Rideknow

hi ,here is Franco Dt at EXT following the tread i think a distinguo must be done about what we intend as Innovation ,technology and who did it first. I think it's very important if we want to understand correctly to avoid comparing or considering what's going on only on MTB suspension in this case as MTB its very young industry so let put some dates and name to innovation for 2 wheels. First USD fork was invented by a very good friend of mine with who I have been working developing MX fork "Steve Simon"! in early '80.!! this was the real innovation in Fork design and we know today its the state of art for any front Motorcyvle suspensions. 2 wheels, as MTB! obviously in the '80 Mtb wasn't existing so no frint fork for it!but the USD technology was Racing MX World championship. the USD Simon Fork did not have Sliding DU and for sliding Du we must understand we have 1 static DU and the secondary DU it s moving with the stanction tube continuosly changing the overlap between the 2 DU guinding system. marzocchi made the famous SHIVER but also this Fork as well the Dorado never used the sliding DU design. the Sliding design have been imported into Motorcyvle Fork from the Automotive racing Mc Pherson application that I did develop for Wrc Citroen championship in 1990. Mc Pherson have a similar working design application as a Usd fork in 1994 I had a consultancy agreement with Showa to support R&D project that also included the first close cartridge Design instead the open bath ,now state of art kn all motorcycle . so as you can see for sure someone did many innovation and also applied technology and this was done 15/20 year before than when MTB started. I must say Mtb has benefitted today for all the work and innovations that few good engineers around theveorkd developed for the Motorsport industry.and there is nothing that MTB have innovated in suspensions design that wasn't done before for different 2/4 wheel applications. hope this enlighten the general "innovation" issue and yes we didn't have to look further away to know who did it. thank franco.

@VorsprungSuspension: Steve, you are still moving the attention to something else ,the Context from your customers was: We see No separation from the 2 circuite Bump and Rebound as you stated! complete Separated! and here where started the query and debate from your customers! not from me, I have been a spectator. All shox compete with each others and what's important to me it's the correct message and technical info we give the customers to understand the product values! with correct fact and figures. Steve we are talking on different context next time pass the correct message on your marketing tech info so your customers will get less confused and with less expectations some of them are looking on details! To finish with this boring story in relation to LS/HS dependency; there are many compromise that we must accept while making design some are forced by integration some by physics law some by envelop/dimensions, some by ignorance so all togheter we have a result! But we never Stated our LS/HS adjuster system offer COMPLETE SEPARATED responses to single adjustment as well as your! and this its where lies the difference only on the ward that are promising something. But as you brought it up let me go back to your first paragraph of your above post! up till now I have been avoiding a product confrontation on this tread as I thought Context and objectives were differents and would not see the reason to make customers know that EXT damper have certain quality and characteristics! thought wasn't correct on you or Ethical for customers. but Steve let make it very clear our damper is not competing with your!! we are competing with everyone on the market while trying to prove to be the best and delivering Real Innovations and new technology, uniqueness in design and characteristics! how much all this will be appreciate will be the Customers choices and decisions ,media reviews can help but wards of mouth it's what we are seeking ! Our mission and our genes work every days in that direction whatever damper we make! but let me be more specific about you assessment on competing: The V4 its the lighter Coil damper in the market ,offer new coating on body and a proprietary DLC composition with 14mm Steel shaft while keeping very low friction value, there is a new tuned Check valve to enhance High frequency ride comfort, on the Arma DH we have a new HBC design with idrostatic seal that offer a much more powerful HBC and a new valve response that its dynamicly dependente from HBC forces ! you know the "HBC " that every suspension manufacturer in the industry have been coping from the Storia and we introduced 5 years ago" ! a more tuneable Lok system that you have copied the design principal too into your damper, EXT introduced 5 years ago! The V4 also introduce the PSR "position sensitive rebound" system that avoid Top up with a unique design and a dedicated 1 way valve to avoid compromising low speed bump initial bump sensitivity, a new Compression valves tune have been upgrade in terms of Pressure threshold relief values and more sensitive adjustment with a new design to enhace turbulent flow characteristic to reduce T° dependency ,a low speed adjuster that's the same for Rebound and this again unique design in the industry! the damper its still a monotube damper as most of the dampers now in the industry ,your been a Twin tube it's a going back to what many did try and now all reversing into mono tube as you can see. for your knowledge I have nothing against Twin tube damper in genaral but we like to apply best technology to specifc applications where technology make going faster and safer! as Stated many time I made my first TT design in 1994 and was used by NewmanHaas Indy team for many years, winning many GT/Les mans Championship and also EXT have been the only Rally manufacture to win a Wrc Rally championship using Twin tube technology as well many world touring car championship! so you could be sure if we thought was a good idea we would have already make it years ago. so I do not see the innovations you have introduced and where we are competing?

@spicysparkes: Hi this are heavy accusations! Will take it up in the appropriate way.. very unnecessarily and low class but I understand than see some number on dyno can hurt. all your debate has nothing to do with EXT but I can see the approach is the same!your customers action are again questioned by you as unfair and non trustable! very bad for them. But as you are talking about EXT as you may know we test every single Damper before quarantine them and shipment so we can compare any moment around the world dyno test from the univoche Damper number if the functionality and damping characteristic are as we Spec them during production proces. maybe you should investigate this with the customers that showed the graph so you can understand if this the case too.

@VorsprungSuspension: hi Steve ,my step in the debate was only to clarify a content that was headings outside the real focus of the Context at list for the customers as I like to see transparency and not a tendentius effort to avoid the issue! their is only 1 Context in the all debate initiated by some of your customers not from me , you stating "Complete separeted" this it's what your customers query with you and gave you clear evidence that ITSNT the case. and yes you are right you should have accept the evidence that are unavoidable and change your Statement! instead of carry on trying justifying: the graph isn't the good one,you should understand better what you are looking , the 1and ½ click that would change the behaviour, the 9N or the 40 N difference ,the jammed return shims and the Scale N/LB or the velocity of the test and so on all to justify a data that show so clearly the interference, I received yeasterday from Filippo your Italian customer the test graph he did on the damper and I am sure any suspension technician that look at those graph result would say : blamy !its a clear the interference! this it's the only Context and yes if you give users the possibility to adj LS bump as its thr case they will use it as they likes, and could go from Fo position to a much closer position! and they doyou cannot stop them and than the LS adjustment will create an undesirable effect on rebound that it's induced by the LS adj interference. that's its the fact in this Context. and in the Context we are talking about the Completely Separated bump/rebound circuit. Stop confusing the argument taking in the talk a new different topic interference between " Ls/Hs" as a standard in the industry ,we can discuss this in a different technical Context if you wish! Steve sometime accept that your opinion it's only your opinion but not the only truth and accept that evidence to people matter! overwise you will look like the guy that pretend the water isn't wet as if you let it out soon or later will dry. thank for the interesting exchange , hopefully my coming video will help to enlighten the scene. more knowledge, more choices...

@VorsprungSuspension: hi Vorsprung ,my name is Franco Dt at Extremeshox I have been following with great interest all the discussions and for the sake of transparency, fairness and respect for customers/readers I think some clarifications must be done as it appear to be a tendencies and patronising way to talk to them while suggesting that before making considerations they should understand what they are talking and seeing! i honesty think those readers have shown a great amount of understanding and been very knowledgeable while questioning the product characteristic but very professional about the approach to the issue and in fact they got their dampers tested on a dyno! what more we want? let's start from the original Vorsprung Statement: Completely Separated! COMPLETELY!! I think it's very important to establish "COMPLETELY Separated" what does mean! All different Dyno graph that been presented "readers/vorsprung"showing without any doubt that there is a dependency while adjusting Low speed Bump into the Rebound! that dependently on the click position can be more or less "large" at a given velocity and to the eyes more evidente depending on the Scale values of the graph! The fact the readers are using Force/displacement graph its a straight way in the Industry the famous"Potato Graph" in production proces to verify damper quality. This graph allow for instant evaluation on proper damper functions, damper force values as it show directly possible differences on the damper force history loop , cavitation,friction adjustment and other parameter so, far to be not good enought!but at the end the number are the same. so as i think its quite ckear from all evicende that circuite are Not Completely separated maybe Vorsprung have set up a new standard to evaluate "COMPLETE" in valve Flow? there is a number in term of flow rate that can freely go without control through the valves? in the damper there are 2 different type of valves 1 it's the bleed and the other its a relief valve ,1 its an adjustable Flow passage"bleed/needle"= low speed adjustement the other " = HS work with relieving pressure valve working on different way to preload/ controlling lift on shims/springs. The graph show that there is a continuos leakage/ interference from LS bump to rebound independently of the speed the damper is working 50/100/200 and more as from Vorsprung Velocity graph up to 500 so the issue once more show its existing. For info by Data Acquisition the max Rebound speed velocity for an MTB damper its 700/800 mm/sc while majority of the time working between 25 and 500mm/sc so 50/100/200 mm graph showing a good part of the energy absorption in rebound automatically imposed on the damper while adjusting the LS bump because of interference as above proved. Considering that the adjustement range for the Rebound valve at 500 mm/sc its about 500N the adjustement imposed in Rebound by the low speed bump at 500 mm/sc its abouts 140 N= very close to 30%! quite a Lots to describe not to be critical! Considering also the customers can still adjust the dedicated Rebound valve i think can get pretty confusing for the final user without a dyno to understand the correct extent of rebound damping he have choose while doing rebound click adjustment and dependently of the LS position. i think will organise for early January a tech video that show this matter more in dept so customers will understand even better how damper adjustement work expecially between Monotube and Twin tube.people knowledge, better choices!

Terrible blasphemous way to market a video! Was no need for this!!

@phops: in moto Gp Any electronics help in suspensions it s Not allowed.