All

Intend screw the arch onto the lowers from the inside on the Blackline Ebonite fork from what I managed to gather. The dropouts are also an add-on to the outers tubes, so the outers themselves are probably turned from a bar/tube stock.

FWIW, that ND Tuned fork not only looks glued together, but the arch with seal seats look 3D printed.

YES! that's it!!

Yes that proto was sitting on display at the old building. Aluminum 3 piece lowers glued together. Could be a way to manufacture lower quantities? Lots cheaper and faster than prototyping with a casting tool.

Kowa?

This reminds me of this Japanese fork I had a long time back. I am trying to remember the name of it. It was total air and adjustable from 160mm to 100mm externally. It was all milled out just like this one and it rode really smooth. If I can remember the name or find a photo I'll post it up

Argh, thanks. Was really hoping this was the signal for a 200mm AXS dropper.

cane creek air-charged coil tigon shock - https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/cane-creek-introduces-air-c…

Looks like it's just PB stickers that they put on AXS batteries, go check the video again you'll see the same sticker on the derailleur.

Glued together lowers. Not uncommon. Rock shox did that in the development phase of the Totem I think.

Haven’t seen this posted anywhere yet, but I came across it on Instagram. Looks like ND Tuned is prototyping a 38mm stanchion fork, with a less than conventional construction of the lowers as well? Anyone know any details?

This is an air spring running parallel to the coil spring, with the top out associated with a positive-only air spring being handled by a negative coil spring inside the damper. Shocks that had an air valve in the reservoir which you could "tune" didn't do much as the pressure was being applied only to the cross section area of the shaft. The Boost Valve variants from Fox had a pressure sensitive valve which increased or decreased the compression damping depending on the pressure inside the shock, originally thought to provide more compression damping deeper into the stroke (position sensitive)...

Nice work Jonny!

The slop in my Tracer 29 was due to the lower link not being torqued correctly. It needed another quarter turn with a bb80 adaptor, like Lifeline's. Unfortunately this isn't shown in the Tracer's manual, and perhaps isn't being addressed by their assembly QC.

@hamncheez2003 "I'm guessing that this Cane Creek gives you more support sooner (and is tunable), and gives you more response or "pop" than the EXT solution." - You're correct here! RAMP Tube should not be thought of as JUST a bottom out feature. It's a better way to tune the overall spring characteristics and ride feel of a coil shock. Progression (and therefore bottom out support) is the result of the added tunability and increased liveliness that you can now add to the existing benefits of a coil shock.

We need a comparison with the EXT's hydraulic bottom out. I'm guessing that this Cane Creek gives you more support sooner (and is tunable), and gives you more response or "pop" than the EXT solution. IDK if this is a downside, but reading between the lines it sounds like the Cane Creek has to run a ton of high speed rebound to deal with the air bottom out. However, comparing a traditional cane creek to an ET Storia, the Storia has a better compression tune such that you ride higher in your travel while also being a bit more sensitive...

This is probably going to be a 150 gram weight penalty over my coil IL with a progressive spring that I dearly love. I run my IL on a single pivot with a very flat compression curve, but with a spring weight probably one step above what I should be running (I lost some weight). I'd love to try this back to back.

Twin tube shocks all use an IFP (or bladder) for oil displaced by the shaft. The Fox boost valve is part of the compression stack on the mid valve piston, but it was effected by IFP pressure. This is more of a hybrid air/coil shock like the old Stratos Helix.

This is a different beast, it’s actually an air spring inside a coil shock, quite an interesting solution that should allow lots more frames to handle a coil shock, even the more linear ones that would typically struggle. As for the damper side, twin tube dampers do also have IFP to deal with oil displaced during compression (only part of the oil returns via the second tube, some of it heads into the IFP…).