That certainly is an interesting start into a post about tone policing. Out of curiosity, did you for example bother checking the Fox part list? The...
That certainly is an interesting start into a post about tone policing. Out of curiosity, did you for example bother checking the Fox part list? The only listed rebound tune for Grip X is called RF (Rebound firm). Like, it's not even a secret.
You do have a point here or there of course, but the way you posted is not the way you'd want the interaction coming your way I'm sure.
I wasn't sure where everything was coming from but a bit of Googling shows there was a suspension guru with the handle Dougal on mtbr that...
I wasn't sure where everything was coming from but a bit of Googling shows there was a suspension guru with the handle Dougal on mtbr that got banned for... Let's say unkind posts. I think @DServy assumes @Dougal - SC is the same person behind the mote or less the same handle and doesn't want Vital MTB to turn to the shitshow that was MTBR before the ban.
"it appears that DServy was banned from MTBR following some controversial or unkind posts. [1]"The plot thickens lol, havent seen anything dickish from Dougal...
"it appears that DServy was banned from MTBR following some controversial or unkind posts. [1]"
The plot thickens lol, havent seen anything dickish from Dougal here, just helpful advice (dont know the past).
I've never been banned from MTBR, Don't even have an account, so don't know where you got that from.
As far as what what Friedrichsaid, I actually agree 100%. There is, and traditionally has been, some crap product out there with thing that don't do what they say or will never work for a given scenario. I think one of my favorite examples is the mythical HSC knob on the first generation GripX2 that was basically a placebo.
You specified it quite well where sometimes things are just up to the job, but I feel an equally valid opinion is asking whether something is the right tool for the job to begin with. Why are you expecting a damper designed for application A to preform equally as good as application B? The fact of the matter is that the products made for the masses of bike riders are trying to provide windows of functionality for an incredible range of rider weight and styles, and that's incredibly difficult. That is fundamentally why I am hesitant to make the outright claims people desperately want to make, and I think people should be wary about the claims of random strangers on the internet.
Take for example your GripX comment and its bemoaned RF tune. As a heavier rider in a 120mm fork it works great. Simply put, the lack of travel makes slowing down shafts speeds and dissipating energy in the return stoke a much more difficult task than it is with my DH fork with 200mm of travel and a heavy front wheel with a DH tire on it. Does that intrinsically mean that damper is bad? Maybe? It certainly is noisy. Would I recommend said damper for 130 lb riders in long travel applications? Probably not, do I think it odd that Fox shoved them in their long travel applications? Probably. Do I think it's even odder than a company like Ibis (who is notorious for fast rebound tunes with their "tractive tuned" rears) put them on ripmos? Yep. Is it a better damper for me in my 34 then the previous one? I think so.
Having spent some time, although not nearly enough, actually recording and looking at suspension data I can firmly say that suspension dynamics is a gordian knot. I've seen tuning sessions where every change we've made to the fork only changed the meaningful data in the shock (due to the rider shifting their center of mass), I've been in sessions where literally nothing meaningful changed in the data but the rider ended up 8% faster on an 4 minute track. These systems are complex and dynamic, so should the discussion around them be as well.
Look, my intent wasn't to derail this thread into the nature of engineering good and evil: suspension edition. It was an attempt to ward off the evils of "guru"fication of the vital suspension forms.
Before this goes the wrong way: Some commentators are plainly frustrated rather than hateful. It becomes clear if you allow for that perspective when reading the respective comments.
To stay with the example: I would love the Grip X to be great for as many people as possible. After all, I guess everyone that is as deep into the matter as the people reading this are asked "What would you buy" from time to time. I think there were potential for this to be true. In my opinion, current fork offerings from Fox are much better than their Rockshox counterparts, but sadly only on the potential level in some aspects. There are great ideas but exectution of some parts seems weird to me. Did the Grip X have e.g. a thicker shaft, say 10mm, and more mid valve as well as base valve tunes available to account for differences in rider weight (respectively spring rate), I think it could be a great product. I couldn't care less about it being noisy.
Long story short: More information is better. Dougals views may be controversial and he may not be as good at stressing positive aspects rather than aspects where the products do fall short (be that objective or subjective, both can happen), but he is one of few people to offer lots of interesting insights. You can, after all, always decide the information does not matter to you.
I hate to break it to you, but both can be true. There can both be utter fanboys of anything (big suspension, tuners, products, what have...
I hate to break it to you, but both can be true. There can both be utter fanboys of anything (big suspension, tuners, products, what have you) and designs that are objectively really poor. Designs where you have to wonder how they passed any testing.
Before getting into such issues, suspension setups of less experienced riders tend to have a lot of room for improvement. I think that's due to mostly two reasons:
- A heap of "tutorials" are put out by people that are at least bad at explaining and maybe even bad at understanding the concepts behind suspension setup. - The concept of how the internal valving will only work for a certain spring rate range is extremely undercommunicated.
If you are not aware it's a realistic scenario that your rear shock (rarely fork damper) is never going to perform well with the spring rate you want/have to run, that is a problem. This is not helped by AI guides that provide you "precise clicker positions" for shock models without having any resources about the internals.
The next issue then is more of a design thing, e.g. clickers on your suspension which do not do what they say on them, pistons with ports that are too small for their job, oil that is too thick to be temperature stable, ... It is absolutely fair to point these out, especially to people who have not yet bought their next suspension product. And it is absolutely possible to recommend models from big suspension that require the least amount of work to get into a happy place.
The real problems start, however, if people feel like their favourite toy is being attacked. That is where the conversation always goes sideways. This also usually is the point where people start flexing their riding skills to prove points that just can't be proven that way. I am not sure how one should go about this, though.
The rebound tune question about Grip X is a perfect example. It is objectively true the rebound tune is going to be too firm (i.e. slow) for a good portion of riders, however large that may be. It is also true that for spring rates that the rebound tune works well for, the fork will lack compression damping. Yet you call that "shitting on hard engineering work".
This has to be up there on the list of most polite way of saying that big suspension typically has to be tuned to work well regardless of how many dials you can play with. The base tunes are all over the place, one generation is almost slope style level firm, next gen of the same fork comes with basically no compression damping at all. Why? No one cares to explain, feel free to guess. Or maybe that's how it came to be? They are guessing?
I wasn't sure where everything was coming from but a bit of Googling shows there was a suspension guru with the handle Dougal on mtbr that...
I wasn't sure where everything was coming from but a bit of Googling shows there was a suspension guru with the handle Dougal on mtbr that got banned for... Let's say unkind posts. I think @DServy assumes @Dougal - SC is the same person behind the mote or less the same handle and doesn't want Vital MTB to turn to the shitshow that was MTBR before the ban.
"it appears that DServy was banned from MTBR following some controversial or unkind posts. [1]"The plot thickens lol, havent seen anything dickish from Dougal...
"it appears that DServy was banned from MTBR following some controversial or unkind posts. [1]"
The plot thickens lol, havent seen anything dickish from Dougal here, just helpful advice (dont know the past).
I've never been banned from MTBR, Don't even have an account, so don't know where you got that from.As far as what what Friedrichsaid, I...
I've never been banned from MTBR, Don't even have an account, so don't know where you got that from.
As far as what what Friedrichsaid, I actually agree 100%. There is, and traditionally has been, some crap product out there with thing that don't do what they say or will never work for a given scenario. I think one of my favorite examples is the mythical HSC knob on the first generation GripX2 that was basically a placebo.
You specified it quite well where sometimes things are just up to the job, but I feel an equally valid opinion is asking whether something is the right tool for the job to begin with. Why are you expecting a damper designed for application A to preform equally as good as application B? The fact of the matter is that the products made for the masses of bike riders are trying to provide windows of functionality for an incredible range of rider weight and styles, and that's incredibly difficult. That is fundamentally why I am hesitant to make the outright claims people desperately want to make, and I think people should be wary about the claims of random strangers on the internet.
Take for example your GripX comment and its bemoaned RF tune. As a heavier rider in a 120mm fork it works great. Simply put, the lack of travel makes slowing down shafts speeds and dissipating energy in the return stoke a much more difficult task than it is with my DH fork with 200mm of travel and a heavy front wheel with a DH tire on it. Does that intrinsically mean that damper is bad? Maybe? It certainly is noisy. Would I recommend said damper for 130 lb riders in long travel applications? Probably not, do I think it odd that Fox shoved them in their long travel applications? Probably. Do I think it's even odder than a company like Ibis (who is notorious for fast rebound tunes with their "tractive tuned" rears) put them on ripmos? Yep. Is it a better damper for me in my 34 then the previous one? I think so.
Having spent some time, although not nearly enough, actually recording and looking at suspension data I can firmly say that suspension dynamics is a gordian knot. I've seen tuning sessions where every change we've made to the fork only changed the meaningful data in the shock (due to the rider shifting their center of mass), I've been in sessions where literally nothing meaningful changed in the data but the rider ended up 8% faster on an 4 minute track. These systems are complex and dynamic, so should the discussion around them be as well.
Look, my intent wasn't to derail this thread into the nature of engineering good and evil: suspension edition. It was an attempt to ward off the evils of "guru"fication of the vital suspension forms.
It was just copy and pasted from google. Dougals advice mirrors the "Healthy Alternatives" in your link". Why would you be upset with somebody following the advice you shared in the link. That is what I was thinking in my head.
I wasn't sure where everything was coming from but a bit of Googling shows there was a suspension guru with the handle Dougal on mtbr that...
I wasn't sure where everything was coming from but a bit of Googling shows there was a suspension guru with the handle Dougal on mtbr that got banned for... Let's say unkind posts. I think @DServy assumes @Dougal - SC is the same person behind the mote or less the same handle and doesn't want Vital MTB to turn to the shitshow that was MTBR before the ban.
"it appears that DServy was banned from MTBR following some controversial or unkind posts. [1]"The plot thickens lol, havent seen anything dickish from Dougal...
"it appears that DServy was banned from MTBR following some controversial or unkind posts. [1]"
The plot thickens lol, havent seen anything dickish from Dougal here, just helpful advice (dont know the past).
I've never been banned from MTBR, Don't even have an account, so don't know where you got that from.As far as what what Friedrichsaid, I...
I've never been banned from MTBR, Don't even have an account, so don't know where you got that from.
As far as what what Friedrichsaid, I actually agree 100%. There is, and traditionally has been, some crap product out there with thing that don't do what they say or will never work for a given scenario. I think one of my favorite examples is the mythical HSC knob on the first generation GripX2 that was basically a placebo.
You specified it quite well where sometimes things are just up to the job, but I feel an equally valid opinion is asking whether something is the right tool for the job to begin with. Why are you expecting a damper designed for application A to preform equally as good as application B? The fact of the matter is that the products made for the masses of bike riders are trying to provide windows of functionality for an incredible range of rider weight and styles, and that's incredibly difficult. That is fundamentally why I am hesitant to make the outright claims people desperately want to make, and I think people should be wary about the claims of random strangers on the internet.
Take for example your GripX comment and its bemoaned RF tune. As a heavier rider in a 120mm fork it works great. Simply put, the lack of travel makes slowing down shafts speeds and dissipating energy in the return stoke a much more difficult task than it is with my DH fork with 200mm of travel and a heavy front wheel with a DH tire on it. Does that intrinsically mean that damper is bad? Maybe? It certainly is noisy. Would I recommend said damper for 130 lb riders in long travel applications? Probably not, do I think it odd that Fox shoved them in their long travel applications? Probably. Do I think it's even odder than a company like Ibis (who is notorious for fast rebound tunes with their "tractive tuned" rears) put them on ripmos? Yep. Is it a better damper for me in my 34 then the previous one? I think so.
Having spent some time, although not nearly enough, actually recording and looking at suspension data I can firmly say that suspension dynamics is a gordian knot. I've seen tuning sessions where every change we've made to the fork only changed the meaningful data in the shock (due to the rider shifting their center of mass), I've been in sessions where literally nothing meaningful changed in the data but the rider ended up 8% faster on an 4 minute track. These systems are complex and dynamic, so should the discussion around them be as well.
Look, my intent wasn't to derail this thread into the nature of engineering good and evil: suspension edition. It was an attempt to ward off the evils of "guru"fication of the vital suspension forms.
That was a great article - I'm surprised I hadn't seen it before! Sadly there are certain people who focus too heavily on why they think products "suck" and telling everyone their set up is wrong instead of giving them useful advice. Unfortunately because the arguments descend in to bickering over mythical problems it distracts from the things that would genuinely help people or improve the industry. Often these "interesting insights" are just straight up disinformation or so disingenuous that the person making them has to either be lying or stupid. They are using the fact that most people don't have a deep understanding of the subject to overwhelm you with big words so you assume they know what they're talking about.
For sure, people can make up their own minds about things, just be wary of anyone who insists on saying you are wrong in what you are feeling on the bike, or that the brands don't know what they are doing - they do (some more than others)
Dear Dougal,I know your favorite past time is to shit on the hard engineering work of people and then yell at them when they try to...
Dear Dougal,
I know your favorite past time is to shit on the hard engineering work of people and then yell at them when they try to engage you in good faith arguments. I get that you are also trying to be helpful, and probably mean less malice than it comes across over the internet because, frankly, the internet is a shithole of everyone yelling at each other. But Vital has been a space that seems to have remained a refuge of reasonability despite everything else falling to click and rage bate. I am glad Vital is not the pinkbike comment section, nor is it mtbr, and I (as well as other people) would love to keep it that way.
So with that being said, can we please avoid the shit talking and mater of fact statements because that's the quickest way to turn vital into the internet hellscape I so desperately want to avoid. I also do not want, nor have the ability to, prevent your opinions and discussion on this platform.
So with that being said, I implore you to try a different tact when expressing your opinions to make it clear that they are, in fact, solely your opinions.
statements like "I believe, or I think or I feel" are great in letting a reader know you are speaking from a place of discussion and help foster people being receptive to listening.
For example, lets take the following:
"The GRIPX2 released at the same time went firm and harsh, the GRIPX went with really soft compression and slow rebound."
Having owned both dampers I can honestly say that my experience with both, for their given applications and intent, have been extremely positive, and that I believe your matter of fact statement is horseshit. You could potentially alleviated my raged induced reaction by more fully expressing the fact that it is coming from your own experiance, which 100% differs from my own. That would look something like the following:
"I believe the gripx2 released at the same time is both firm and harsh, however my experiences with the gripx are the exact opposite where I feel it is both soft in compression and over-damped (slow) in rebound."
Your opinions are the same, but it comes off less dickish and more engaging for discussion. Please remember that words (or the absence of them) matter. And with some careful reframing you can express your opinions and keep vital a pleasant place to engage other mountain bikers from around the world.
Sincerely,
Someone who really likes vital's community
Hi, that's a lot of words. Nice to meet you.
I don't know why you take my words so seriously, I'm just a guy who likes to tinker with this stuff and share what I've found. I've also found the owners of some stuff get quite aggressive when I mention it might be less than perfect for every rider everywhere! This makes for some bizarre discussions.
The GRIPX2 for example is firmer than every other GRIP and every other recent Fox damper. The square edge harshness was a known problem and that's why Fox redesigned the midvalve in their latest update. The one where they clipped the sides off the shims to help the oil flow.
Likewise the GRIPX. It's got a lot of rebound damping and if you're 80+kg that's fine. But if you're 80+ kg you really want more compression damping. The compression damping is nice for 50-60kg riders but for them the rebound is too slow. If Fox had released 2-3 different compression and rebound options it would make perfect sense.......
I've got dyno charts showing all this if you want to see them. It's fine if you don't.
@Primoz I got (temp) banned from MTBR for arguing with a moderator. He kept claiming I'd broken rules but couldn't show where and pulled the "I am the authority and you will get banned for arguing with me" card. It's a known problem.
That certainly is an interesting start into a post about tone policing. Out of curiosity, did you for example bother checking the Fox part list? The...
That certainly is an interesting start into a post about tone policing. Out of curiosity, did you for example bother checking the Fox part list? The only listed rebound tune for Grip X is called RF (Rebound firm). Like, it's not even a secret.
You do have a point here or there of course, but the way you posted is not the way you'd want the interaction coming your way I'm sure.
I wasn't sure where everything was coming from but a bit of Googling shows there was a suspension guru with the handle Dougal on mtbr that...
I wasn't sure where everything was coming from but a bit of Googling shows there was a suspension guru with the handle Dougal on mtbr that got banned for... Let's say unkind posts. I think @DServy assumes @Dougal - SC is the same person behind the mote or less the same handle and doesn't want Vital MTB to turn to the shitshow that was MTBR before the ban.
Or something along those lines?
I won't sugarcoat it, He single handedly ruined MTBR suspension forum. There were so many knowledgable industry insiders, inventors, owners and passionate puzzlers on that forum and according to him they were all wrong, non-sensical ranting and bickering meant most of those incredible posters left the forum and didn't contribute anymore.
Don't let history repeat itself is all I'm saying, this forum is the exact same, nerds, industry insiders and company owners all stoked on bikes. Let's keep it that way!
I won't sugarcoat it, He single handedly ruined MTBR suspension forum. There were so many knowledgable industry insiders, inventors, owners and passionate puzzlers on that forum...
I won't sugarcoat it, He single handedly ruined MTBR suspension forum. There were so many knowledgable industry insiders, inventors, owners and passionate puzzlers on that forum and according to him they were all wrong, non-sensical ranting and bickering meant most of those incredible posters left the forum and didn't contribute anymore.
Don't let history repeat itself is all I'm saying, this forum is the exact same, nerds, industry insiders and company owners all stoked on bikes. Let's keep it that way!
Nice to meet you too. This is getting pretty off-topic, perhaps a new, dedicated, thread would help.
Dear Dougal,I know your favorite past time is to shit on the hard engineering work of people and then yell at them when they try to...
Dear Dougal,
I know your favorite past time is to shit on the hard engineering work of people and then yell at them when they try to engage you in good faith arguments. I get that you are also trying to be helpful, and probably mean less malice than it comes across over the internet because, frankly, the internet is a shithole of everyone yelling at each other. But Vital has been a space that seems to have remained a refuge of reasonability despite everything else falling to click and rage bate. I am glad Vital is not the pinkbike comment section, nor is it mtbr, and I (as well as other people) would love to keep it that way.
So with that being said, can we please avoid the shit talking and mater of fact statements because that's the quickest way to turn vital into the internet hellscape I so desperately want to avoid. I also do not want, nor have the ability to, prevent your opinions and discussion on this platform.
So with that being said, I implore you to try a different tact when expressing your opinions to make it clear that they are, in fact, solely your opinions.
statements like "I believe, or I think or I feel" are great in letting a reader know you are speaking from a place of discussion and help foster people being receptive to listening.
For example, lets take the following:
"The GRIPX2 released at the same time went firm and harsh, the GRIPX went with really soft compression and slow rebound."
Having owned both dampers I can honestly say that my experience with both, for their given applications and intent, have been extremely positive, and that I believe your matter of fact statement is horseshit. You could potentially alleviated my raged induced reaction by more fully expressing the fact that it is coming from your own experiance, which 100% differs from my own. That would look something like the following:
"I believe the gripx2 released at the same time is both firm and harsh, however my experiences with the gripx are the exact opposite where I feel it is both soft in compression and over-damped (slow) in rebound."
Your opinions are the same, but it comes off less dickish and more engaging for discussion. Please remember that words (or the absence of them) matter. And with some careful reframing you can express your opinions and keep vital a pleasant place to engage other mountain bikers from around the world.
Hi, that's a lot of words. Nice to meet you.I don't know why you take my words so seriously, I'm just a guy who likes to...
Hi, that's a lot of words. Nice to meet you.
I don't know why you take my words so seriously, I'm just a guy who likes to tinker with this stuff and share what I've found. I've also found the owners of some stuff get quite aggressive when I mention it might be less than perfect for every rider everywhere! This makes for some bizarre discussions.
The GRIPX2 for example is firmer than every other GRIP and every other recent Fox damper. The square edge harshness was a known problem and that's why Fox redesigned the midvalve in their latest update. The one where they clipped the sides off the shims to help the oil flow.
Likewise the GRIPX. It's got a lot of rebound damping and if you're 80+kg that's fine. But if you're 80+ kg you really want more compression damping. The compression damping is nice for 50-60kg riders but for them the rebound is too slow. If Fox had released 2-3 different compression and rebound options it would make perfect sense.......
I've got dyno charts showing all this if you want to see them. It's fine if you don't.
@Primoz I got (temp) banned from MTBR for arguing with a moderator. He kept claiming I'd broken rules but couldn't show where and pulled the "I am the authority and you will get banned for arguing with me" card. It's a known problem.
Always want dyno charts. More dyno charts!
Would love to see charger 3.2 or 3.1 vs grip x2. Very curious how much the HSC really differs between these two dampers. The forks ride different, yeah, but there's a lot of differences in there beyond just HSC so....
That certainly is an interesting start into a post about tone policing. Out of curiosity, did you for example bother checking the Fox part list? The...
That certainly is an interesting start into a post about tone policing. Out of curiosity, did you for example bother checking the Fox part list? The only listed rebound tune for Grip X is called RF (Rebound firm). Like, it's not even a secret.
You do have a point here or there of course, but the way you posted is not the way you'd want the interaction coming your way I'm sure.
I wasn't sure where everything was coming from but a bit of Googling shows there was a suspension guru with the handle Dougal on mtbr that...
I wasn't sure where everything was coming from but a bit of Googling shows there was a suspension guru with the handle Dougal on mtbr that got banned for... Let's say unkind posts. I think @DServy assumes @Dougal - SC is the same person behind the mote or less the same handle and doesn't want Vital MTB to turn to the shitshow that was MTBR before the ban.
I won't sugarcoat it, He single handedly ruined MTBR suspension forum. There were so many knowledgable industry insiders, inventors, owners and passionate puzzlers on that forum...
I won't sugarcoat it, He single handedly ruined MTBR suspension forum. There were so many knowledgable industry insiders, inventors, owners and passionate puzzlers on that forum and according to him they were all wrong, non-sensical ranting and bickering meant most of those incredible posters left the forum and didn't contribute anymore.
Don't let history repeat itself is all I'm saying, this forum is the exact same, nerds, industry insiders and company owners all stoked on bikes. Let's keep it that way!
Always want dyno charts. More dyno charts!Would love to see charger 3.2 or 3.1 vs grip x2. Very curious how much the HSC really differs between...
Always want dyno charts. More dyno charts!
Would love to see charger 3.2 or 3.1 vs grip x2. Very curious how much the HSC really differs between these two dampers. The forks ride different, yeah, but there's a lot of differences in there beyond just HSC so....
Here's one for you to chew on. Fox GRIPX2 (V1) vs RS Charger 3.1 RC2. You can see there's almost no range to the GRIPX2 LSC adjuster and the GRIPX2 LSR range is a bit over half the RS.
But the GRIPX2 is a better damper than the Charger 3.1 and requires fewer new parts to make it behave, take out the harshness and give it the range you need. Both of these can be tuned up to a very good result.
Dyno plot. Fox GRIPX2 vs Rockshox Charger 3.1 RC2. LSC & LSR Range
Here's one for you to chew on. Fox GRIPX2 (V1) vs RS Charger 3.1 RC2. You can see there's almost no range to the GRIPX2 LSC...
Here's one for you to chew on. Fox GRIPX2 (V1) vs RS Charger 3.1 RC2. You can see there's almost no range to the GRIPX2 LSC adjuster and the GRIPX2 LSR range is a bit over half the RS.
But the GRIPX2 is a better damper than the Charger 3.1 and requires fewer new parts to make it behave, take out the harshness and give it the range you need. Both of these can be tuned up to a very good result.
Dyno plot. Fox GRIPX2 vs Rockshox Charger 3.1 RC2. LSC & LSR Range
Can someone delete that for me. That's GRIPX, not GRIPX2. I'll upload the correct one. I don't appear to have editing rights.
I hate to break it to you, but both can be true. There can both be utter fanboys of anything (big suspension, tuners, products, what have...
I hate to break it to you, but both can be true. There can both be utter fanboys of anything (big suspension, tuners, products, what have you) and designs that are objectively really poor. Designs where you have to wonder how they passed any testing.
Before getting into such issues, suspension setups of less experienced riders tend to have a lot of room for improvement. I think that's due to mostly two reasons:
- A heap of "tutorials" are put out by people that are at least bad at explaining and maybe even bad at understanding the concepts behind suspension setup. - The concept of how the internal valving will only work for a certain spring rate range is extremely undercommunicated.
If you are not aware it's a realistic scenario that your rear shock (rarely fork damper) is never going to perform well with the spring rate you want/have to run, that is a problem. This is not helped by AI guides that provide you "precise clicker positions" for shock models without having any resources about the internals.
The next issue then is more of a design thing, e.g. clickers on your suspension which do not do what they say on them, pistons with ports that are too small for their job, oil that is too thick to be temperature stable, ... It is absolutely fair to point these out, especially to people who have not yet bought their next suspension product. And it is absolutely possible to recommend models from big suspension that require the least amount of work to get into a happy place.
The real problems start, however, if people feel like their favourite toy is being attacked. That is where the conversation always goes sideways. This also usually is the point where people start flexing their riding skills to prove points that just can't be proven that way. I am not sure how one should go about this, though.
The rebound tune question about Grip X is a perfect example. It is objectively true the rebound tune is going to be too firm (i.e. slow) for a good portion of riders, however large that may be. It is also true that for spring rates that the rebound tune works well for, the fork will lack compression damping. Yet you call that "shitting on hard engineering work".
This has to be up there on the list of most polite way of saying that big suspension typically has to be tuned to work well...
This has to be up there on the list of most polite way of saying that big suspension typically has to be tuned to work well regardless of how many dials you can play with. The base tunes are all over the place, one generation is almost slope style level firm, next gen of the same fork comes with basically no compression damping at all. Why? No one cares to explain, feel free to guess. Or maybe that's how it came to be? They are guessing?
[edit: quoted, but this is meant in response to no previous post or user in particular]
As someone who designs and manufactures aftermarket components to upgrade 'big suspension' put me on the record in their defense. I think they actually do a remarkable job at what is really an impossible task.
Imagine designing something within the small confines of an MTB fork and the accepted dimensional standards. Make it light enough and cheap enough for what the market demands at retail and OEM. Manufacture and assemble it at massive scale to acceptably high QC standards, align dozens of critical tolerances to fractions of a millimeter during forging, machining, finishing, and assembly with minimal scrap or rejection rates. Reduce friction to an absolute minimum but make it durable and low maintenance (assume most riders are not going to follow the service intervals) without a massive loss in performance. Make it both easy to understand and operate for an absolute novice and adjustable enough for experienced tuners. Design the damper and air spring to work everywhere from the jankiest jank, to slippery hard pack, from Bellingham to Finale to Tahoe, to Bentonville. Optimize for all types or dirt, terrain, and topography. Now make it perform for riders with poor technique and body position and also physically fit and dynamic riders who actively load their suspension and aren't just along for the ride, and everyone in between. Provide a tuning range that covers riders of all abilities weighing under 50kg to well over 100kg. Make it work in a broad temperature range. Make it work with all bike geometries and weight distributions. Optimize the damper and air spring for a 40mm difference in max travel. Make it plush but also supportive, and instantly responsive at all shaft speeds but also stable when the constantly moving rider weighs on average 5 to 7 times more than the bike. Make it work on all the different types of impacts and loads found on every type of MTB trail. Make it last for several seasons. Make one stock option that brands can spec on every bike in their lineup. Please all the product managers. Please all the customers. Make everyone happy.
It's really easy for aftermarket and boutique manufacturers to identify the compromises that have to be made and address them, though I'd argue there is no magic bullet that eliminates all of them. It's a lot easier to hop on the back of a big brand's R&D, engineering, and manufacturing capability and then redesign or optimize any one or a small number of the internal components with the same focus they needed to give to the entire fork or shock, and to do it at a fraction of the volume, and target a small segment of the market or use case.
But to promote those products and services with the narrative that 'big suspension' is a scam or the brands are all just cutting corners and don't have riders best interest and experience in mind is just disingenuous. Of course it's a lot harder to communicate what benefit custom tuning and aftermarket components can add to a well designed system rather than pointing to a shortcoming and calling the engineers inept or lazy and claiming to have solved the problem they were too ignorant to understand. I'd argue our business exists not so much because they get so many things wrong, but because they get so many of them right.
That isn't to say large brands are immune from bringing problematic designs to market or have been slow to respond to QC issues, they certainly have. But the vast majority of what you can buy works really well for a huge range of riders, is easy to service, and is incredibly durable from the mid-tier to the top end.
Why we would let Dougal, a shock tuner and distributor of Manitou in NZ, stand on a soap box here and shit all over every single other brand of suspension and most every other tuner, i have no idea.
Most of my local stores dislike dealing with him and one actively refuses to order anything from him, if that tells you anything.
Why we would let Dougal, a shock tuner and distributor of Manitou in NZ, stand on a soap box here and shit all over every single...
Why we would let Dougal, a shock tuner and distributor of Manitou in NZ, stand on a soap box here and shit all over every single other brand of suspension and most every other tuner, i have no idea.
Most of my local stores dislike dealing with him and one actively refuses to order anything from him, if that tells you anything.
Might be the one we blacklisted because they couldn't reinstall a fork, didn't own a torque wrench and tried to blame us...... It's a brutal world out there. All of the shops we deal with moan about all their suppliers.
Nah, I'm very familiar with the sigh I get when i ask for Hayes parts at most shops, it's not just because you've blacklisted someone.
I like that you instantly bounced it back, got on the attack, and said someone else was shit. Just like you do with suspension every time you make a comment. Even though you have no idea who i'm talking about.
When I had an issue with one of your forks you made me take it to the most hamfisted mechanic in the city (after blaming me for the issue) so i don't really hold your opinions on mechanics highly.
I don't know what the backstory is either, this is what I gathered by searching the Internet...
I've never been banned from MTBR, Don't even have an account, so don't know where you got that from.
As far as what what Friedrich said, I actually agree 100%. There is, and traditionally has been, some crap product out there with thing that don't do what they say or will never work for a given scenario. I think one of my favorite examples is the mythical HSC knob on the first generation GripX2 that was basically a placebo.
You specified it quite well where sometimes things are just up to the job, but I feel an equally valid opinion is asking whether something is the right tool for the job to begin with. Why are you expecting a damper designed for application A to preform equally as good as application B? The fact of the matter is that the products made for the masses of bike riders are trying to provide windows of functionality for an incredible range of rider weight and styles, and that's incredibly difficult. That is fundamentally why I am hesitant to make the outright claims people desperately want to make, and I think people should be wary about the claims of random strangers on the internet.
Take for example your GripX comment and its bemoaned RF tune. As a heavier rider in a 120mm fork it works great. Simply put, the lack of travel makes slowing down shafts speeds and dissipating energy in the return stoke a much more difficult task than it is with my DH fork with 200mm of travel and a heavy front wheel with a DH tire on it. Does that intrinsically mean that damper is bad? Maybe? It certainly is noisy. Would I recommend said damper for 130 lb riders in long travel applications? Probably not, do I think it odd that Fox shoved them in their long travel applications? Probably. Do I think it's even odder than a company like Ibis (who is notorious for fast rebound tunes with their "tractive tuned" rears) put them on ripmos? Yep. Is it a better damper for me in my 34 then the previous one? I think so.
Having spent some time, although not nearly enough, actually recording and looking at suspension data I can firmly say that suspension dynamics is a gordian knot. I've seen tuning sessions where every change we've made to the fork only changed the meaningful data in the shock (due to the rider shifting their center of mass), I've been in sessions where literally nothing meaningful changed in the data but the rider ended up 8% faster on an 4 minute track. These systems are complex and dynamic, so should the discussion around them be as well.
Look, my intent wasn't to derail this thread into the nature of engineering good and evil: suspension edition. It was an attempt to ward off the evils of "guru"fication of the vital suspension forms.
Before this goes the wrong way: Some commentators are plainly frustrated rather than hateful. It becomes clear if you allow for that perspective when reading the respective comments.
To stay with the example: I would love the Grip X to be great for as many people as possible. After all, I guess everyone that is as deep into the matter as the people reading this are asked "What would you buy" from time to time. I think there were potential for this to be true. In my opinion, current fork offerings from Fox are much better than their Rockshox counterparts, but sadly only on the potential level in some aspects. There are great ideas but exectution of some parts seems weird to me. Did the Grip X have e.g. a thicker shaft, say 10mm, and more mid valve as well as base valve tunes available to account for differences in rider weight (respectively spring rate), I think it could be a great product. I couldn't care less about it being noisy.
Long story short: More information is better. Dougals views may be controversial and he may not be as good at stressing positive aspects rather than aspects where the products do fall short (be that objective or subjective, both can happen), but he is one of few people to offer lots of interesting insights. You can, after all, always decide the information does not matter to you.
This has to be up there on the list of most polite way of saying that big suspension typically has to be tuned to work well regardless of how many dials you can play with. The base tunes are all over the place, one generation is almost slope style level firm, next gen of the same fork comes with basically no compression damping at all. Why? No one cares to explain, feel free to guess. Or maybe that's how it came to be? They are guessing?
It was just copy and pasted from google. Dougals advice mirrors the "Healthy Alternatives" in your link". Why would you be upset with somebody following the advice you shared in the link. That is what I was thinking in my head.
That was a great article - I'm surprised I hadn't seen it before! Sadly there are certain people who focus too heavily on why they think products "suck" and telling everyone their set up is wrong instead of giving them useful advice. Unfortunately because the arguments descend in to bickering over mythical problems it distracts from the things that would genuinely help people or improve the industry. Often these "interesting insights" are just straight up disinformation or so disingenuous that the person making them has to either be lying or stupid. They are using the fact that most people don't have a deep understanding of the subject to overwhelm you with big words so you assume they know what they're talking about.
For sure, people can make up their own minds about things, just be wary of anyone who insists on saying you are wrong in what you are feeling on the bike, or that the brands don't know what they are doing - they do (some more than others)
Hi, that's a lot of words. Nice to meet you.
I don't know why you take my words so seriously, I'm just a guy who likes to tinker with this stuff and share what I've found. I've also found the owners of some stuff get quite aggressive when I mention it might be less than perfect for every rider everywhere! This makes for some bizarre discussions.
The GRIPX2 for example is firmer than every other GRIP and every other recent Fox damper. The square edge harshness was a known problem and that's why Fox redesigned the midvalve in their latest update. The one where they clipped the sides off the shims to help the oil flow.
Likewise the GRIPX. It's got a lot of rebound damping and if you're 80+kg that's fine. But if you're 80+ kg you really want more compression damping. The compression damping is nice for 50-60kg riders but for them the rebound is too slow. If Fox had released 2-3 different compression and rebound options it would make perfect sense.......
I've got dyno charts showing all this if you want to see them. It's fine if you don't.
@Primoz I got (temp) banned from MTBR for arguing with a moderator. He kept claiming I'd broken rules but couldn't show where and pulled the "I am the authority and you will get banned for arguing with me" card. It's a known problem.
I won't sugarcoat it, He single handedly ruined MTBR suspension forum. There were so many knowledgable industry insiders, inventors, owners and passionate puzzlers on that forum and according to him they were all wrong, non-sensical ranting and bickering meant most of those incredible posters left the forum and didn't contribute anymore.
Don't let history repeat itself is all I'm saying, this forum is the exact same, nerds, industry insiders and company owners all stoked on bikes. Let's keep it that way!
Nice to meet you too. This is getting pretty off-topic, perhaps a new, dedicated, thread would help.
Always want dyno charts. More dyno charts!
Would love to see charger 3.2 or 3.1 vs grip x2. Very curious how much the HSC really differs between these two dampers. The forks ride different, yeah, but there's a lot of differences in there beyond just HSC so....
From this description I'm getting PVD vibes...
Here's one for you to chew on. Fox GRIPX2 (V1) vs RS Charger 3.1 RC2. You can see there's almost no range to the GRIPX2 LSC adjuster and the GRIPX2 LSR range is a bit over half the RS.
But the GRIPX2 is a better damper than the Charger 3.1 and requires fewer new parts to make it behave, take out the harshness and give it the range you need. Both of these can be tuned up to a very good result.
Can someone delete that for me. That's GRIPX, not GRIPX2. I'll upload the correct one. I don't appear to have editing rights.
[edit: quoted, but this is meant in response to no previous post or user in particular]
As someone who designs and manufactures aftermarket components to upgrade 'big suspension' put me on the record in their defense. I think they actually do a remarkable job at what is really an impossible task.
Imagine designing something within the small confines of an MTB fork and the accepted dimensional standards. Make it light enough and cheap enough for what the market demands at retail and OEM. Manufacture and assemble it at massive scale to acceptably high QC standards, align dozens of critical tolerances to fractions of a millimeter during forging, machining, finishing, and assembly with minimal scrap or rejection rates. Reduce friction to an absolute minimum but make it durable and low maintenance (assume most riders are not going to follow the service intervals) without a massive loss in performance. Make it both easy to understand and operate for an absolute novice and adjustable enough for experienced tuners. Design the damper and air spring to work everywhere from the jankiest jank, to slippery hard pack, from Bellingham to Finale to Tahoe, to Bentonville. Optimize for all types or dirt, terrain, and topography. Now make it perform for riders with poor technique and body position and also physically fit and dynamic riders who actively load their suspension and aren't just along for the ride, and everyone in between. Provide a tuning range that covers riders of all abilities weighing under 50kg to well over 100kg. Make it work in a broad temperature range. Make it work with all bike geometries and weight distributions. Optimize the damper and air spring for a 40mm difference in max travel. Make it plush but also supportive, and instantly responsive at all shaft speeds but also stable when the constantly moving rider weighs on average 5 to 7 times more than the bike. Make it work on all the different types of impacts and loads found on every type of MTB trail. Make it last for several seasons. Make one stock option that brands can spec on every bike in their lineup. Please all the product managers. Please all the customers. Make everyone happy.
It's really easy for aftermarket and boutique manufacturers to identify the compromises that have to be made and address them, though I'd argue there is no magic bullet that eliminates all of them. It's a lot easier to hop on the back of a big brand's R&D, engineering, and manufacturing capability and then redesign or optimize any one or a small number of the internal components with the same focus they needed to give to the entire fork or shock, and to do it at a fraction of the volume, and target a small segment of the market or use case.
But to promote those products and services with the narrative that 'big suspension' is a scam or the brands are all just cutting corners and don't have riders best interest and experience in mind is just disingenuous. Of course it's a lot harder to communicate what benefit custom tuning and aftermarket components can add to a well designed system rather than pointing to a shortcoming and calling the engineers inept or lazy and claiming to have solved the problem they were too ignorant to understand. I'd argue our business exists not so much because they get so many things wrong, but because they get so many of them right.
That isn't to say large brands are immune from bringing problematic designs to market or have been slow to respond to QC issues, they certainly have. But the vast majority of what you can buy works really well for a huge range of riders, is easy to service, and is incredibly durable from the mid-tier to the top end.
Why we would let Dougal, a shock tuner and distributor of Manitou in NZ, stand on a soap box here and shit all over every single other brand of suspension and most every other tuner, i have no idea.
Most of my local stores dislike dealing with him and one actively refuses to order anything from him, if that tells you anything.
Might be the one we blacklisted because they couldn't reinstall a fork, didn't own a torque wrench and tried to blame us...... It's a brutal world out there. All of the shops we deal with moan about all their suppliers.
@onxx Dyno plots here:
https://www.vitalmtb.com/photos/members/fox-gripx-vs-rs-charger-3-1
https://www.vitalmtb.com/photos/members/fox-gripx2-vs-rs-charger-3-1
Nah, I'm very familiar with the sigh I get when i ask for Hayes parts at most shops, it's not just because you've blacklisted someone.
I like that you instantly bounced it back, got on the attack, and said someone else was shit. Just like you do with suspension every time you make a comment. Even though you have no idea who i'm talking about.
When I had an issue with one of your forks you made me take it to the most hamfisted mechanic in the city (after blaming me for the issue) so i don't really hold your opinions on mechanics highly.
Post a reply to: Suspension Component Technology/Functionality Discussion