answer to Trek ditching the full floater, reading and listening to the arguments from Trek management and still without a clear view of the bottom line of the story, I wanted to start this thread to see if somebody can provide a more in depth explanation or reasoning behind this move. I realize that there has been some talk about it, but want to see if a more clear explanation could be available!

For those of you that haven't read about this, a bit of history. For years, Trek in their site (youtube included), every dealer, distributor, or pretty much anybody trying to get you into a Trek have been nothing but ecstatic about the awesomeness of the full floater suspension. Furthermore, in particular for the combination of the full floater and their very own inspired Re:Aktiv shocks, that when you were getting a top model in every line. Everyone that has a Trek in the Remedy, Fuel or Top Fuel flavors up to 2018-2019 models have heard about this. But in 2020, something changed! What was sold as amazing, just went away with a very catchy statement "Advancements in shock technology allowed our engineers to achieve the SAME performance of the full floater platform, while switching to a fixed lower shock mount".

Re:Aktiv technology has been around with Trek bikes for few years now. This new claim begs the question "Was the Full Floater actually needed in the first place"? Or, are we being brain washed now and there are other "good" reasons to ditch the floater (lets say manufacturing costs and/or profit?). If somebody is going to mention the gained stiffness, it is fine, but again, Trek frames were sold as very well designed and the small possible added reinforcement that the lower mount offers, well, does it really makes such a big difference in the already reinforced bottom bracket area? Attachments for the seat-stays remains the same and almost at the same point.

Then we can talk about the lower models in the lines, those that doesn't get the Re:Aktiv shocks, let's say a new Fuel EX 5 or even 7. What will be the story for those of us that can't afford a model with an "advanced" damper. - Due to the fact that we ditched the full floater, you need now to get quite a bit more money to achieve the same performance? - Or, is it there a more convincing argument now for those not top of the line models.

Personally, I haven't been able to get into a 2020 model with the Re:Aktiv and the fixed mount. Maybe some of you will have more insides and have more arguments to support the change or not. For me this is a big move, not a.k.a Santa Cruz lower link in the VPP, it is just ditching a signature suspension technology that was at the core of the brand for years. Are all those arguments given or the new statements and newer ecstatic awesomeness just a result of a marketing strategy?

Okay, there's a lot in this post so I'll try my best to cover some of this.

For myself, I hate having to resort to subjective (based on feelings) in order to explain objective (evidence based) reasoning. We all know the effect of psychological subjectivity, meaning if I worked hours on your car in order to have it produce a little more power, you might think there's an improvement because the sound of your car is different. However the real question is, was there any improvement at all empirically?

The full floater isolates the shock from the main frame, and is one of the earliest ways to combat pedal bob. MTB suspensions always incorporate a gain for a loss, meaning if you focus more on something, it comes at a cost at something else and Trek was trying to find a compromise that narrows that difference.

For example, an efficient bike is often referred to a hardtail because more of the pedaling effort is transferred to the rear wheel without the suspension soaking up some of that effort wastefully. However with tubeless tires and such, some of that energy (along with hub and drive systems) do impact even a hardtail's efficiency some, but not to the extent of full suspension bikes.

With modern technology, we can visualize and examine more elements of a MTB more accurately than we did before. We can measure anti-rise (the effect of the bike fighting against compressing under load) like when you see a drag car launch "from a dig", the weight transfers to the rear which may cause the rear wheel to rise (compress) into the body.

What Trek was looking for was the characteristics of an active suspension design (one that is able to constantly move to adapt to the terrain) but remain efficient enough for pedaling without having to rely on the shock's climb/trail switch too much from excessive pedal bob.

As a rule, active suspension designs and efficiency are on opposite ends of the spectrum. You can see this in an extreme example with a hardtail. It's very efficient, but not active. You can make the suspension more active but it will bob and be less efficient under pedaling.

The Trek Remedy has an anti-rise figure just under 100%, somewhere in the lower 90 percentile range, so using a coil or a non-RE:Aktiv shock will have noticeable pedal bob. Whether it's bad or not is a subjective call because each rider may have different things to say about it. Most companies addressed this by simply using a shock with a switch to firm things up (often altering the compression damping by restricting oil movement) however Trek wanted another solution.

RE:Aktiv is simply an anti-pedal bob feature of the shock. The regressive damper is by default closed off, meaning it wants to behave like a hardtail under pedaling but have a valve set to a certain pressure requirement to open up in order to allow for oil to move past that valve (often a shim stack), just enough to absorb the bump then go back to firming up as soon at the shock forces drop automatically. This is in theory a good idea, but since the shock cannot forecast or see with its own eyes what's coming up, it can't move around fast enough to deal with repeated hits. Many Trek riders will sense this as a bucking (huck-a-buck) sensation when going over a lot of repeated hits like bigger roots and rocks. Some riders resorted to using more sag (less air pressure in the shock) to make the air spring softer so it'll be easier in those situations.

Push and J-tech Suspension (and some others) have pneumatic machines to take a closer look at the compression curve of a fork or shock and you can see how older shocks behave versus newer designs. Aside from improvements where friction-causing problems from seals have gotten better over the years, so has damping. Many old style shocks lack a sufficient negative air chamber volume which contributes to more force required to overcome the positive chamber's static pressure. Older dampers have smaller pathways for oil to move (causing them to be slower to move out of the way on bigger hits) and valves that were less efficient to react between the oil flow moving in both compression and rebound cycles. Newer shocks for enduro use (and coils) often use separate oil channels (circuits) to allow oil to move like a door where one side is for going in, the other to go out.

What the full floater design does is allow the engineers to alter the frame's progressivity (leverage ratio) against the shock. When it comes to full suspension MTB's, it's always about the rear of the bike vs the shock. A higher leverage ratio means that less effort is needed to move the shock a certain length, it also means the rear wheel can move more using less stroke length on the shock. For example a leverage ratio of 3:1 means the rear wheel can move 3mm for every 1mm movement at the shock. If the shock has 150psi of pressure in the shock, the frame will have to provide 50psi of force to match it.

Earlier shocks ramped up and got stiffer a little too soon (early in the stroke) and the full floater design can delay this by a small amount (because there's not much forces available at small bump terrain), however once the suspension forces exceed a certain point, they can reduce the leverage ratio and allow the suspension to compress the shock more to achieve a particular behavior and rider experience. You can see it when the top of the shock is being compressed, the bottom mount is "running away" from the shock.

When you look at older Fox Float shocks vs something like a DPX2 or Float X2, you can see the impact of modern technology where a larger negative air chamber is able to counteract some of the forces to get the shock moving during the initial stroke, but have more support further into the shock like the older shocks. This is one of many reasons why Trek felt there was no longer a need to continue the full floater design.

However for those with full floater bikes such as myself (2018, the last year of the FF Remedy), all that means is the bike will be a little more supple (softer, milder) during the initial and mid stroke zones and have very little difference near the end stroke.
flag stubestrong
Posted: Aug 13, 2020 at 2:38 Quote
In short the float helped improve poor shocks, shocks now are far better so less need

So a question would be if it’s improves shock performance why change it’s about profit.

Trek dropping floater reduces sku parts more profit easier production it’s a win for the company
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