What makes for a good shock for your bike?

that brings up a good point though, feedback.

with the ideal suspension, you would have the wheels taking up every bump completely, and rebounding perfectly into every imperfection. in essence, the rider would not move at all, and the suspension would do all the work. the rider feels nothing.

Move to a full rigid: every bump is taken up by the rider (ignoring frame flex etc). a maximum amount of feedback is given to the rider regarding what is happening on the trail.

I think the ideal suspension (what we're half-assedly designing here) would make the bike no fun to ride. it would be a road bike that could be ridden on dirt in terms of fun.

think of a race car. people prize a steering system's ability to give the driver feedback. it gives them an idea of what is going on with the car, so they can make needed corrections. Those same people will criticize cars for having numb, lifeless feeling, transferring none of the road's messages to the driver.

I know, I rode my brother's stumpy back to back with my trek fuel, and it was an interesting experiment. the stumpy suspension is nowhere near as plush as the trek (despite having 20mm more travel). the trek ate up tons of bumps, but always felt a little numb. the stumpy was actually the more fun bike to ride. it gave you more of an idea what was going on with the bike, and made the whole experience a bit more exhilarating.

That, in essence, is why I ride mountain bikes in the first place, the exhilaration of it all. I don't want to surf a dead fish down a hill, I want something responsive and fun.

hmm...that was a lot longer than I expected :lol:

like I said, though, It wouldn't stop me from making a stupid active suspension for the hell of it.

 

Without elaborating on the specific designs, i.e. vpp, single pivot, DW link, etc, a coil-over design has proven itself in many applications, from mechanical apps. before WWII until "modern" mountain bike apps.The coil-over design is a great place to start when looking for an AM/ FR bike.

 

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The coil over is great....... but what part of the dampening system is it that makes it "great"? Take for example the DHX5.0. It has the platform valve, has the boost valve for the bottom out control, and the main shim stack for the dampening once set in motion beyond the pro-pedal. So even some of the simple coil over shock is not as simple as it seems. Unless of course you are talkin about something like the vanilla coil. Then it's a pogo stick when trying to pedal withought the frame geometry crutch.

 

I read most of the posts on this, interesting thread.

What I want in a shock, is a design I can put on multiple bikes, without having a custom build for it. I know thats not going to happen.

So next best thing i can hope for is a shock that has a platform system, Hi speed Compression, low speed compresion, hi speed rebound, and losw speed reboud. Air of coil makes o matter to me, as long as it has a hi volume air canister so it feels nice and plush while it is active.

Those thing there, properly tuned yo ucan have a shock that allows for no bob when hammering, small bump comliance, and big hit soakability and an over all fun ride

 

I'm wondering why it didn't get developed further? Battery issues? What was it Lee? I very curious.

 

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I never said the "coil-over" is great. The design has been tested and proven ove rmany years by many other riders besides me. What I am saying is it it a greaat place to start when evaluating suspension designs and if you want to complicate it by adding acceleromaters and such then that is up to you.;...

 

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Sounds like the shock came out literally ahead of it's time. Imagine the impact that it would have on these newer big travel bikes. Although it would probably get outlawed for racing just like everyother motor sport.

 

Well, your right, the spring comes back with the same force, so with single rebound controls, you have to decide what you want to do, jumpos and hucks without getting bucks, or rail fast fireroad and keep you rtire on teh ground without teh suspension packing up, I think thats actually the point with hi/low speed rebound, so your shock/suspension can have multiple speeds of return. IE the vivid for instance, can be setup to ride smooth as hell on the fireroad, take a turn hit a ten foot drop, and it will soak it up without blowing through the comporession, and without bucking you super hard over the bars.

Well instead of cranking your compression, try a different spring rate IE different air pressure. I also think you might be thinking of Hi leverage bikes where the large canister is alot beneficial, helps keep the air pressure from ramping up so damn fast, We see people setting up there rear shock with more sag than they are supposed to have just so they can use all the travel, swap out the canister, usually an rp3, to the Hi volume, they can run higher pressure, and not get the ramp up like the smaller canister.

 

I think that their is alot of untapped technology that can be applied to suspension. Bose makes speakers, and all of us bass heads know how important air suspension is in speaker design. I haven't read about their noise cancellation technology but seems that you would use a pressure (sound) wave to cancel out another wave, making it an air damper of sorts. I bring this up because I believe that a "shock" company or any company for that matter is really good at evolving their product, but that revolutions happen when they come across a technology that has been employed by other companies for a different but similar use. For example, I work for a company that makes aerospace refueling equipment. Our pressure control valves use coil springs, air/or fuel for bias and some employ manifolds with solenoids wired to computers with pressure transducers monitering upsream and downstream pressure levels. It was fun testing the new digital setups for engineering because I immediatly saw how a similar setup can be used in the suspension industry. I won't spill the beans on my digital ideas, but here's an easy DIY project that I would love to help you guys out with if your interested. It would be very inexpensive to make a prototype. Basically take/make a bypass shock for a long travel fork and use 2;3;4 way valve inline with the bypass line (with me so far?)with different sized oriffices in your valve for an on the fly adjustable fork. You can run a mechanical line to the bars to control the valve or employ a manifold block with a solenoid for a bar mounted digital switch.
As far as rear shocks are concerned: they're already sick, just use your legs more if you need an improvement.

 

Occam's razor: the spring is a spring (either air or coil) dampen it with oil, or air if you wish, you still get a spring, dampened with a liquid, that takes the "shock" out of the impact. Squish-boing-sshh, Squish-boing-sshh, can we come up with a better scenario? S

Squish-boing-ssh-Squish-boing-ssh-can we come up with a better scenario? Sorry for the lack of engineering terms.....even XC MX bikes feel the hits...

Just playing devil's advocate guys.. I like the tech talk too.

 

About the lack of technology, something I am sprized we dont see, since we are talking about vibration dampening,


Why havent we seen Inner and outer coil springs, IE if your current ride uses a 700Lb spring, run an outer spring that is 500, and an inner that is 200, that will get rid of ALOT of isolations, noise, and other unwanted side effects.

If you cant picture what I am saying, Lookm at a valve spring setup from any decently built motor, you will see the same thing.

 

I'm surprised that none of the fork manufacturers have came out with forks with anti-dive braking built into them. I'm not an engineer but it seems to me that particularly on a DH fork where a pedaling platform is less of a priority, this would be the shit. You could have a very supple low speed compression setting without having to worry about losing all your travel when hammering the brakes.

The technology has been around for years on motorcycles.

 

Cal epic-that's what I'm talking about. We got the travel down-according to yoru preferences-how about anti-dive? Without too much of a weight penalty?

 

How is this Anti-Dive feature achieved? Seems to me to be some sort of low speed damping control feature. I would like to know how this could be achieved without sacrificing the small bump compliance. I'm familiar with car suspension systems but not on the motorcycle side of things. Very intriguing.:-k I would think that the DH riders would benefit most from a frame geometry change during the suspension cycle.

 

If I were doing something like this on a bicycle fork, or any shock for that mater, I would use an Electronic system, something fairly simply, probably ninevolt power source, maybe set it up with Power tap hubs, but I would have a simple system that worked with the braking system to change the control valve just like you see in a car, but give it a Blow off valve that way if you happen to rail something during your turn, it lets go to let the wheel up and over.

 

Sounds more like the current Manitou SPV system with electronic controls. Unfortunately I think the SPV system could use a little more refinement. I've owned a couple of SPV forks and the small bump compliance is not what I call ideal. It's that first hit when the low speed circuit is closed is when the bike just doesn't feel right. Once it's opened up and cycling, it seems to work well. Still could make the transition from closed to open to be a little smoother.

 

I know I would kill for a solid anti-dive fork. that's one thing I hate about my 66 right now.

then again, I could live without the stiction, the leaking air...:lol: I guess I should rebuild it after mammoth this weekend.