Cascade Components Announces 2019-2020 Commencal Meta AM and 2018-2020 Transition Scout Links

 I was gonna say...

 Was thinking exactly the same, particularly here in Europe

 definitely not, in my locals trails they are definitely head turners.

 In a world with many very carbon and very expensive bikes... I don't know maybe underated wasn't exactly the word for it, but when a lot of riders think "dream enduro bike" they think of something along the lines of a Fanatik ultra bling build.

 So underrated, order now for....November delivery....

 Easier to sell a link to ‘fix’ an underrated bike.....

 @rpnd: GUYS MY BIKE IS REALLY GOOD REALLY

 @CascadeComponents:

How about expensive carbon bikes that are a bit old? Ibis Ripmo v1? Could do with more progression to run a coil? Also has a pretty steep HA? Seems prime for a new link. Their sales where pretty high for a small brand...might make a nice addition?

I’d buy one

 Looking at the suspension kinematics it's great but the only draw back is leverage ratio is not very progressive depending on your riding style.

The cascade fix this leverage ratio issues but unsure how it effects the antirise, anti squat, and pedal kick back.

linkagedesign.blogspot.com/2019/10/commencal-meta-am29-2020.html?m=1

 @femto505: it changes the curve by a max of 6% - from 40mm into the shock stroke there is almost zero change.

You really think this will be a large change?

 @justanotherusername: For that price (especially in EU), I don't think this change is worth it. Would rather spend this money on a custom shock tune or buying a better shock ... This is an enduro bike anyway and the not so progressive ratio actually suits it.

 @lkubica: What do you think they changed for the 2021 version? I'll give you a hint, something similar might be on this page.

 @CascadeComponents: Well, they reduced the leverage for sure, also changed geometry. Honestly, didn't see ratios anywhere. But for sure your link does not make a 2021 version from 2019 version

 @lkubica: They didn't reduce leverage. The 2021 frame has a higher average leverage ratio than the 2019. If it's more progressive then the initial leverage ratio is inherently even higher. If they did make the 2021 frame less progressive, which I doubt, then I should amend my statement to say that something on the page has better kinematics than the 2021 version.

 I would buy one right now!

 Make a smuggler link please, again, please

 I don't have a Smuggler but we live in a time of mob rule and I want to be involved in something; Make a Smuggler link!

 SLM: Smuggler Link's Matter!

 Agreed! More mullet links please Cascade!

 you can mullet with offset bushings too

 Just got Williams Racing Product's mullet link for my new enduro and excited to try it out.

 Brilliant, Miller! Make a great bike greater!

 @noodlehouse: Interesting idea - is that for coming from a 29er frame to a mullet? basically increase the shock length so it sits higher is the idea?

 @sb666: you got it. Offset bushings can increase eye to eye which will raise bottom bracket back up. Depending on your current bb height and the size tire you plan on putting on the 27.5 rear wheel, you may only need/want one offset bushing.

 @noodlehouse: Thats great info, thanks!

 also the fact that you swamp from old sus bearings to new

 The ones I have for my santa cruz’s are very noticeable. I bought one to see if it is worth the hype and after one ride was ordering the link for my 2nd bike. If you are an aggressive rider who likes to jump, you will notice it the first ride.

 @Austink: I just recall having a CCDB air, vivid air, monarch rt3, CCDB inline coil and then eventually another CCDB air on the same bike. Three of those shocks I owned at the same time. With a shockwiz. I don’t know if I really felt one was the night and day better to the levels people swear a link changes a bike.

I also had offset bushings, cc angleset and fast suspension pike 3-way valve so I have invested in this stuff before. Can’t say it’s worth it.

 I was thinking the same thing.

 Same question goes to many other bike brands unfortunately. For some reason not many brands make their bikes progressive enough

 Commencal lacked the expertise, clearly.... or marketing.

 @CascadeComponents can you comment as to how you're able to improve EVERY part of the travel/stroke? I can see being able to improve parts of it for different people's preferences, but to say it improves everything across the board is a big claim.

 @smokingtires: We design links for aggressive riders. Just like with shock tunes and such, aggressive riders benefit from something different than the stock set up on most bikes. Obviously WC riders benefit from custom links, but it's not binary where people either are or aren't WC riders. There's a spectrum in between that still rides hard enough to see that benefit. For people in that range adding progression can improve every aspect because it can eliminate compromises that have been made. This can include things like over-springing, running a bunch of volume spacers, or running excessive damping.

First lets look at over-springing. If you over-spring a bike it will be harder to bottom out yes. But the downfall to this is the amount of sag at the wheel is decreased at hinders the bike's ability to track well. Increasing progression so that the bike no longer needs to be over-sprung fixes this.

Now for volume spacers. Yes you can put a bunch of volume spacers in a shock and get the bottom out resistance up while keeping the sag at the wheel the same. This does two things that aren't awesome though. First all that bottom out resistance comes towards the end of travel so it more or less is creating a wall of pressure. Second the large pressure differential results if pretty different rebound speeds between top and bottom of travel. It's either too fast at the bottom of travel or too slow at the top of travel. Volume spacers are why people think more progressive suspension sits deeper in its travel. Volume spacers do that, but more progressive linkages actually do the opposite.

Lastly, with damping there isn't a magic tune that allows it to be both firm on large impacts and soft on smaller ones. Shock speed is shock speed and the shock doesn't know whether its a root or a drop that's making the shock move fast. If you increase compression damping to increase bottom out resistance it will result in the suspension not responding to high frequency impacts as well. This in turn is more fatigue for the rider. There is an ideal balance of spring rate, damping, and rider weight. For more aggressive riders this is best achieved with a more progressive linkage.

So essentially increasing progression allows those who need it to get a better small bump, bottom out, and mid-stroke simultaneously because they no longer need to make compromises that have been improving one at the expense of another. The draw back is less aggressive riders who try the link won't be able to use full travel as easily or at all.

 @CascadeComponents: Ok thanks for the clarification. That makes a lot more sense to me now. Sounds like I could actually use one of your products haha. I'm sure you won't be making a link for a Cube Stereo any time soon however. Thanks!

 @CascadeComponents: Are you saying a 6% increase in progression achieves all of this and to the magnitude you are suggesting?

 @CascadeComponents: Apart from the increase in travel, a mere 6% increase in progression (at its highest deviation from stock im assuming - from 40mm stroke onwards there is almost zero change from stock) is surely going to almost irrelevant?

I mean unless the riders setup is very well done and the rider very aware of minor changes are you seriously suggesting this isn’t just a placebo or snake oil?

 @justanotherusername: The difference is very apparent. Keep in mind the usable range is not 0 to 100%. it's more like 15-35 so out of that window 6% is pretty significant.

 @CascadeComponents: Useable range or progression? Could you explain that?

 @CascadeComponents: ‘of’ not or.

- Comparing both, there is a very small deviation in progression to to almost zero deviation from 40mm stroke onwards.

I’m not sure what you mean my useable range, the graph shows reality surely? If the graphs scale was altered it would almost look like no deviation from the original curve at all -

e.g. mid point in the shocks stroke it looks like the new link is at approx 2.75 ratio v the original 2.65 - a 0.1 change, this will be almost completely irrelevant in reality.

 @justanotherusername: You won't find many frames with upwards of 35% progression or many with less than 15%. Bikes on either end of that spectrum feel very different. So it's increasing progression 6% out of a 20% range. That's 30% of the range, which is significant. Now until you have ridden one of the links you won't know whether it's irrelevant or not. I can assure you this is a link that makes a pretty big difference though. We wouldn't have dove into making both the link and the yoke if the outcome wasn't worth it.

As for plot scale. You can scale a plot to look like anything. I could make the Y axis go to 1000 and then both lines would look like they might as well be zero. Picking as scale that's relevant to the subject is important. Stretching the Y axis to go all the way down to zero doesn't convey useful information because you will never see leverage ratios that are zero. It circles back to the usable range thing. We aren't talking about comparing things on a scale from 0-5 for example. We are looking at a leverage ratio range of 2-4 at the absolute maximum. More like 2.2-3.5 as the plot is scaled.

 @justanotherusername: Progression is commonly referred to as 1-(final leverage ratio/initial leverage ratio). That's the common definition. Make what you want of it.

Picking a single point on the curve doesn't teach you anything. You could pick the end of travel and then they would be the same. But the whole entire curve is not the same at all. However if you want to get into the significance of a 0.1 difference in leverage curve lets do that. The stock curve goes from about 3 to 2.5, so a change of around 0.5. Moving a single point by 0.1 is 20% of the entire change in the stock curve. That's quite significant. Saying that's not meaningful is like saying a switching to a 600 lb spring from a 500 lb spring might as well be the same thing or that the dials on your shock do absolutely nothing.

 @justanotherusername: So all of travel is the last 33% of travel then? That's not how it works. You could flip that and say if you look at the first 33% of travel the difference is huge. You have to look at the entire curve. That's why it's an entire curve and not a few data points. You don't set your bike up to sag 40 mm into the shock stroke. If there were to be any single point on the whole entire curve to compare it would be the leverage ratio at the sag point, but that only tells you absolute bottom out resistance for a huck to flat type of scenario. The relationship between the start and end of the curve is pretty important and that is what progression is. That relation is what impacts how much a suspension design will pack up, how much mid-stroke support it has, and how well it handles chatter. We don't claim increased progression. Progression is increased at that is a fact. As such, the bike will behave quite differently than before.

 @justanotherusername: It's stated, not claimed, because it is a fact...

 Might not clear the seattube at full bottom out ? (tyre or link, wouldn't know)
Same with the Meta Power 29, it should be using the same link as the AM 29, but they couldn't confirm whether that would fit or not when I contacted them.

 @Ploutre: I was wondering about it for the metapower 29.

 Just haven't gotten a chance to test fit it yet. I don't see any reason it wouldn't work, but don't know until you try.

 Add another who is wondering about fitment on a '20 Meta Power 29. Would for sure consider this if it fits. I've just fitted a CC link on my '21 Stumpy Evo and it is a quality product that yields great gains for aggressive riders.

 @Dustfarter: I just emailed CC to see if the link is compatible with the Meta Power 29.

 @Dustfarter: Will not fit on the Meta Power 29 as the links are slightly different.

 might feel unbalanced, are the 2019 TR`s not 150mm up front except the signature160mm and 130 rear. Mine is 150 and i have 55 stroke in the rear now so 140mm
More travel out back !! and clearance issues so would have to run the rear firmer

 I have one on my 2019 stumpy. Feels amazing. The bike went from harsh (sort of square-edge-hit-feeling) in the initial stroke, to being more plush. I originally tried to fix this by putting a CCDB coil on the bike. It was then bottoming out constantly, even with a coil 50 lbs oversprung. As soon as I put the CC link on, the bike got even more supple, and it immediately fixed the bottom-out issues on the rear end. Absolutely incredible. Also I enjoy tinkering so putting something else after-market on my bike sparked joy.

 Betd used to make replacement seat stays to run 26" rear wheels and I'm sure that they did modified links for it too, though I can't currently find any evidence for that memory - though they definitely made linkage replacements for the FSR which you can find by having a look around in the Wayback Machine; web.archive.org/web/20040404232404/www.betd.co.uk/website/betdframeset.htm

 That includes VAT. All our stuff is made in the US so no way around VAT.

 If you run the Rockshox Super Deluxe then I highly recommend to try the Megneg upgrade

 ...

 @CascadeComponents:

425€ is roughly 510$ at current exchange rates.
So VAT is a 140USD ~38% markup?

 @tigersuit: there are a couple of other things that factor in as well like shipping cost and import duties. It's less expensive to ship a whole bunch of links to the EU at the same time, but not free so that does need to be included as well. VAT is definitely the largest driver in cost though. The US price doesn't include any of the taxes people pay here because it varies stat to state.

 Same here, added the gnardog spacer and a couple spacers, and the meg neg. The link looks great but the price is pretty heavy

 From my experience of 6 weeks with the Megneg on my 2020 Norco Sight I can tell the improvement is noticeable all along the travel, from small bump sensitivity to mid-end stroke support.

 Adding ramp with a link is nothing like filling the shock with tokens. There are a lot of misconceptions about how increasing progression will affect a bike that are based off of experiences with adding ramp to the shock. One of the primary differences between the two is rebound. Tokens creat a huge pressure differential between top and bottom of travel. This results in dramatically different rebound speeds between top and bottom. As a result a shock full of tokens is either prone to packing up or is a pogo stick deeper in travel. Changing the link, on the other hand, keeps rebound speed more uniform. It offers a smoother ramp that doesn't contain that end of stroke wall too. So the bottom out resistance is increased, but it doesn't create a bit at the end of travel that might as well be unattainable.

 I'd be curious too. I've cracked the chainstays so many times I can't get any more and wasn't a fan of the geo of the newer Scout. Maybe the link will help to preserve my little Scout a bit longer!

 @mtb-scotland If enough of us ask, it may prove to be worth @CascadeComponents time to make it happen. I wonder what it would cost to order custom.

 The ideal amount of progression is more than a lot of the frames can make it to. The link just pushes it as much as possible without creating clearance issues. If I had my way they'd all be around 35%, but some don't have the real estate to do that so it turns into squeezing the most out of it that's possible. And yeah if you take a bike that's 11% and push to 22% it will be better in everyway... unless you don't ride aggressively and are too preoccupied with how far the o-ring on your shock moves. With the Commencal it can't be pushed further without having clearance issues between the seat stay bridge and the link. We never claim any of these are the ideal amount of progression (except so some like the Nomad link), but rather that it's significantly better than the stock set up. To say that we just make links with no end goal or thought behind it is seriously misguided.

 yes, it seems the market expanded to europe, finally. but the translation to german on the website is horrible.

 I think there totally is for mullet links. Surprised that the Commencal link wasn’t for running the bike mixed wheel. Sounds like a really fun setup to me!

 Check out Williams racing products for a mullet yoke @coletrane-mtb:

 This is for the previous version of Scout which is 130 mm www.transitionbikes.com/Support_Archive_VersionDetail.cfm?ID=13

 @CascadeComponents: Very cool to see you building links for older models, any plans to go further back to the Scout 1 or other older gen bikes?

 @pockets-the-coyote: OG Patrol link would give me eggplant status

 @CascadeComponents: the 2020 part had me confused...I guess both of these Scouts were available simultaneously.

 All prices on our EU site include VAT already and shipping is free within the EU for what it's worth.

 @CascadeComponents: neat, thanks. Maybe I’ll try and get one this summer then.

 Same I need this for my meta as well

 You are literally the only person to ever say that. Why didn't you like it?

 I wouldn't say I am not impressed but I do go between the links because the linearity of the V1 Sentinel is really not a bad thing even with a coil, it's just different. Yeah it probably rolls a little bit faster on braking bumps and I feel less small bumps with the Cascade link but you can get pretty far with shock tuning.

Would I buy it again? Maybe. I've put maybe 1000 miles on it but very few at the park. Hoping to spend some time at the park next fall to see if it has a different feel there.

That being said, 17-23% is not quite the same as 7-19%...

 That would involve new hardware, which would add another barrier/cost to installing the link.

 @CascadeComponents: OK

 Nah if anything it'll feel slightly more wallowy because your body has a bit more leverage on the shock unless you up the spring rate.

 Don't read it then? Every company out there tells people when they make a new thing. We just happen to be able to make things very quickly... The joys of actually machining your own parts.

 @justanotherusername: they did just lump 2 links into one press release....

 @Austink: good point. I’ll go back under my rock.