The second day of Eurobike 2019 is wrapped up, but not before we managed to find some interesting new products in hall A2, home to a handful of European brands marching to the beat of their own drum.
Intend Suspension does exactly that, and the result of that thinking is their air-sprung Hover shock that's unlike anything else offered by the big boys. Huck Norris was up next, with their new Mega Norris inserts using multiple densities of foam and being named after bread-based products. Seriously. Last but certainly most German is Nicolai and their new Saturn 14 trail bike that's all about options; pick your wheel configuration, choose from countless geometry options, and either 130mm or 140mm of travel.
The reason other industries don't use air shocks is no car or truck company is going to tell the person that just bought a dump truck "Yeah bring it into the shop every 50 hours so I can replace seals". It's more a durability thing.
Some of us ride trails with techy wall rides, meter tall ledges we have to hop UP without assist, stuff like that on our big day trail rides. Coils might be great for how you ride, but they are not better in every circumstance.
Saying a coil is better in every way for every style rider is just thinking what is good for you is good for everyone.
There have been actual applications: White Brothers (purchased by MRP) actually used a magnetic blow-off valve in the Stage fork for their climb mode. Decades ago, Noleen used the piezoelectric effect to modulate their damper. More interestingly, some automotive dampers use a magnetic damper fluid (iron particles in the fluid) and the flow can be controlled electronically.
I'm not sure we'll see any of these on bikes in the near future, but it's not impossible.
Here's a good starting point for dampers: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetorheological_damper
They've been available on production cars for nearly twenty years!