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If there was anything that I would want electronic would be a little bluetooth connection or a teeny tiny screen with a percentage telling me when I should service my suspension. Not based on hours but performance changes. I am definitely the type to adapt and not realize Im overdue until my lockout stops working or the shock rebound is significantly slowed.
The point is to run less sag.
Running less sag makes a bike track poorly on account of losing contact with the ground anytime there’s an indent the wheel has to go over. You see the same exact issue with people lifting vehicles to drive off road. They throw preload collars on and all of the sudden they feel the truck is harsher. The spring rate hasn’t gotten stiffer so why does it feel harsher? It’s losing contact with the ground and causing the chassis to pitch to allow a wheel to drop into a hole as soon as a hole is deeper than the amount of sag.
You called?
Sir, I believe your bike has a cascade link.. so wouldn’t that mean you’re the one that called?
What’s rebound?
I’m following I got ya, making sense to me, I love some sag and know where the rebound knob is on my 2012 v10.
Cruz making the bike work for most everyone and not forum lurkers makes sense too…
So is there a tallboy link in the works for the big Boi’s ?
Does the move to Horst Leitners legendary design help you make a funky high pivot assembly for the Santa Cruz??? Whoa yeah
This doesn't match my experiences. I tried both air and coil shocks on my Murmur and preferred the coil by a very wide margin. It felt absolutely horrible on air for me. I had 0 issues with bottoming out on rocky sections and pretty much the only time I got close was on drops to flat. Even then it wasn't harsh at any point. I ride mostly natural trails and tried it a few times at bike parks, never had this issue there either. OTOH the air shock made it track worse and was a lot harsher.
I much preferred the way the bike rode in the longer setting with a EXT shock than I did in the shorter setting with the Ohlins. Not because of bottom outs, but the minor changes in geo and added travel made the bike feel a lot better IMO.
The main issue I had with the bike was square edge hit performance was pretty bad, it would catch on square edges and slow the bike down a lot, requiring more movement from me to get over whatever it was. I had a Twist for a while and this effect was even worse with that bike. Everywhere else, it was on par with most of what I'd rate the mid-range suspension performance bikes I had were. Not as good as the Steezl or Enduro, but not as bad as the v1 Sentinel or current Chilcotin either. I've ridden worse and I've ridden better, but bottoming out wasn't really an issue for me.
Jesus, sorry I asked about a coil shock on the new Tallboy.
Yeah, but they are quite similar - frame geos are within a few mms, same shock sizes, overall layout / shape looks the same, yada yada. I would not be surprised if SC staff was told - "we need a new bike with as little engineering costs as possible - why don't we reuse the designs of the late GT frames, tweak them a little and make them more SC-ish?" The story telling - the pedaling improvements, long vs short travel for VPP etc. is just vitriol-inducing pure marketing bullshit.
At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, but to me this might indicate a shift in SC's approach to making their bikes.
And that's the concern, not that the new Tallboy isn't a "good bike" it's probably pretty good for the average rider, but that SC is losing focus on what made them good. It's that cost savings comes before design and brand identity. I can see why Rob Roskopp left the brand.
Saw Kiran on alloy test mule in the winter. You cannot just make small geo changes to carbon production molds.
They may have used that GT as an inspiration, but to make geometry changes, add downtube storage, and any other change means that there was still considerable costs incurred...
I assume that's a joke. It's hard to contemplate buying a bike with all of the knobs and not trying different settings. Are there really people like that? If so, that makes me really sad for humanity. What is this world coming to?
Is there a Can of Worms emoji?
Just so everyone is on the same page, a 20% progressive DH bike and a 20% progressive trail bike can be two very different suspension systems. Below are two theoretical bikes that both have the same starting leverage ratio and the same 20% overall progression. However, the leverage slopes are different, meaning the rate of change through the travel is different.
Uh, that's most bike buyers. The number of people that I've sold bikes to who don't care/know what the knobs do is... the majority. We do our best to educate, but I could see their eyes glaze over in the first 10 seconds. The number of customers who care about how suspension works is less than 5% in my experience.
you and me both. but that begs a question for maybe another thread: should there be a short travel shreddy geo 29er bike with a coil shock specific leverage ratio then? seems like a thing Norco would do, or well, Cascade.
Reeb does this with the SST.
Technically Trek Top Fuel would cover that with all the adjustability. 130mm, high progression setting is 21%, especially with HBO shocks, you could find a decent spring rate with reasonable sag. A bunch of smaller brands, Revel Rascal that just won the PB Field Test.
That doesn't surprise me at all. I coach our high school bike team, and one of the first things I do is try to get suspension set up within an acceptable range. I'd say one of the other big issues (outside rebound) I see is pressure, so a shock pump and calipers prove quite handy. And these are kids who are stoked on riding and probably have more knowledge than the average consumer.
I also see people rocking what looks like 50% sag out on the trail, bobbing about, pedals almost hitting the ground, and it takes a lot of effort not to mansplain every time.
The Rascal is on my list of potential new frames, I love that it can be run coil and the CBF suspension sounds like it works great, I’m just not crazy about the Geo.
I also love the look and ethos of the REEB SST but I already own 2 steel bikes and don’t really want to deal with the weight of a coil sprung steel full suspension. I’m also not crazy about Flex Stays on anything but a dedicated XC bike. I’ve had 3 flex stay trail bikes over the last few years and I don’t love how they preform on chunkier terrain and repeated hits.
My ideal bike would be carbon with coil compatibility, 29er, 120-130mm rear suspension, no flex stay, 130-150mm fork, 480-485ish reach, 440+ chainstays, no headset routing, threaded BB and decent seat post insertion.
Is that too much for a guy to ask for?
"My ideal bike would be carbon with coil compatibility, 29er, 120-130mm rear suspension, no flex stay, 130-150mm fork, 480-485ish reach, 440+ chainstays, no headset routing, threaded BB and decent seat post insertion. "
That is exactly a Tallboy V4.1.
Your high school has a bike team? Cool.
I've got two words for you: Norco Optic.
Gen2 optic has a pressfit BB, which is the only downer to that bike. Sounds like old mate wants a previous generation Stumpy to me
That’s my current trail bike right now. Previously gen S4 carbon Stumpy (non evo) with the mullet link, 135mm rear travel, Super Deluxe air, 150mm Lyrik up front. It’s a great bike, but no coil compatibility and I’m not crazy about the flex stay.
Short travel coil king is probably Banshee Prime,
135 out back up to 160 up front, somewhere between 25-30% progression and goated geo.
On one side it is like the dumbest bike ever because it doesn't work with air shock at all (even tho it comes specced with one), which means you have to slap coil on it, and once you have coil you wanna go fast but you have 130mm of travel so you have to put on some DH tires.... and you end up with 16 kg+ trail bike which is not ideal because you basically end up with short travel enduro bike instead of a trail bike. Also insertion kinda sucks, which means that if you don't have long legs or are not ready to downsize it is definitley not bike for you
But on the other side you still keep all the positives of shorter travel bike, all the pop and it is nimble as fuck+ geo is the best so yeah.
Pros and cons, but if you are cheap and wanna slap coil on 130 bike Banshee Prime is the way to go.
I can confirm the REEB SST works quite well with a coil. Did 40+ miles and 9500ft descending last weekend. It would benefit from 440+ stays but overall it rips!
Guys I think you are reaching too far in to this - VPP was never any better or worse than other links out there, but the new layout makes a lot of sense from a packaging perspective so there are many legitimate reasons for the change. Also no disrespect to GT, but they haven't had a massive impact for a while as far as I can tell, but SC has plenty of good resources of their own - there is no reason they would be looking to GT for ideas
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