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The Vital MTB Crew
A big reduction in overall friction like we were able to achieve, in part, with Chocoluxe can manifest in a few ways. Most obviously, the fork just "feels" better in the parking lot. There's no stick-slip in the stroke, it feels smooth and predictable. You notice that on the trail as the fork moving smoothly around the sag point, not sticking at it. When climbing, you notice it effortlessly tracking over irregularities like small ledges and rocks. It's that feeling of the wheels moving underneath you to the contours of the trail while you and your mass stay calm. This yields better performance, obviously, but also greater comfort and reduced fatigue.
Friction plays such a huge role in suspension performance that its influence can't be overestimated. I think people kinda get hung up on the intricacies of damper or spring tech without realizing that if your fork (or shock) isn't moving freely to begin with, those details are just about irrelevant. We are constantly looking at ways to eek out even little reductions in friction, and we look closely at out-the-door numbers and after use.
As for our air spring arrangement, yes, we give users the ability to independent adjust positive and negative pressures (whereas as most competing products have self-equalizing springs). We think this has a few big advantages. For one, you can dictate how supple the top of the stroke is. More negative pressure will allow the fork to compress more easily in the initial part of travel. Why not just make it as supple as possible? Well, for instance, you could pair a lower positive-negative pressure differential (something like 3-5psi more in the negative vs. positive) with a lower pressure overall to give you a fork that has a plush overall stroke, but is supportive off the top. Conversely, and the way I like to do it, is a fork with a firmer overall rate (higher pressure) but really buttery initial stroke (in this case, I'd do 7-10 psi more in the negative). Basically, there's more to experiment with besides just more or less pressure (with other air springs).
As well, we're big proponents of running slightly more pressure in the negative than the positive chambers -- simply not possible with self-equalizing systems. The positive pressure acts on a slightly larger surface area (the full area of the air piston) than the negative pressure, which acts on the area of the piston minus the sectional area of the piston rod. Therefore the negative pressure will need to be a bit higher than positive to balance it. That balance point is the buttery, coil-like suppleness people really love, where there's no resistance to initialing travel.
Re: offsets, until a few years ago, no one was really offering offset options, so of course theres been an increase in demand for shorter offsets. But, the very shortest offsets we offer (39mm for 27.5" and 41mm for 29") are not our bestsellers. That could be in part because they're a little more moolah (we machine in-house vs. the others being forgings). I generally advise people to stick to their frame manufacturers recommendations, and I think there's a range of about +/-3mm in offset variation that would been indiscernible to 98% of riders. I try to politely caution people that while in some cases a short offset might be the "performance" option, that's not necessarily what someone might want for a recreational application. For instance, a quicker steering bike takes less attention to ride (some of us just want to go out and cruise) and if it's not the bike's capabilities holding us back in regards to cornering or descending, what's the point?
As for me, for 29" we offer 41, 46, and 51mm for our single-crown forks, I like 46mm.
The ELKA DNA is definitely still there in the Hazzard. We've made what we consider refinements over the years, but the guts remain extremely similar.
Upsides to Corona? People that know me know I'm pretty dang cheery and positive, but it's a pretty crap situation. That said, there are some positives. As a company, our teams are working more efficiently than ever. The cancelation of events removes the pressure to show or debut a product on someone else's schedule, that's nice. Without giving too much away, we also took at value-added services we can provide to deliver a better customer experience and demystify things like suspension setup and tuning.
Get a Bartlett, they're awesome! Hope to get some reviews in the future. FWIW, it is effectively a Ribbon dual-crown, so I believe the reviews for that product crossover. Obviously it adds that second crown, which greatly increases stiffness - hard to imagine any critiques on that. It's also more adjustable, given that get both Ramp Control AND Huck Pucks.
No coil version planned at this time, for none other than practical reasons: that would require a big investment in springs.
And sorry for the downvote, that was supposed to be an upvote
Keep making cool shit!
Re: spring rate. You want to use a spring calculator like the one on our site to determine that. You don't want to reduce the rate simply because it's progressive. The way we label our springs is by what their closest linear-spring equivalent is around the sag point. So, at around 25-33% of compression, the Progressive 400+ will look most like a 400lb linear spring in terms of the force requirement. It's not exact, but it's close. What does that mean? Same bike, same rider, same shock, a 400+ progressive will sag the same amount as a 400lb linear spring. But it firms up (comparatively) beyond that point.
This forum hotseat is now officially closed, but we have a feeling Noah will get back to answer some other questions left here over time. YEW!
Good question. There are a couple benefits to the Ramp Control systems that I think beat tuning with volume alone, but it should be noted that with our Ramp Control Pro cartridges, you can can have both.
For one, tuning with tokens is a "in the workshop" thing, whereas Ramp Control can be adjusted via dial. So, if it's a competition, Ramp Control wins on convenience.
Second, there is some volume reduction that happens just by installing the cartridge, so it's providing some of the benefit of tokens plus added external adjustability.
Third, sometimes heavier riders are forced to cram the maximum amount of tokens into their air-springs simply to get the bottom-out support they need. This comes at the expense of the ride quality in, say, the other 2/3 of the stroke. There's a reason people refer to "coil-like feel" as a good thing, and a low-volume air-spring is essentially the opposite (flat, then steeply progressive). You end up sitting in or close to the progressive part of the stroke on these setups. With the spring curve being ambivalent to stroke speed, this can make for a front end that fights you on technical climbs or traverses (where shaft speeds are lower). It's neither a comfortable, nor performance-oriented setup.
With Ramp Control, you maintain most of your spring volume, so the baseline spring curve is more linear. This makes for a plusher ride at lower speeds (shaft speeds and typically RIDER speeds), but the speed-sensitive nature of the Ramp Up effect provides further support when needed -- and, again, you can dictate how much via the dial.
As for how it could help you in particular. Firstly, it will make you more likable. Secondly, and I'm gonna guess you have a Fox 36, it might give you yet another tuning option. Like I started with, if you do have a 36, you could actually get the Ramp Control PRO model and keep your spring volume similar to what it is now (with our Huck Pucks threaded onto the cartridge bottom), but add the Ramp Control adjustability. As a result, you'd likely be able to reduce your HSC further, as some of that burden could be taken by the Ramp Control function. Why would that be good? Well, there are some advantages to using air as the damping fluid for high-speed damping over oil. For one, air is infinitely compressible, so it never creates a spike.
Fingers crossed I'll get the benefit with my 200x57 shock...
Why bother with an old classic? Why not? I like the ride and I like tinkering.
It's at about 20mm of compression that the progressive spring curves start to diverge from their linear equivalents. And the further you move to the right on that curve, the bigger the separation.
Now it feels like there is a lighter weight oil in the damper unit (I asked the workshop, they used the same oil weight).
I had to add one click compression and two clicks rebound.
Don’t know if it’s 37,5 percent less friction now and I only had two runs in muddy conditions, but it feels better now (and was good before!)
Can you give us any insight about the Jackson, mainly how awesome itll be and when we can buy it?!?!?!????
thanks Love you guys and all your products
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