Suspension Product of the Year
This time of the year means Christmas lights, mistletoe, and arguing in the comments about how so-and-so should (or shouldn't) be included in the annual Pinkbike Awards. Looking back, 2019 wasn't exactly a banner year for completely new and exciting suspension products, and it felt especially quiet after Fox's Live Valve and Grip2 damper, as well as Trust's linkage fork, all made 2018 rather interesting.
Modern suspension has gotten so good that it takes a lot to make a really appreciable leap forward in performance, and that simply didn't happen in 2019 - it was a year of refinements rather than revolution in the suspension world. Ultimately there wasn't one all-new product that ended up offering a significant performance increase over what was already on the market. So for that reason, we've decided not to award an overall winner - the Suspension Product of the Year title will be vacant for 2019.
Don't get us wrong, there are a ton of amazing suspension products out there, including the Marzocchi Bomber Z2 that is currently vying for the Value Product of the Year title. It's just that there was no all-new product that stood head and shoulders above the rest that we feel can lay claim to being the product to move suspension forward.
While there won't be a single winner declared for 2019, there are already several new products on the horizon and we get the feeling that 2020 will be a big year.
In the meantime, read on to learn more about three products that turned our heads and warranted some extra recognition. There's the Italian-made EXT Storia shock, with its hydraulic bottom-out feature that's the stuff dorks like me dream of, as well as the Öhlins RXF36 and Lyrik Ultimate, which both received updates that took them from 'Damn, that's good,' to 'Daaaaamn, that's really good.'
If you're going to call yourself Extreme Racing Shox, you should probably make some fancy stuff and charge a lot for it, which is one way you could describe their enduro-focused Storia Lok V3. Not exactly breaking news: Spending 799 Euro on a 'made just for you' shock results in some impressive performance. When Kazimer reviewed the third generation of their custom-tuned EXT Storia Lok back in August, he said things like ''The Storia made it feel like there was a layer of memory foam over everything,'' and used phrases like ''extra traction'' and ''Levy is faster than me.'' Okay, he didn't say the last one, and let's all be honest with ourselves and admit that bolting on a Storia probably won't make most of us any faster.
So, why's it here? EXT has managed to fit a hydraulic anti-bottoming feature into the shock by placing a second piston where you'd usually only see the bolt on the end of the damper shaft. As the shock nears the end of its stroke, this piston enters a cup-shaped tube inside the end of the shock body, which, if you know how oil and displacement work, ups the hydraulic pressure to resist bottoming. EXT says there's a 50-percent increase in the force required to compress the shock during the last 15-percent of the stroke, and we believe them; it's an impressive and useful feature. It's also not new, with designs similar in principle being used by Manitou, Fox, Avalanche, and others, but it's especially beneficial inside of a coil-sprung shock.
The Storia is pricey, custom-tuned for you, and made in Italy. Its hydraulic bottom-out feature is very effective.
From the review:
 | There's no denying the fact that the Storia Lok is a specialty item, designed for riders who want to eke the most performance possible out of their bike. It's a luxury, not an absolute necessity, but the Storia does deliver a very high level of custom-tuned performance. |
Öhlins has a hell of a history, with so many victories and championships during the last forty-three-years that they're probably using trophies as paperweights at their Swedish headquarters. But practically all that heritage comes from their motorized exploits, so what about the mountain bike stuff? A lot of us dorks peed our pants in excitement when Öhlins started doing bicycle suspension, but it hasn't been the smoothest of rides so far. Early shocks sometimes felt over-damped and consumers were having reliability issues, while rumors of casting misalignments meant that some of the forks couldn't match the smoothness of Fox or RockShox.
But the new RXF36 M.2 has been nothing but impressive.
''Traction was there in bundles and built into creamy support when the energy inputs got higher,'' PB Tech Editor Dan Roberts gushed in his November review of the RXF36. ''The fork blended away, and it felt like I had a direct connection with what was going on at the ground,'' he went on to say. You can get a coil-sprung version, or the trick three-chamber air-sprung model that Roberts loved so much. Both types use their twin-tube damper, the TTX18, with 18 referring to the piston diameter that happens to be the same as what's used in the DH38 fork. It's as good - or maybe even better - as anything else out there, and the three-chamber air spring offers next-level adjustment.
''Traction was there in bundles and built into creamy support when the energy inputs got higher,'' PB Tech Editor Dan Roberts gushed in his November review of the RXF36. ''The fork blended away, and it felt like I had a direct connection with what was going on at the ground,'' he went on to say. You can get a coil-sprung version, or the trick three-chamber air-sprung model that Roberts loved so much. Both types use their twin-tube damper, the TTX18, with 18 referring to the piston diameter that happens to be the same as what's used in the DH38 fork. It's as good - or maybe even better - as anything else out there, and the three-chamber air spring offers next-level adjustment.
You can't tell from the outside, but there's gold in that TTX18 damper.
From the review
| Lot’s of talk about the “zone” makes it sound like it’s all to do with the rider. Not as much consideration seems to be given to the other products in the chain between the rider and the ground. A product that quietly goes about doing its job so well that it just leaves you to ride, nothing else, should be recognized as one of the keys to entering this “zone.” One of these products is the RXF36 m.2. The RXF36 elevated my riding experiences, had my back in all situations, terrains, riding moods, and provided an inspirational whisper in my ear to go faster and ride harder. |
RockShox didn't need to do much to improve the Lyrik and, truth be told, the previous version would have kept riders happy for many seasons to come without any updates. But updates are what RockShox/SRAM does, and the revised Lyrik gets both the new Charger 2.1 damper and changes to fight friction.
The Lyrik Ultimate (and all of their Signature Series forks) gets new SKF seals that are said to be just as seal-y but slipperier than those they're replacing, and there is also new Dynamic Seal Grease and Maxima Plush damping oil.
Speaking of damping, Charger 2.1 gets a lighter high-speed compression tune, a more usable low-speed range, and updates to the internal architecture for better control of the oil. Kazimer's spent a good amount of time on the latest Lyrik, and while the changes aren't of the day and night variety, the fact that they've improved an already impressive fork is, well, impressive.
Speaking of damping, Charger 2.1 gets a lighter high-speed compression tune, a more usable low-speed range, and updates to the internal architecture for better control of the oil. Kazimer's spent a good amount of time on the latest Lyrik, and while the changes aren't of the day and night variety, the fact that they've improved an already impressive fork is, well, impressive.
The high- and low-speed compression tunes have been changed for the new Charger 2.1 damper.
From the review:
| But once things got rockier, and the size of the impacts increased, the new model felt noticeably calmer. |
While there was no clear winner for us this year, the EXT shock and updated forks from Öhlins and RockShox certainly earned acknowledgement. We'll have to wait another twelve months before a new title is up for grabs. So, what suspension component or idea - something that would make an appreciable step forward in performance or comfort - would you like to see come to life in 2020?
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156 Comments
I really like my Pole Evolink 176 and have to say it is the best bike I ever rode other than a Nicolai G1 I tested last summer.
nsmb.com/articles/vorsprung-tuesday-tune-advanced-bike-geometry-ii
Brahahahahaha!
"don't take offense"... just realize that only their way is "proper and right".
It's a Gaelic word which can generally be used to refer to anything from fun to the status of any given situation.
Trust me on tw@ though, there is only one way to pronounce it.
Pronouncing it twot, would be like us pronouncing Twinkies, Twonkies.
What you guys are doing is akin to saying, I was born blind, stop being so dramatic about suddenly going blind. Just stop trying to live like you had sight, and adopt a routine where even basic things are challenges.
trustperformance.com/products/shout
On the other hand, you could say that nominating the Trust would be like giving CotY to the Pontiac Aztek.
In fact I think the dorky German rags will be the first ones to give Trust any awards. The thing would look great on an enduro bike with triple chanrings, bar ends and slicks.
[EDIT] Speaking of TG, even they had the Golf as CotY (mk5 GTI), there's no escape from ze Germanz
On the contrary, a suspension upgrade like this is exactly what's going to make anyone faster.
All the comments just make me want one even more.
If you got the money, go for it.
And you can swap it over to another bike and get it tuned again- and I bet it this will be chaper than on the DHX2
EXT apparently don't do that any more, but if they do, it's at the cost of a full service I believe.
Who cares, it's totally worth it IMO
I used to be a Manitou fanboy, and their customer service is great, but after my 3rd fork in a row had bushing slop, well shame on me for falling for it again, but I was done with them.
Feel free to take this with a grain of salt, but I spoke with someone who worked for Manitou a few years ago, and asked them how they STILL haven't fixed their bushing issues after all this time. His reply was "they just don't care"
Check your facts... The Storia with two coils is very competitive price wise compare to a Fox, Rockshox etc (that are priced without any coils).
@CircusMaximus:
CCDB CS Air (shockwiz tuned), CCDB CS Coil, Fox Float X2 (shockwiz tuned), EXT Storia LOK 3
All very good and highly adjustable shocks.
The storia feels like none of these. Sure, it goes in and out, but the sensation to what you feel underneath you, none of the previous shocks I used felt the same.
The DB Coil CS was the closest, then the Float X2 and then the DBAirCS. But again, none of the shocks come close to the sensation of the ground underneath you like the Storia.
It is next level over DHX2, Sham Ultimate, TTX...
Basicly you couldn’t give it to fox, so didn’t give it to anyone?!?
Been riding for 20+ years.
It lives up to the hype
Here is Linkie?
www.pinkbike.com/photo/17994253
Formula you can. Swap out Valving with out tearing apart the fork . Coil option.
The Marz fork is a Fox 36 grip damper with a better crown( it does not creak) for 3/4 price of a labled weaker Fox 36.
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