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VorsprungSuspension dariodigiulio's article
Oct 27, 2023 at 9:44
Oct 27, 2023
Aaron Gwin Buys Windrock Bike Park
100% agreed. Absolutely fantastic commentator. Would love to see him on top of the box again too.
VorsprungSuspension mikekazimer's article
Jul 31, 2023 at 13:14
Jul 31, 2023
Fox's Coil Sprung Electronic Suspension - Crankworx Whistler 2023
@endoplasmicreticulum: basically agreed with what you've said - measuring stuff at high velocity is easy, you can do it with a $15 arduino (and we have - scroll back to 2014 on our Instagram page if you want pics). However, opening or partially closing valves under pressure, with limited power available, fast enough that the bike hasn't traveled a significant forward distance (ie over a bump/edge) in that time is the hard part, especially if you want it to be able to move to or hold any intermediate position indefinitely without burning through your battery. Cannondale did it 10+ years ago with the Simon fork, but it only had a 2hr battery life because the proportional solenoid is constantly consuming power. Big enough battery, big enough proportional valves etc and you "can" do it, but like you say, it's a lot of cost, power, weight and size. The power part might be somewhat solvable with e-bikes now, if the main battery can be used to power the fork/shock as well as the motor, but that'll require a level of integration that the industry isn't really approaching just yet. @onemanarmy: we have no electrical engineers, but I have personally spent time working in a test lab for a very large automotive brake manufacturer, testing and developing control algorithms for high frequency response solenoids in ABS/ESC systems among other things. Not going to claim that makes me the world's foremost expert on electronically controlled suspension, but I am very familiar with each individual element of the tech behind ECVs, and the characteristics, demands and limitations of the valves themselves. As a result, I'm interested in what developments are made, but while it could be a step forward in some regards, I don't think it's reached anything like "game changer" status yet. It may turn out to be a really useful (if niche) tool for pro-level enduro racing, for example, where the weight gain is not that critical and having automatic (or semi-automated) mode selection is handy for those 20 second sprint climbs. And I'd be stoked if Fox prove me wrong and it actually does turn out to be a really big improvement, because that would mean there really is a whole other world of previously untapped performance that's now accessible.
VorsprungSuspension mattbeer's article
Jun 9, 2023 at 13:30
Jun 9, 2023
Review: 3 Unique Carbon Handlebars Built for Comfort from We Are One, OneUp, & Title
@sino428: Even the flexiest 31.8 or even 25.4 handlebars are exceedingly stiff compared to the torsional stiffness of everything else between the bar and the tyre's contact patch (stem/steerer/fork/wheel/tyre), in other words, the idea that the bar needs to be compliant in one direction (along the fork's axis, where loads on the bar are very high and the rider is strong) but stiff in the other direction (the steering plane, where loads on the bar are very low and the rider is weak) is really just a marketing concept and not a real world issue - nobody had problems with steering-plane stiffness even back in the old old days of 25.4mm. 35mm was introduced to make wider bars stiffer & lighter, then people decided they actually didn't want stiffer bars after all, so now we're seeing handlebar manufacturers trying complicated things to avoid using a smaller bar diameter that might be seen as "old tech". Currently betting that someone will introduce a smaller bar diameter standard (I think 30mm or 33mm is pretty likely) within the next 2 years so that it's easy to make compliant and is still marketable as a "new technology".
VorsprungSuspension dariodigiulio's article
May 3, 2023 at 21:10
May 3, 2023
Ask Pinkbike: Supportive Pedals, Fork Upgrades, Dropper Choices
@jwestenhoff: servicing your fork, using good lubricants, removing sources of friction entirely (eg replacing the air spring with a coil). And I guess you could probably find ways to increase friction but I don't think that's what you're asking :)
VorsprungSuspension dariodigiulio's article
May 3, 2023 at 21:08
May 3, 2023
Ask Pinkbike: Supportive Pedals, Fork Upgrades, Dropper Choices
@L0rdTom: my theory on the lack of compression damping in current dampers is that it comes about as a result of 4 things: 1. Air forks have more friction than (older) coil forks. This is equivalent to LSC in some sense, because it has a disproportionate effect at very low speeds. Running very soft compression valving reduces total resistance, and can make the fork feel more "plush'. 2. Air springs have a thermal damping effect. Some of the energy in the compressed air turns into heat during fast compressions, which increases the pressure further, but it very quickly bleeds off into the surrounding stanchion, so the spring rate on return is a bit lower than during compression. Effectively, you get a certain amount of compression damping from the air spring, and to achieve a given "total" amount of speed-sensitive compression resistance (ie damping), you need less damping to come from the hydraulic cartridge if using an air spring than if you're using a coil spring. 3. There is a certain datalogger out there that seems to push users (many of whom are reputable people within the industry) towards lighter and lighter damped setups in both compression and rebound. It does this because it chases numbers that I believe are fundamentally irrelevant. Check out the Pinkbike reviews of the Ibis "traction tune" bikes and you'll see what I am on about. 4. Internet forums. About 8 years ago, a handful of people started posting that their forks were overdamped (which is very often misdiagnosed from some other issue, such as friction, poor spring curve, excessive progression etc), spread that idea online, other people picked it up and reiterated it, and as a result it became a contagious concept that "everything is overdamped". But because reducing the compression damping does make the fork feel a bit better, when people revalve the damper lighter, they do find it moves more freely, so they assume that they have correctly diagnosed the issue because they successfully made some improvement. Get enough people on the internet to repeat it, and eventually people at the big companies start taking notice. To answer your second question, it's not really related to friction - rebound dampers always generate way more force than the compression side, they are where most of the energy gets dissipated. Typical rebound damping forces are 3-4x that of the compression curve at any given speed. This is partly because the peak rebound speeds are way lower than peak compression speeds (8m/s in compression happens now and then, 8m/s in rebound and you're going to jump about 10ft in the air), so the damping power (force x velocity) requires more force because there's less velocity. The rebound damping force subtracts from the spring force, whereas the compression damping adds to the spring force.
VorsprungSuspension dariodigiulio's article
May 2, 2023 at 22:37
May 2, 2023
Ask Pinkbike: Supportive Pedals, Fork Upgrades, Dropper Choices
While I'd agree that getting spring rate/curve and rebound sorted are a higher priority than compression tunes, I'd suggest that your experience with HSC settings not making any difference may come from time spent on products where the HSC adjuster just isn't very effective, because changes to the damping characteristic can definitely have pretty significant effects on how the bike rides. Riders definitely do adapt to their bike though, and for a lot of people what feels "good" is often just what feels familiar. We actually did a bunch of testing like this years and years ago (like 2011 or so) using a Freelap system. Rider was not told what the compression damping changes were, and timed over a short (~50 second) section of trail that the rider was very familiar with, on several different trails. We ran through three "extremes" of settings (basically minimum, midrange, maximum) on both LSC and HSC, fork and shock. The settings were cycled through several times, so you'd do several non-consecutive laps on each setting, so that fatigue and "learning the trail" effects would not affect the results. Any laps with major mistakes (crashing or running off track) were re-run. The conclusion was, in that particular case, that the firmest setting was consistently measurably faster (about 2-3%) on the segments we tested on. However, it also beat the rider up noticeably more, and might not have been faster on a longer (5-15 minute) trail. But that was also testing on a thoroughly tuned 40RC2 and DHX RC2, which both had very effective compression adjusters, not the current crop of stock forks with generally ineffective compression adjusters.
VorsprungSuspension dariodigiulio's article
May 2, 2023 at 17:01
May 2, 2023
Ask Pinkbike: Supportive Pedals, Fork Upgrades, Dropper Choices
@freeridejerk888: The range of the Grip2 rebound damper is very wide, but the range of the compression damper (VVC, 2021+) is pretty tiny actually. For anyone wanting more support, it just isn't able to do that - the maximum force it can generate is really very low. With HSC and LSC maxed out (ie fully firm), it can only generate about 15kgf (33lbs) at 2.5m/s (this is a mid to high speed rock strike or a very sudden compression at the bottom of a rock roll), and about 25kgf (55lbs) at 4m/s, which is a heavy landing or a square edge at very high speed. A combined bike/rider load through the fork (for an 80kg/175lbs rider), when heavily loading up the front wheel, can be about 160kgf (350lbs) without bottoming out. Does the compression damper do anything in these situations? Yes, but not much. These numbers are giving the damper the benefit of the doubt too, by using really high velocities rather than typical this-happens-every-impact-on-the-trail velocities. And again, this is with both adjusters fully closed. If you spend the $400CAD or so to change out the Grip for the Grip2 damper, and run it wide open like many people do, it has negligible difference to the Grip in any practical sense. At 2.5m/s fully open, it's generating less damping force (8kgf/17lbs) than the fork chassis is generating in friction (approx 9kg/20lbs depending on how recently it was serviced, of which between 30-50% can come from the air spring). Depending on the size of the impact, it's very common for the fork to have more thermopneumatic damping (damping from air temperature change during compression/rebound) than actual hydraulic damping. During "dive" events like sudden hard braking into a compression at around 0.75m/s, the Grip2 damper itself (again at fully firm HSC/LSC) is generating about 5kgf/11lbs. This is about the same force difference generated by compressing the spring another 5mm/0.2", so at maximum we could suggest that the fork would ride around 5mm higher than if it had no compression damper at all (in practice, the difference is usually much smaller with such low damping forces because the peak spring & peak damping forces don't happen simultaneously and the total energy dissipation is very small). The term "placebo dial" has some merit here, and it's not limited to Fox, the Rockshox adjustments are pretty similar in their range. Why should anyone care about this? Because even small changes to the spring characteristic or fork friction make way more of a difference than that - there's a reason we focus more on improving the springs than the damper. If you want to make the biggest possible improvements to your fork, look at friction, spring curve/rate and then damping, in that order.
VorsprungSuspension CaneCreekCyclingComponents's article
Mar 1, 2023 at 1:11
Mar 1, 2023
Cane Creek Launches New Air IL & Coil IL Rear Shocks
@Brasher: The "Ohlins" TTX25 is actually a rebadged CCDB coil, made by Cane Creek. It was made available a couple of years after the Double Barrel - https://www.ohlinsusa.com/files/files/TTX25%20MKII%20-%20Base%20Assembly%202014%20Service%20_rev12_Page_1.jpg note the logos.
VorsprungSuspension CaneCreekCyclingComponents's article
Feb 28, 2023 at 14:51
Feb 28, 2023
Cane Creek Launches New Air IL & Coil IL Rear Shocks
You've clearly been riding bikes a good while! The Romic wasn't a recirculating TTX-style design despite having two tubes, it was effectively a single tube where the reservoir/piggyback was concentric to the damper tube which was a smart layout (albeit with a few drawbacks, such as eye to eye length vs stroke). Cane Creek's claim is correct in the TTX/recirculating sense of the design.
VorsprungSuspension mattbeer's article
Jan 18, 2023 at 20:50
Jan 18, 2023
Burning Question: Why Do Some Bikes Have More Travel Up Front?
@onawalk: I guess it depends what your criteria for "better" actually is. If you mean fastest around a given circuit, vehicles prone to understeer usually comes last. If you mean most fun to slide around in the snow or on dirt, understeer definitely comes last. But if by "best" you mean safest, then it depends to some extent on the driver, but for solidly 99% of drivers, understeer comes first. Also worth considering that for most drivers who never (deliberately) approach the limits of grip, under/oversteer has zero bearing on how well they feel the car handles, because until one axle or the other is significantly slipping, there is no under/oversteer anyway. If you want to go for a moderately spirited drive (you know, the average moderately wealthy 50yr old in a "sports" car that's just a family car with a spoiler on it) on a clear sealed road, it doesn't actually have any relevance because the wheels are gripping not slipping (yes, they're always technically slipping, but slip ratio 0.2 or slip angle 5deg means they're effectively gripping). If you're racing (or pretending to), it's an entirely different story, understeer doesn't do anything good there.
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