Smithage Hybrid Girderfork/Telefork dual suspension

Heres a quick Video on the dual suspension on the Zerode G3 being pushed through its respective travels…..180mm of the Fox40 and 55mm of the Link suspension…..

I plan on doing a few vids of the suspension working in on trail action…videoing is not one of my better skill sets so its taking awhile to sort out….

You would be pleasantly suprised at how it works......:-)

That is a very "brash" statement young man.... :-)

!80mm travel for the fork and 55mm travel for the link so a total travel of 235mm....but its not 235mm of linear travel....the 55mm of the Link suspension is a second different wheelpath to the Telefork...this addition of the extra wheelpath is what allows this sytem to standout from just a conventional Telefork or any other Link system we have seen before....and they travel in different directions with a difference of around 14.5 degrees depending on which wheelpath I choose....what this means is the front suspension is now much more sensitive to a wider range of bump sizes etc....it has a much wider sweetspot...its also adding a third level of compliance to the front suspension....the first two being the Tire and the Telefork
And yes the Link suspension because it pivots on bearings etc and a very low stiction/friction Ohlins airshock....hence has exceptionaly good small bump compliance etc....the fork also has very good small bump compliance....the fork is mounted at a steeper angle and this inherently makes the fork more sensitive to small bumps...what the video reveals is that when the Link suspension compresses it further steepens the Telefork..... which I quite favour makes the fork much less prodive when braking....add with that a smashpot coil conversion for the fork and overall this gives the front end next level overall compliance..."it is" exceptionaly good.....
I can use the long travel linearity of the coil spring Fork for general plushness and small medium and big hit compliance and traction and then rely on the progression of the Airshock to provide big hit deep travel bottoming control and general ramp up...each of which can be seperately tuned with minimal crossover....I can use the Ohlin shocks platform lockout lever to lockout the link suspension reverting only to the telefork which will see a big jump in wheel rate for better support when pedalling for example when transitioning up a slope....
Another feature I have found is because its using two dampers....the very good damper of the X2 in the Fox40 and the also very good damper of the Ohlins TXC2 shock...these two working together appear to give a higher overall damping coefficient at the wheel....this means that during an event like hitting a large or succesive large bumps the suspension is able recover and return to  a state of equilibrium and stability much quicker...but without the associated harshness that a highly damped setup would normally give...again it gives a better and wider sweetspot....

Heres a Vid of the suspension in action...this something I have been meaning to get done for a few months now but have been so busy with experimenting with a number of different front suspension configurations with 27.5 and 29 front wheels, fork travels of 160mm 180mm and 200mm giving total travels of 215mm 235mm and 255mm and their associated steering geometry's.

I have settled on a Fox40 setup of 180mm travel with a Smashpot coil conversion with the Blue secondary spring and a 60lb main spring....the X2 damper remains as received but I am finding it best to run at the more firmer end of the hi/lo  speed comp damping range....sometimes with the hi/lo comp at max hard which feels great when aggressively hitting stuff hard....on top of that I have burnished the fork bushes and as can be seen in the Vid it has very good small bump sensitivity from both the forks and the Link suspension.
This setup on the Fox40 gives the best steering geometry setup so far, its not perfect but very rideable.

The Ohlins TXC2 shock I run at around 93psi and has slightly revised rebound shim settings and as received comp shim specs which work quite well...its running no air spring volume spacers and I have in fact added a small volume chamber to the shock which adds around 5cc of air volume....being a XC based shock it was very progressive in its last 15mm of travel and before I added the extra volume I could not push it past that last 10mm of travel out of 55mm total,now it soft bottoms at around 3mm short of full travel...the cool thing about this chamber is I have set it up so it can work like a Sub Tank as some Moto MX bikes used to have.

So together total travel is 235mm and the level of superb overall front bump compliance has to be felt to be believed...and running the 27.5 front which allows me to run such a large amount of travel and still have a reasonable Axle to crown height and overall front height etc.
The feeling in the front can best be described as a confidence inspiring  feel of near bottomless travel that is so well damped but with none of the associated harshness, and because its so compliant and unharsh...feel over bumps is one of feeling the bumps as a dull thud but none of the associated harsh spike and vibration through the bars...because as a rider you dont need to filter out as much vibration etc you can better feel what the front tire and the suspension is doing.

So anyways this is about at a point where I am happy with it and its time to get some riders on it and get their perspectives on it.....I feel its now a good enough platform to at least demonstrate what this system has to offer.

Finally, the Vid gives a very good demonstration of how both the Fork and the Link suspension are working together...they are both Kinematically separated as much as possible, yet setup to work together as much as possible....

https://youtu.be/ItsdihoxyOE?si=fL3np9xvjD7-IkbI