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From the manufacturer's website: For use on all forks, shocks, and reciprocating hydraulic systems where smooth action is critical. Safe for NBR, Fluoroelastomer, Urethane, and Silicone seal materials.

I have nothing to back this up but sounds like BS

This is one reason I tend to roll my eyes when people talk about slashing the U.S. defense budget. I'm not saying every defense program is a good use of money, spending 2 billion on one jet can be debated, but defense and aerospace spending support more tier 2&3 manufacturing than most people realize. Sure, you might work at a company that doesn't make defense products, but the reason you can get raw materials, machine service, coatings, or manufacturing supplies locally may be because a handful of ma&pa shops in your area stay in business making aerospace and defense parts...

Looking at the other image of the fork, some of the details appear similar to current Fox & Marzocchi products: the style of the serial number on the rear of the crown, the style of the driveside dropout and rebound (?) adjuster. For reference, a photo of the Bomber Z2 dropout (from https://www.experiencedgear.net/home/marzocchi-z2)

I'm reading that as the piston being connected to the shaft via a spring, similar in effect to the buttercups on RS forks

Dan Booker off enduro as well….

I am not seeing how the last 4 pages of this thread have anything to do with rumors or innovation.

I will also chime in here as a bigger rider that does enjoy this style of bike... a more linear feel like that is ideal because of the pressures I need to run. Otherwise bikes get WAY too progressive for larger riders. Easier to add tokens than be left with none to take out and then still be way too progressive. one of my favorite bikes was the strive... specifically because after the Vital review from Robot etc. they said it was way too linear and had to add spacers. I got on it and rode absolutely perfect for me.

You have to remember the true target market of this bike....if you really need that much extra resistance then a Tallboy is the wrong bike for you, full stop. The forum guys wanting to run a coil shock are a niche of a niche type of mountain biker so they aren't going to design the bike with that in mind. I also don't think its that far off, and they maybe chose to ship it with that shock spec so people can easily remove the spacers if that need to. And plenty of people have run coil shocks in bikes...

Lots of talk about how it's 300g lighter, but in nearly the same XT di2 build, the intense spider is .2 lbs lighter than the Tallboy and 1400 dollars cheaper.

I do the same and it works surprisingly well. As you mentioned most of these bearings barely move, I bet on a lot of frames they might only make half a revolution through travel. Spinning them up to move around and pumping in fresh grease works wonders.

I’d love to see a shoot out of trail bikes using the same linkage designs. It would really interesting to start to dig a bit deeper as to what sets them apart - quality control, kinematics, maintenance, etc etc.

This might help with placing it in history

I think Raaw frames are exemplary when it comes to bearings: All bearings feature sealed caps on each side to keep dirt out They are easy to change There are no tiny bearings (smallest size is 28mm) They are interchangable between Raaw frames Raaw has an online web shop which makes it easy to source bearings, caps, replacement seals and a bearing press Anecdotally, I've had three Raaw frames and never had a single bearing issue.

Take it easy buddy. I’m not trying to derail the entire conversation but also think it’s allowed to have an aside now and again. There’s plenty of off topic quips that go on in this thread.

Madrone with a DH set up is rad!