All

I am stoked to see the damper forward setup starting to gain momentum. As a kid, I grew up riding and racing haresrambles on the east coast. The first thing we did to every bike was have the forks and shock re-valved and different springs installed. Our suspension guy swore by the philosophy that the spring's only job was to hold the bike up, the damper does all the work. That set up still was hit and miss for people, TBH. Some people (me included) loved it. The bike was glued to the ground. You went through 1/3 or more...

I don't know about smart, but I know it's shtty of me to act like I can read people's minds. I don't really know how people are thinking about this. But it comes up a fair amount and it seems like the next logical step for everyone who is measuring bike stuff. The questions we can see being asked about bike performance seem totally legit to me. Which PB bike test bike gets up the impossible climb fastest? Did my lap times improve when I changed tires? Did the rider of the DH bike with the tuned mass damper experience...

I've gone back and forth between owning a dedicated DH bike and long travel FR bikes over the years. I've netted out that I prefer just having a full DH bike in the quiver at all times; they just erase things in a way the shorter travel can't - especially over a multi-day bike park trip. However, when the Shore came out it seemed like it was the perfect solution for what I wanted, essentially a full DH bike with a pedal-able seat tube angle, so I picked one up and it's been awesome. I run mine with a 200mm...

Totally, I'm also skeptical of home burnishing wizards and how much of the Great Bushing Epidemic of 2024 is real vs. imagined for social media noise. Based on the video and the comments from Diaz, it seems like it wasn't a bushing issue, " Again NO BUSHING BURNISHING NEEDED OR WOULD HAVE EVEN HELPED." Seems like it was a misalignment in the actual casting or a mis-facing of the casting's axle interface that resulted in a twisting of the lowers when the axle was clamped. Could have been the CSU alignment too, but based on the text from Diaz it...

Yes there is a trend towards more damping, as previous generations were terrible (fox in particular) and people have finally realized higher damping is necessary for grip and stability (thanks Ohlins and Bruni). If you look at Rochshox and Fox, compared to their boutique competitors, Ohlins, EXT, Push, Avalanche tunes, Vorpsrung etc etc, the consistent thing is they all offer more damping. Which is why we've seen Fox and Rockshox slowly add more effective damping in each model year. As for the quality of the products, I think they're pretty darn solid all things considered. But I always tell people...

I just replaced the Charger 3.0 in my Lyrik with an MRP Lift and it's a lot better. Pretty much bang in the middle on both LSC and R and dropped my spring rate by ~10%. The fork tracks better, rides high in it's travel and feel much better through my hands.

This seems to be the return of the freeride bike as Noah mentioned. The originals being the Slayer, the Bullit, the Uzzi, the Shore and a few others. Then bikes like the TR250, Scream and others. They either got dual crown 170 forks or later Totems and 36 180s. We pedaled around these 45 pounders without dropper posts and took them to the DH park. They weren't great anywhere but were pretty worth it when the terrain trended downwards or the lips were mellower. Who can forget the ladder bridges either? Today's DH bikes seem so race focused IMO that...

I super appreciate the number of product engineers we have in this forum. There's also PMs from brands and sales guys like me. Great to interact with super knowledgeable consumers and riders. BTW, I was looking at the fork the other day. As technical of a product the fork is, I was a little surprised not to see some common details listed on the website. I couldn't for the life of me verify it was 15mm axle, didn't see A2C lengths or fork offset. Might not hurt to add some specs to the page.

Incredible Strait is still at it, 24 years later

And now, to put things in perspective...here's the Rampage segment from Alex Rankin's Sprung 5 movie from 2001. Not a single watered and slapped landing in sight (not many landed moves either LOL LOL):

Gonna leverage the ever-loving crap outta those synergies...

I haven't been this excited for Rampage in a long time. This year is gonna be sick! All the blogs and stories and pictures plus the absolute magnitude of the lines this year. So damn cool

Does someone know which fork was Dario Lilio riding this weekend in Lake Placid? Black fox, i presume a 34 - with a new arch design.