Cascade Components Links

come on man give your context so everyone knows where you're trying to go with this thread

I hope there is a user ignore option implemented around here someday soon.

I've had great experiences and I'd love to talk more about their links, leverage rate curves and trends in bike design etc etc.  I've even had great experiences with their customer service and asking them stupid questions.  

That being said, I try not to feed trolls, so all of those conversations and experiences will have to wait for another day.

I feel like that’s a you thing, and not a Cascade thing.

If you knew your bike was already somewhat progressive, why did you feel the need to want more of a progressive feeling? Did you exhaust all other options like different shock settings, volume spacers, custom tunes, or even a different shock before choosing to purchase the Cascade link to chase the feeling you were apparently after? Not to sound like a d1ck, but did you even know what feeling you were after or did you blindly buy into marketing?

As with everything in the world, there’s also the old saying of “different strokes for different folks” ,so maybe instead of lashing out at a company for a “faulty product” maybe just embrace the fact it didn’t work for you or your riding style and move on knowing it was a somewhat costly mistake on your part.

Full disclaimer, I’ve never bought nor ridden anything equipped with a Cascade product, but understand not every single product will work for every single person on the planet.

I'm usually not one to feed the trolls, but this has gotten silly. As far as cascade links go, I know people who have gotten legitimate performance out if them and changed the way they rode their bikes. I also know people who how gotten them because they want something shiney and cool and they had no business having that part on their bike because they didn't ride that hard. Some didn't even change their shock settings or remove any volume spacers and suddenly hated their bikes because they didn't understand what they were doing, how bike setup works or understand the product and what it was for. 

It's a hard product to criticize. You could legitimately criticize it based on fit + finish or quality (which seems great), but at the end of the day it's a chunk of aluminum adjusting kinematics and leverage ratio. Either it works for your abilities, shock, and riding style or it doesn't. 

It seems like everyone on the Forbidden Facebook group tosses a Cascade Link on their Dreadnought and claims it's the best thing since sliced bread, to the point it seems like a "mandatory upgrade" to the crowd in there (on top of the tons of other bougie stuff those people toss on their rigs). I have doubts as to how many those people actually need one (herd mentality, money to burn on hobbies), but if it makes you happy.... A product like the Cascade Link does attract those that feel the need to have the "best of everything" on their bike and every aftermarket upgrade possible - because "upgrades" are automatically better and folks are influenced by opinions online (aren't we all?).

It's a tuning option in a sea of options, and you gotta be tuned in to your own abilities and bike feel (and take the time to do so) to make it worth it. Try it and it's not for you?? Resell it - it's likely someone wants it.

Based on how you've behaved on this forum so far, it seems like you probably hounded them relentless until they blocked you as they mentioned, deleting your content when they did it. No one cares, you seem like a crazy person at this point with absolutely zero understanding of the problem and have pretty much erased any possibility of anyone taking you seriously.

I have zero stake in this, but I've been on this forum long enough to be super annoyed when people like you come in with nonsense and crash the usual happy and relaxed vibe people have built over the years. Chill or leave. 

Having owned multiple bikes with Cascade links, they're far from a gimmick. They perform as advertised - changing suspension characteristics whether that be progression, leverage ratio, amount of travel or some combination of the above - not to mention quality machining and finish. From everything you've written, it sounds like it changed your bike as advertised. If you thought your bike had enough progression without the link, why buy a link that adds progression in the first place?

The fact that you found it harsh is really out of Cascade's control. Do you typically like the feel of progressive suspension, or do you lean more towards linear? What shock are you running? Coil? Air? Did you adjust the spring rate? Did you get it tuned (whether by simply adjusting the dials or via the internals) to correspond to the new suspension characteristics? What changes did you make to the front-end (fork settings, stack height, etc) to reflect the changes happening in the rear (if this sounds unfamiliar, watch the Fox Dialed series)?

Cascade offers some helpful guidance it their documentation (this line from their FAQ sounds applicable to your situation - If the rear suspension still feels harsh, we recommend working with a suspension tuning company to lighten up the compression and rebound tune on the rear shock to get the bike a more lively feel.) but everyone is different, what works for one person may not work for another. I personally have never needed to get a shock custom tuned for a Cascade link, but I have needed to make significant changes to my settings (spring rate, compression, rebound plus fork settings and stack height).

In the end there is no magic suspension setting or link. You need to do a bit of work to get things working for how you ride. After all that you may realize that a link which significantly increases progression isn't for you, and that's totally fine. But again, the product is behaving as advertised so it's hard to point fingers at Cascade for their product doing something they told you it would do.

Again, as the FAQ says, you may need to have the compression and rebound shim stacks tuned. Just because compression is "fully open" doesn't mean the shim stack isn't doing something. Also if you think compression alone is responsible for a "harsh" feeling, think again.

Regardless, I do agree with your general premise that a very progressive bike takes more work to handle. And the progression numbers have come down because the average rider is just that, average, they don't need all that progression. But that's not Cascade's target market. You bought something that significantly increases progression and you're blaming Cascade for the product doing exactly what it's advertised to do.

Just to hurt your soul ill share mine: Excellent, does what it's ment to do - Not every shock will suit it and may require a tune change but thats normal.
Stumpy evo, norco sight, patrol & sentinel links.

Fine, I'll bite. 

So I own a Forbidden Dreadnought and I also own the cascade link for the dreadnought.

It is a well made product that feels and look like a quality part. It fit perfectly, and with a bit of help from Pinner machine shop, it worked great with my EXT.

So props to cascade for the great part. 10/10.

Is this part still on my bike? No. 
Would I recommend it to other dreadnought owners? Probably not.

I actually feel like the link made the first 2/3rds of my travel amazing, like seriously the best I've ever felt out of a rear in a straight line, the thing mobs. The problem I (heavy emphasis on the letter I on this next part of the review) could never get the last 10% of travel, between the HBO setting on my EXT and my spring rate, the bottom of that bike was NEVER going to happen for me. I suck, and I'm okay with that. 

Does this mean that the linkage was bad? No. It says right on the tin it increases the progression to around the 40% mark, mainly in the last bit of travel. In my opinion, thats a pretty big number, but they were honest about it (and I had to try it). And there is something to be said about the increased leverage ratio in the early part of the travel.

Now, I tried a ton of spring rates to make the 40% progression to work, and yeah at lower spring rates that made me "use" the travel it felt kinda like it was a pile of undersprung wallowy donkey crap. But when I actually used the spring rate they recommended on their charts, it felt amazing (just with a wall of progression at the end). 

In the process of swapping out more than my fair share of springs, and the linkage a couple times, I learned that the CC link offered me the chance to experiment with aspect of suspension performance that I haven't given enough credence before. The CC link took me down the rabbit hole of measuring expected spring force for a given spring displacement at the wheel, what I'm looking for out of a starting ratio (spoiler alert, its around 3:1), and how important the expected "operational sag" is suspension design. I learned so much about what does what kinematics wise and my own preference. For that experience alone, CC gets 12/10.  

Will I use it again on the dreadnought? No, not without a significant change to my shock tune. See, what I realized is that with the way progression is built on the linkage, I had a really hard time controlling very deep compressions with my HSR set the way it was (by my EXT tuner for the stock dreadnought), however the LSR needed to be pretty quick to avoid packing up. I was going to borrow an DHX2, but then the season ran out and I never got around to it. And I'm pretty sure my Dreadnought will be up for sale. 

Will I buy a CC link for my next bike? Probably, as its not a huge investment and I like tinkering. Will I expect the CC link to make me breakfast in the morning and provide world peace? No, but that's not their fault. 

Blaming them for providing a product that doesn't blend to your particular preference and taste is like getting mad at a Mexican Restaurant because you don't like tacos. 

This guy gets it.

I mean, he buys a cascade link and before and after he runs whatever shock he owns fully open on compression.

If your riding with fully open compression your either slow, or clueless, or both.

A more progressive leverage curve is not for you.

I've ridden a Transition Sentinel and Specialized Enduro (friends bikes) with and without Cascade links and they do exactly what they say on the tin. Build quality is great, easy to install, no reliability issues.
 

They make the bike more progressive (and for these 2 bikes give more rear travel), which has positives and negatives, but the product itself is perfect.

Criticising something is one thing, but whining just because you don't like a product is a different thing. Not everything is made to please everybody. I don't buy a downhill bike and moan that it sucks for cross country riding. The link didn't suit you and thats fine, you gave it a try (for some reason?) and now you know, time to move on!

I think it’s time for a blog. All-caps manifesto. Bonus points for mentioning The Constitution. 
 

You’re washed dude. Stop it. 

I buy parts and frames all the time. If I don’t like it, I sell it. It’s ok if you don’t like a part that someone makes, not sure why you are going above and beyond over this.

So is your problem you bought a product and didn't like it so left a poor review (which is fine) but then cascade deleted the review?

Out of interest did you contact cascade to see if they could advise on what may help with your setup? Also why run compression fully open them go to a link with more progression?

OP, nothing wrong with not liking a product, but you seem to be blind to the fact that you are kinda being an asshat.

The CC link for the dreadnaught does seem to be an outlier to all their other links. I have Dreadnaught and would like the increase in travel but the big progression spike at the end of the stroke has kept me from purchasing the link. I run mine with the Ziggy link so that puts it at 47% in the final part of the stroke; that mixed with Hydraulic Bottom out from the 11.6 sounds not good.

I could be wrong, but it's my judgment that they made this link for the Druid, but it happens to fit the Dreadnaught so they sell it for both.  

What a time to be alive... we now get to be enraged about a single part not matching our expectations.  

Not to be old man that yells at cloud or anything... but there was a time, not all that long ago.  Let's just conservatively say pre-2014... where half the bikes on the market were absolute shit.  I don't mean you didn't like them or didn't along with them.  I mean, complete crap geo that did not match the geo chart at all, yolo'd napkin math kinematics that absolutely did not work and frame tolerances that were so bad that shocks, pivot bearings and dropper posts all had the same service life.  

@DServy has it nailed in his post and my experience with my CC link was very similar.  I learned more about kinematics from playing with those links on two bikes then I ever learned reading geo charts and websites.  I got sent down rabbit holes about air spring compression ratios, leverage ratio changes on compression damping and fluid displacement, piston/damper shaft sizes/specs and shim stack tuning as a result of shaft velocities at certain points in the travel.  

I ran one on my megatower v1 and learned a lot about how the link didn't play well with compression damping that was way too light.  It not only rewarded harder riding, but it seemed to work best with a medium (mid firm) more digressive compression damping tune.  Much like what was provided with the stock shocks Santacruz specified at the time.  I actually learned a lot, and had a ton of fun working with vorsprung to get a tractiv tune dialed on a super deluxe ultimate to pair with my riding and the cascade link.  

Ultimately, I ended up taking that link off of the bike, and using an 11.6 with the stock link with similar performance (within 10%) to the cascade link with an off the shelf, medium compression tune.  My experience with the links is that they provide a change in how the bike performs and feels and with some tinkering, can easily match the performance of no expense spared suspension setups at a fraction of the cost.  In this case, I'm talking about an expense of $450 usd vs $1,200 - $1,600 being within 5-10% of each other.  

The secret is that there is no free lunch... with any of these products.  Even in the fringes of design concept and application you are making compromises, all-be-it much smaller ones.  Downhill bikes need to balance a few nuances of kinematics and pick their poison... same goes for XC racers.  For the rest of us that are riding long travel, or short travel trail bikes, doing the actual mountain biking that 95% of consumers are doing... you are making significant compromises with everything.  

The only consistent and clear answer... is that this sport/hobby allows consumers to get dangerously close to cutting edge design and hardware.  They have the right, ability and selection to do absolutely stupid things to their bikes, totally screw up their setups and then complain about it online.  If you want your bike to perform a certain way, go to bike demo's, buy one that feels good and fits you, and then either learn to set it up or pay to have someone set it up for you (it's expensive, just look at push or ext's websites).  Otherwise, get in the pond with the rest of us, enjoy the ride and the learning process and prepare yourself for an equal spread of wins and losses as you try (and fail) to out smart an engineer that has a lot of training, and does this for a living.

You have yet to prove that you are capable of having an educated discussion about leverage ratios, progressivity, shock tunes and force gradients.  The reason that is obvious, is that you are having the wrong discussion.  

The discussion you should having and should be working to educate yourself on is; What is the correct progression for me?  Where do I want that progression to be occurring? What sort of shock or shock tune should be paired with said progression? What are current trends in the frame kinematic and design that are driving people to try cascade links?  Why are bikes backing off of leverage ratios slightly over the last generation or so and what does that mean when it comes to using cascade links adding more? 

That being said, in all of your pedantic shit throwing, you haven't displayed a lot that suggests you know what is at play or what is going on.  Overall, it's totally fine to not be fully educated on this... I for sure am not.  However, since I'm not trying to post negative reviews, and talk shit, it's ok that I only know 30% of what I need to know to think through this... in your case, the 0-30-50% you know (or at least have displayed), is not enough to effectively convey your position or review a product.

This isn't pinkbike... if you want to talk shit with no knowledge to back it up... go back over there.  

I purchased the link for my first gen Megatower and it was transformative.  I think Santa Cruz really whiffed on the shock tune for that one, adding the link was a dramatic difference.  Was better still with a coil on it.  I did buy a link for my Transition Spire, but never fit it.  Was pondering it, but ended up nailing the suspension settings to the point that I didn't have any desire to mess with it.  Though if I had kept the coil on it, I would have installed the link.  Also own a Crestline RS205, which cascade did the kinematic for and have nothing but praise for that monster of a bike.

Well said Sir!

"if you want to silence me that’s your problem." As a forum Mod I've been very tempted. I feel bad for you embarrassing yourself like this.

We. Get. It.

They deleted your review. Is that a little sketchy? Sure. But with how you're conducting yourself on this forum, it is easy to imagine that you were less than civil with cascade, leading to them having to block you. That's your fault. You've spent the last four days repeatedly berating the company and endlessly complaining about your review while providing little to no insight into the product itself.

You didn't understand what you needed from your bike kinematics. The product didn't work for you. End of story, let it be.