Hello Vital MTB Visitor,
We’re conducting a survey and would appreciate your input. Your answers will help Vital and the MTB industry better understand what riders like you want. Survey results will be used to recognize top brands. Make your voice heard!
Five lucky people will be selected at random to win a Vital MTB t-shirt.
Thanks in advance,
The Vital MTB Crew
I’m not a suspension engineer, but i’ve had my way with tinkering the Sunday’s suspension and geo for years, ended up with an air shock on it and adjustments’ setup that made it possible to ride it as an enduro bike while still being a complete animal on a dh-course. Pretty happy with how it was at the end, so not sure what exactly is considered an issue with a long-travel dw-link bike.
controlling the kinematics on two very short links is a challenge which is why most companies opt for longer link designs like 4 bar. santa cruz and their design works great but not all short link designs are the same sadly. n the pivot, The axle path also pitches forward far more than most long travel suspension designs. high pivot is making large strides in the downhill scene and pivot's design is nearly the opposite of that
Every manufacturer has their own patents on suspension that are protected but at the same time, they are limited to what fits that patent unless they want to do something wildly original or completely unoriginal. Short link 4 bar/VPP is great for some applications but largely are not suited for downhill. Santa Cruz v10 being the clear exception as their design has been very successful.
sorry for the long writing
e
But why is Santa Cruz pretty successful with it while Intense wouldn't ?
Although if that's the case, making a HP, session copy is kinda like just stepping from one shadow to another...
As to why SC would be more successful? More money and personnel to develop the bikes compared to Intense?
Seems to me that at some point Gwin was riding a covered up session, which then moved on to a covered up Intense prototype after testing the session.
That said, I'm a believer in HL suspension designs for longer travel bikes.
Mounting to the top link creates all sorts of weird curves, potentially more than a long travel DW link.
Whats strange is that Intense's "JS tune" was stated by them to be more linear than Santa Cruz's VPP, but with how short the links are on the Intense DH bikes that probably only applied to their trail bikes.
Having thought about entering an actual enduro race a few times, I'm pretty qualified to pontificate on the subject and I tend to agree with Neko, more linear = more predictability (and therefore faster)
And while I am not a DW fanboi, the fact that Dave Weagle lost a patent lawsuit against Giant is a travesty of justice. Some real BS there from Giant.