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 should have mentioned, I’m in Canada.
WTF does that mean?
I might try that Telum next time around.
Have never thought of myself as a suspension tuner but being able to make back-to-back changes might be the only way I can ever get my shock exactly how I want.
Anyone have experience with NSR? He recommended Bos Syros or Fast Fenix 2 for his tuning - I’m intrigued…
Folks running the Telum - are you sending your shock back to Vorsprung for servicing? Any service centers in the US that would be able to service?
they wanted me to buy the shock from the german distributor for way too much money when i wanted to buy the shock directly from them in canada, utilizing my inferior buying power due to the very strong swiss franc, would have saved me about 500chf, went with fast suspension instead
Oh ok sweet as, so you have an issue with them following a completely normal distribution model? Were you planning on shipping it back to canada for a service every time as well? I normally wouldn't engage here but needed to clarify - The european distributors are the ones carrying shocks, parts and tools to make sure you're looked after in a reasonable time frame and the pricing is often dictated by certain things outside of their control. If that makes them too expensive for you then thats cool - you're welcome to get something locally produced if saving money if your priority. But it is in no way a legitimate argument against a product just because you feel like you should be able to bypass the local distributor. Most good overseas brands will protect their network in the same way
There should be several EPTC dealers that can service it - I think Fluid Focus would be close to you?
Eager to hear feedback as well. Have only heard great things about NSR
I tried a couple centers in the US and all of them said they could do it but it would be their first one, so off to Canada it went.
dunno, but i'm under the impression if you a) offer a website where you can put stuff in a cart AND b) let's you select your country AND c) also offer a shipping quote, then yes, you want to do business with said country. am i wrong? stuff like that can be setup properly...
Strange, there is nothing crazy or special about servicing the Telum. I think only one "special" tool is needed. As a Vorsprung product, I assume the bleed fitting is a common size. It does use the needle style fitting to charge the IFP.
Being a solid piston setup, service is actually a bit easier than most coil shocks. I'm actually a little sad to have not yet pulled the Telum apart, but there is really no reason to other than damage/leaking/aeration.
Maybe after the recommended 330,000 vertical feet just see how the oil looks. 😄
Yeah, and my reasoning was entirely due to not wanting my shock to be the first one these places have ever done as I was trying to get it done ASAP for a race. I would have probably not cared if it was in the dead of winter, but I didn't want any hangups or unexpected delays.
So it looks like I blew my Telum in Whistler over closing weekend. Didn't leak oil or anything, and there was still a difference between climb and descend positions, but was super clunky and noisy at the top end. Still rode it through the weekend, but now it's in the shop getting serviced. I'll give an update when they can tell me what went sideways.
I'm going to (kind of) blame myself for this one though as I had a big summer on the bike (Kamloops trip to start the season, Legacy bike park x2, France for two weeks of bike parks, a summer of shuttling, plus Whistler to top it off) and didn't service it at all. I'm also a big guy at 6'4, 260lbs. Pretty smooth rider, but mass is mass. Ha ha
Outside of this, it's been amazing all season. I've got it on a RAAW Madonna and it feels incredible and is super supportive.
Well, I kind of understand him. Distributors do not service your stuff for free, on the contrary, they earn a lot on service. So it's not like they are a godsend and doing you any favor... And since this model gives them monopoly, they will just rise the prices as much as possible. This model was 100% normal before the era of e-commerce. From a customer perspective you just need a service center and shipment batching. Personally I like the direct to consumer model much more. In fact, just releasing service guides and providing spare parts is the best way, your local suspension service can handle it from here perfectly.
Alrighty.....so, for starters the Telum is a premium product that anyone who buys it will EXPECT nothing but perfect performance, reliability and support from the manufacturer and supplier. No one is creaming it in the bike industry, especially mechanics and things are normally priced in line with global recommended retails set by the manufacturer. If they tried to mark things up too far it won't last very long for them.....
There are certain brands I sell which I invest thousands in tooling, parts and springs for and know every single part inside out, so if a rider has a problem I am the most experienced person in the region to deal with it. You can't get that kind of help from a pdf on the website and the staff at Vorsprung don't have the time to walk everybody around the world through specific problems so they need people who have invested the time in doing that job for them, and in return those distributors need to make at least enough money for it to be sustainable.
Vorsprung used to have multiple elite tuning centres across the country and we could all buy direct from them but as the brand got bigger and they were working towards releasing the Telum they moved to a single distributor model. I 100% supported that model because I know its not possible for a company to support every individual dealer directly, and they will sell 10x as many shocks if a distributor can handle the customer interaction and be able to deliver products and service much quicker. It is better and more sustainable for everyone in every way apart from price, but its just not realistic to supply a shock directly in any kind of scale AND make it cheaper AND give excellent aftermarket support. From what I can tell, Intend is one of the few to have a more direct sales approach but they are much much smaller volume so there is always a trade off
Personally, like a lot of people getting in to business I was worried about charging too much and tried to make things as cheap as I could. But I found that no matter what your prices are, someone still complains.....or they still expect you to jump through all the hoops and bend over backwards to earn a sale from them, while I barely make enough to break even, if that. And you don't get loyalty for doing it either because as soon as someone else is cheaper the customer will get it there, but weirdly if theres a problem they will still come back to me for help? It sounds like you are still expecting a service centre to maintain a shock like the Telum but they might not do them every day so how are they going to go if theres a problem? These are complex parts which not everyone is equipped to properly troubleshoot. If you want the best products there will be a price attached to it, you just need to decide if thats worth it for you or not.
that's all nice and ok, but they are offering an onlineshop, that is open world wide, and in which you can select switzerland as a delivery location, and then not delivering is weak. other companies only activate the countries they ship to in their shops and don't confuse potential customers
Brother, its probably just a simple mistake - sure its a little confusing but its not like there isn't a clear and blindingly obvious pathway for you to purchase a shock if thats what you genuinely are trying to do.
It's probably not been a major problem for anyone else, and there might be something in the backend that makes it a little harder to simply turn off - I know that is normally built in to the payment/shopping platform but don't run a webstore so not sure.
There are sometimes products that don't have an obvious answer for how to buy in your region, but I normally just move on and buy something else. In this case you obviously could buy a Telum quite easily if thats what you really want, you are just choosing to whine about it instead
there would have just been a small difference in price, of about A FUCKING THIRD OF THE PRICE. now tell me, what kind of benefits would i have gotten by ordering it from a distributor, in a neighboring country, which is part of a huge economic block named the EU, which my country is not a part of, which causes the same headaches than just ordering it directly from canada?
Dude, we know you don't like Vorsprung's distributor model, and without Vorsprung here to lay down their opinions its now sounding like someone screaming into the void. I'm sure Vorsrpung has fairly good reasons for why they wont sell to you, and why their website store allows you to select every country under the sun. My guess is that they set up a Shopify store with the basic settings and got on with their lives.
Now can we get back to talking about the performance of various coil shocks.
Well, I'm primarily a software developer, yet I also have solid experience in the bike industry.
Getting worked up over a glitch on a website wouldn't be too healthy looking term. Most bike related software I have used was fairly glitchy, not even the Germans seem to get it perfect.
Bike industry isn't good at Software.
If there's an issue buying something, reaching out to the company is the only useful way. If you don't like the response, perhaps it's time to look for another brand because there's a chance you won't like further responses if things don't go to expectations. Good luck.
Says a guy who ditched ohlins for Super deluxes haha why not just have a shock I can tune internally with no hassle..
Curious... Im on the opposite case.. vorsprung recommendation was a way lower spring rate than what I was using, on a spire.... and it's also the case on my Madonna V3 now.. Ihad lots of back and forth with them on this.. the most important setup difference though was rebound... I think I drifted towards slowish the past 2-3 years.. and the Telum setup with faster reb , lower spring rate and more compression is an eye opening experience.. I did force the turns on the valving to be able to use the rebound at the reommended setting but with more room to close it and I am fine.. for reference VS points for the madonna a ~420 lb/in spring and for the madonna I should be in 475 or more... for the spire I was in 450-475 territory and VS gave me 415 ; ). it rode great.
Interesting feedback! Cool to hear that you had the opposite problem with spring rate calculations.
I think optimal spring rate is pretty subjective overall, and while there are many wrong answers, there isn't one correct answer for any and all riders of a certain weight, height, riding style, etc. For a long time I've thought it was pretty bold of any company to try to guess spring rate over the internet (whether that company is Vorsprung, Push, EXT, etc), but this was my first time trying out a company's best guess. I was actually surprised how close they got, only being 25 pounds off.
Dialing in spring rate is the absolute worst part of riding a coil shock or fork, and my basic assumption is that you need at least 3 coils on hand to even know if you're on the right spring rate. I appreciate Vorsprung shipping the Telum with a Sprindex because it at least helps you along in that process.
Interesting, what is your weight? Were you running a cascade link on the Spire?
Vorsprung calculated 473# for the Telum on an Enduro, I had been riding a 475# spring so the recommendation was spot on.
The Spire with a Cascade link is very similar. Vorsprung Tuning Hub settings between Enduro and Spire is a matter of 2-3 clicks, the base tune and spring rates are the same.
weird.. but no CC link on the setup
Bike: Transition Spire 2021, 170mm, 29, 205x65 Trunnion, High Shock Mount
Approximate Bike Weight: 15kg / 33.1lbs
Approximate Rider Weight: 80kg / 176.4lbs
Terrain Speed: Mixed
Jump/Drop Size: Medium - Most Jumps. Nothing Too Huge
Terrain Steepness: Mixed
Rider Aggression: Advanced/Expert
Rider Strength To Weight: Typical
Bike Type: Standard
Preferred Feel: Balanced
Selected Spring Rate: 415lbs-in
Estimated Sag At Shock: 30%
we can, i got a Fast Suspension Fenix 2 instead, for the same money i would have paid for the Telum when bought directly and it’s great. i really like the mid speed compression to dial in support for different styled tracks. oh and it‘s available in stealth black and stealth black spring. they also offer lifelong warranty if you service the shock once a year and offer a rebuild in different lengths and metric/trunnion conversions so you buy one shock and can keep it when you‘re switching the frame
For what it's worth, the spring rate calculator on the Vosprung "seems" to have to major variables outside of weight that dictate the spring rate it gives you. One of them is fitness level and the other is feel. I've gotten some pretty spectacularly different values (50lb difference) with the same weight by adjusting those.
For me I've just ran the spring rate they recommended and it's been pretty good for me, though I think the HBO recommendation can be a bit "aggressive"
true, after changing frames to the Madonna v3, also the spring recommendation is just very far from Raaw's.. 60lb/in lower... that much that I am overwrriting the valving to a point in between of spring rate to bracket it.. although I am not asking for soft/confortable, no jumps or steep terrain.. the setup is heavily relying on damping, which is not bad thing, but littl ebit higer than ideal sag.. the tuning hub is an amazing tool
Anyone have experience with push's sv8? Curious how it compares to ohlins and rockshox
Post a reply to: Coil Shock Shootout