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I'm pretty sure you are right about ESO and pushing to a "factory only" model. I imagine they see this like NFL or other "professional team sports" where only the big teams (that pay them) can compete. The NCL (National Cycling League) is similar to road racing. They are a bunch of NFL and NBL executives and some energy drink marketing people who got together to say cycling needs an NFL-style model to make money. To an extent they (and ESO, if this is their thinking) are not wrong, however, it looks as if both cases are very much moving...

Just remembered this because of the tech rumors thread... Anyone connecting the bleeders should be careful, turning the bike upside down will likely make the oil flow from one leg to the other. I'd say it could be possible to make one of the legs starved of oil. I'd stick to the setup just for testing purposes.

To counterargument, small piston requires more pressure (as proven in this exact case), which means more seal squeeze which ads to the friction so the final result may not be better, but I don't know exact numbers and I guess no one measures this, not even RS them selves. Obviously it's not super easy to come up with the "right" piston diameter that would work the best for 99% of riders, however I'm willing to bet that they went too small in this case and the fork will be too soft for anyone with system weight over 120kg. Slovak Elite...

It's actually pretty smart. If you have a really big air volume and teeny tiny piston head, you're going to have a pretty constant rate of change all the way from initial stroke through bottom out. That helps you get rid of (or at least minimize) the weird s-bend air spring curve. As a bonus, a tiny piston with tiny seals has less seal drag versus a big one. Makes me wonder if we're gonna see a new Zeb air spring in the near future.

Neko got the sickest Bike !

If the two Cube bikes didn't have those bloody orange forks, they'd easily win. I know Fox makes them in black (Minnaar) and white (Greenland), why wouldn't they have gone with either of those?!?!

2 hours of interviews from Fort William: https://pod.co/making-up-the-numbers/world-champs-fort-william or search "Making Up The Numbers" wherever you get your podcasts. Starring: Part 1 - Charlie Hatton, Dom Platt, Andreas Kolb, Emilie Siegenthaler, Nathan Carr, Jordan Williams, Matt Walker, Reece Wilson, Louise Ferguson & Ronan Dunne, Hattie Harden Part 2 - Jake Ireland & Eleonora Farina, Will Longden, Ian Jones, Joe Breeden, Grant Wildman, Monika Mixova, Wyn Masters, Ryan Pinkerton Part 3 - Camille Balanche, Phoebe Gale & Tahnee Seagrave, Gracey Hemstreet, Brook MacDonald, Laurie Greenland, Finn Iles, Simon Burney Enjoy!

I'm a bit split on if the changes to the upper part of the track are good/needed. If I were showing up to race, I would be stoked that they added a few berms and smoothed out some sections. As a DH enthusiast and self-proclaimed purist, I hope it doesn't sanitize the racing in the upper part of the track. I'm sure a lot of the fresh bits will get chewed up, and it'll still be as brutal as ever. But just my two cents. The changes in course layout are sweet though since Fort Bill has been the same...

DHSE race replay from #6 - they've crushed it so hard this year w/ the coverage!

This exactly. Even if you have an end stroke flick up in the characteristic, it's quite possible the required force will be lower if you aim for the same force required for the middle of the travel which you achieve with a lower overall pressure. And that's what a third chamber should give you. It effectively makes for a variable volume positive chamber.

Yeah, but both are only useful for a bounce around in your driveway before you further tweak it... in your driveway. Let alone finer adjustments once you've ridden on trail. Both are nonsense to use as gospel, which is what a lot of riders consider sag to be.

Really curious to hear your thoughts on the Secus, specifically if it allows you to reduce ramp at the end stroke. I know the Secus bleeds off some of the lower leg pressure that causes a lot of the excessive ramp in long travel single crown forks like the Zeb.