Also lines up with the sales Fox has had running across most products, and the confirmation of an updated Grip 2 damper.
The updates to the...
Also lines up with the sales Fox has had running across most products, and the confirmation of an updated Grip 2 damper.
The updates to the Grip 2 seem to address the biggest flaw. As you add compression damping the damper starts to spike and gets a harsh edge to impacts. I notice it, but I'm sensitive to it because of nerve damage in my wrists.
Grip2’s biggest flaw is that the HSC adjustment does nothing. Watch the Vorsprung video in the 38 if you don’t believe me. However you might want...
Grip2’s biggest flaw is that the HSC adjustment does nothing. Watch the Vorsprung video in the 38 if you don’t believe me. However you might want open up on the LSR because on the Grip2 too much will cause harshness as it acts as a choke/orifice on the mid valve the more you add.
I fixed it by getting a tuned damper. Now I can run more LSC for better stability / less dive without the sharpness on impacts.
I think the grip 2 is probably fine for most people and the 2024 changes sound like they address the sharpness that happens when closing LSC on the previous year grip 2. That's what I wanted , more LSC without the harshness.
I’d agree- dyno doesn’t always tell the full story. It’s an extremely useful tool but you must do blind ride testing as well.
MTB suspension...
I’d agree- dyno doesn’t always tell the full story. It’s an extremely useful tool but you must do blind ride testing as well.
MTB suspension testing is incredibly difficult and frustrating from my experience.
That’s humbling to hear from you. I do love a good internet argument between tuners…seems to happen a lot for some reason. I guess it kinda backs up your insight.
Suspension setup talk makes me think of a line from a book. “Do you know how to tell a good lie, Master Amadu? I know how to tell a bad one. When people talk false, their words are muddy where they should be clear, clear where they should be muddy.”
Rider’s expressions of how the suspension they’re giving feedback about are often unbelievably specific about a particular moment of the test ride, where how sensitive that rider is portraying themself to be is like some internet forum merit badge. People naturally copy each other’s language, making the lines you see repeated by different people seem like independent corroboration. If people say knifey or pinging or glued to the ground they must be real, we all must be feeling the same thing under the same circumstances, and we must be right about what setting correlates to those — because what are the chances so many different people saying the same thing could be wrong!?!
Anyone, mtb content creator or weekend warrior, could go to the library and get a blind or double-blind test schema for free. A data acquisition setup wouldn’t even be necessary if you had a well made post ride survey and neither would a fancy lab or a science consultant. What it would take is a lot of time, a lot of repetition, and no guarantee of positive results that match expectations or necessarily capture anyone else’s interest. So you can see the allure of just making up plausible sounding stuff for clicks.
Telemetry is just the dyno on exact track and weight load of the rider.
2glory831rider: you interchanged HSC and LSC :D
No I didn't. I'm talking about cornering loads where you're at the edge of traction for the front tire and you can barely make the turn. Like ride on some pavement, and pretend like you're swerving around something or someone that just jumped out in front of you. In these high load situations I can definitely feel a difference in the HSC settings. With more HSC the fork moves less/slower in these situations. With less HSC it feels like I can't turn back the other way from the swerve like I'm going to high side.
...This is on a bike with Cascade Link BTW. Just say no to progressive springs.
I’d agree- dyno doesn’t always tell the full story. It’s an extremely useful tool but you must do blind ride testing as well.
MTB suspension...
I’d agree- dyno doesn’t always tell the full story. It’s an extremely useful tool but you must do blind ride testing as well.
MTB suspension testing is incredibly difficult and frustrating from my experience.
Not sure what’s so complicated, it feels good or it doesn’t. If the available adjustments let you get to your good place then it’s a good product. If it’s the charger 3 zeb then you’ll never get to a good place and it has to be retuned.
Not sure what’s so complicated, it feels good or it doesn’t. If the available adjustments let you get to your good place then it’s a good...
Not sure what’s so complicated, it feels good or it doesn’t. If the available adjustments let you get to your good place then it’s a good product. If it’s the charger 3 zeb then you’ll never get to a good place and it has to be retuned.
Just get some cascade parts on your bike, itll be great.
Not sure what’s so complicated, it feels good or it doesn’t. If the available adjustments let you get to your good place then it’s a good...
Not sure what’s so complicated, it feels good or it doesn’t. If the available adjustments let you get to your good place then it’s a good product. If it’s the charger 3 zeb then you’ll never get to a good place and it has to be retuned.
Not sure what’s so complicated, it feels good or it doesn’t. If the available adjustments let you get to your good place then it’s a good...
Not sure what’s so complicated, it feels good or it doesn’t. If the available adjustments let you get to your good place then it’s a good product. If it’s the charger 3 zeb then you’ll never get to a good place and it has to be retuned.
When doing development you’re splitting hairs- typically looking for tiny improvements.
the time of day and rider fatigue plays a huge factor. Suspension feels terrible first run after lunch with a sandwich still bouncing around in your stomach. Then a few runs later fatigue sets in and everything feels crappy.
very hard to test A/B/A setups with similar conditions, fatigue levels etc. A poorly timed flat tire can ruin a day of testing. You run out of time to do the repeats and get frazzled etc.
Suspension setup talk makes me think of a line from a book. “Do you know how to tell a good lie, Master Amadu? I know how...
Suspension setup talk makes me think of a line from a book. “Do you know how to tell a good lie, Master Amadu? I know how to tell a bad one. When people talk false, their words are muddy where they should be clear, clear where they should be muddy.”
Rider’s expressions of how the suspension they’re giving feedback about are often unbelievably specific about a particular moment of the test ride, where how sensitive that rider is portraying themself to be is like some internet forum merit badge. People naturally copy each other’s language, making the lines you see repeated by different people seem like independent corroboration. If people say knifey or pinging or glued to the ground they must be real, we all must be feeling the same thing under the same circumstances, and we must be right about what setting correlates to those — because what are the chances so many different people saying the same thing could be wrong!?!
Anyone, mtb content creator or weekend warrior, could go to the library and get a blind or double-blind test schema for free. A data acquisition setup wouldn’t even be necessary if you had a well made post ride survey and neither would a fancy lab or a science consultant. What it would take is a lot of time, a lot of repetition, and no guarantee of positive results that match expectations or necessarily capture anyone else’s interest. So you can see the allure of just making up plausible sounding stuff for clicks.
*Black Leopard Red Wolf (2019) Marlon James
Yeah this is accurate! I have to say my favourite feedback is when someone tries to describe a feeling with sounds and actions because it seems much more like something bad they actually felt, as opposed to describing what they think they should be saying. As soon as someone tries to say the compression damping feels to firm or the rebound is too fast I almost immediately start looking elsewhere as most people actually can't feel those things! So I would need to dig deeper to find out why they think its rebound or compression that needs changing
Suspension setup talk makes me think of a line from a book. “Do you know how to tell a good lie, Master Amadu? I know how...
Suspension setup talk makes me think of a line from a book. “Do you know how to tell a good lie, Master Amadu? I know how to tell a bad one. When people talk false, their words are muddy where they should be clear, clear where they should be muddy.”
Rider’s expressions of how the suspension they’re giving feedback about are often unbelievably specific about a particular moment of the test ride, where how sensitive that rider is portraying themself to be is like some internet forum merit badge. People naturally copy each other’s language, making the lines you see repeated by different people seem like independent corroboration. If people say knifey or pinging or glued to the ground they must be real, we all must be feeling the same thing under the same circumstances, and we must be right about what setting correlates to those — because what are the chances so many different people saying the same thing could be wrong!?!
Anyone, mtb content creator or weekend warrior, could go to the library and get a blind or double-blind test schema for free. A data acquisition setup wouldn’t even be necessary if you had a well made post ride survey and neither would a fancy lab or a science consultant. What it would take is a lot of time, a lot of repetition, and no guarantee of positive results that match expectations or necessarily capture anyone else’s interest. So you can see the allure of just making up plausible sounding stuff for clicks.
Yeah this is accurate! I have to say my favourite feedback is when someone tries to describe a feeling with sounds and actions because it seems...
Yeah this is accurate! I have to say my favourite feedback is when someone tries to describe a feeling with sounds and actions because it seems much more like something bad they actually felt, as opposed to describing what they think they should be saying. As soon as someone tries to say the compression damping feels to firm or the rebound is too fast I almost immediately start looking elsewhere as most people actually can't feel those things! So I would need to dig deeper to find out why they think its rebound or compression that needs changing
The underrated part of suspension tuning is riders get confident to what they feel use to.
Case in point, every WC racer on Fox forks.
When your hitting corners as hard as they are, you just want it to feel the same as it did previously, when you didn't die.
But from a race/engineering standpoint, Fox forks incredible reliance on spring force and lack of damping is objectively worse than Ohlins/Rock Shox, but being very strong and getting use to it, you can be just as fast through rider adaption. Now for these riders to swap they products feel worse/not what theyre used to, and its hard to trust a more spongy highly damped fork when you going into corners at 45km/h
Suspension setup talk makes me think of a line from a book. “Do you know how to tell a good lie, Master Amadu? I know how...
Suspension setup talk makes me think of a line from a book. “Do you know how to tell a good lie, Master Amadu? I know how to tell a bad one. When people talk false, their words are muddy where they should be clear, clear where they should be muddy.”
Rider’s expressions of how the suspension they’re giving feedback about are often unbelievably specific about a particular moment of the test ride, where how sensitive that rider is portraying themself to be is like some internet forum merit badge. People naturally copy each other’s language, making the lines you see repeated by different people seem like independent corroboration. If people say knifey or pinging or glued to the ground they must be real, we all must be feeling the same thing under the same circumstances, and we must be right about what setting correlates to those — because what are the chances so many different people saying the same thing could be wrong!?!
Anyone, mtb content creator or weekend warrior, could go to the library and get a blind or double-blind test schema for free. A data acquisition setup wouldn’t even be necessary if you had a well made post ride survey and neither would a fancy lab or a science consultant. What it would take is a lot of time, a lot of repetition, and no guarantee of positive results that match expectations or necessarily capture anyone else’s interest. So you can see the allure of just making up plausible sounding stuff for clicks.
Yeah this is accurate! I have to say my favourite feedback is when someone tries to describe a feeling with sounds and actions because it seems...
Yeah this is accurate! I have to say my favourite feedback is when someone tries to describe a feeling with sounds and actions because it seems much more like something bad they actually felt, as opposed to describing what they think they should be saying. As soon as someone tries to say the compression damping feels to firm or the rebound is too fast I almost immediately start looking elsewhere as most people actually can't feel those things! So I would need to dig deeper to find out why they think its rebound or compression that needs changing
The underrated part of suspension tuning is riders get confident to what they feel use to.
Case in point, every WC racer on Fox forks.
When...
The underrated part of suspension tuning is riders get confident to what they feel use to.
Case in point, every WC racer on Fox forks.
When your hitting corners as hard as they are, you just want it to feel the same as it did previously, when you didn't die.
But from a race/engineering standpoint, Fox forks incredible reliance on spring force and lack of damping is objectively worse than Ohlins/Rock Shox, but being very strong and getting use to it, you can be just as fast through rider adaption. Now for these riders to swap they products feel worse/not what theyre used to, and its hard to trust a more spongy highly damped fork when you going into corners at 45km/h
The underrated part of suspension tuning is riders get confident to what they feel use to.
Case in point, every WC racer on Fox forks.
When...
The underrated part of suspension tuning is riders get confident to what they feel use to.
Case in point, every WC racer on Fox forks.
When your hitting corners as hard as they are, you just want it to feel the same as it did previously, when you didn't die.
But from a race/engineering standpoint, Fox forks incredible reliance on spring force and lack of damping is objectively worse than Ohlins/Rock Shox, but being very strong and getting use to it, you can be just as fast through rider adaption. Now for these riders to swap they products feel worse/not what theyre used to, and its hard to trust a more spongy highly damped fork when you going into corners at 45km/h
Interesting points. Kind of makes sense how Greg picked Fox over Rockshox for his Norco setup.
It’s been a while, but it seemed like every “Dialed” YouTube video I watched were racers coming in and saying this and that, and the mechanic would ask about volume spacers and air pressure and turn some dials... I don’t ever remember an episode where they dig into the damper, or perform larger adjustments. It’s not that I would expect them to, but everything seemed so basic and elementary…
The underrated part of suspension tuning is riders get confident to what they feel use to.
Case in point, every WC racer on Fox forks.
When...
The underrated part of suspension tuning is riders get confident to what they feel use to.
Case in point, every WC racer on Fox forks.
When your hitting corners as hard as they are, you just want it to feel the same as it did previously, when you didn't die.
But from a race/engineering standpoint, Fox forks incredible reliance on spring force and lack of damping is objectively worse than Ohlins/Rock Shox, but being very strong and getting use to it, you can be just as fast through rider adaption. Now for these riders to swap they products feel worse/not what theyre used to, and its hard to trust a more spongy highly damped fork when you going into corners at 45km/h
Interesting points. Kind of makes sense how Greg picked Fox over Rockshox for his Norco setup.
It’s been a while, but it seemed like every “Dialed” YouTube video...
Interesting points. Kind of makes sense how Greg picked Fox over Rockshox for his Norco setup.
It’s been a while, but it seemed like every “Dialed” YouTube video I watched were racers coming in and saying this and that, and the mechanic would ask about volume spacers and air pressure and turn some dials... I don’t ever remember an episode where they dig into the damper, or perform larger adjustments. It’s not that I would expect them to, but everything seemed so basic and elementary…
My understanding is that major tuning for both forks and shocks is done ahead of time with the teams and riders. This allows much more time for testing.
That way riders are just making small changes to fine tune for each track. I don't think there is time for major changes at every WC race.
If anyone is struggling to set up a 38, you should try Seb Stott's recommendation. It made a night and day difference for me.
"One criticism that's often levelled at the Fox 38 is that it sits too low in its travel. You can see from the above force curves that it gives away the first 10 mm of travel without much of a fight, and it sags readily into the travel... To those who find the 38 (or any fork) sits too low in the travel, I'd recommend trying a higher bar height, removing a volume spacer and increasing spring pressure relative to the setup chart"
My understanding is that major tuning for both forks and shocks is done ahead of time with the teams and riders. This allows much more time...
My understanding is that major tuning for both forks and shocks is done ahead of time with the teams and riders. This allows much more time for testing.
That way riders are just making small changes to fine tune for each track. I don't think there is time for major changes at every WC race.
Like I was saying. I don’t really expect them to.
Just curious what’s the point of having all those mechanics there if all they’re telling the racers to do are to turn a dial or try different air pressure? They are definitely doing rebuilds and stuff in the back, but they never get into the meat and potatoes.
I don’t mean to derail, but I just figured it was a Fox thing.
My understanding is that major tuning for both forks and shocks is done ahead of time with the teams and riders. This allows much more time...
My understanding is that major tuning for both forks and shocks is done ahead of time with the teams and riders. This allows much more time for testing.
That way riders are just making small changes to fine tune for each track. I don't think there is time for major changes at every WC race.
Like I was saying. I don’t really expect them to.
Just curious what’s the point of having all those mechanics there if all they’re telling the...
Like I was saying. I don’t really expect them to.
Just curious what’s the point of having all those mechanics there if all they’re telling the racers to do are to turn a dial or try different air pressure? They are definitely doing rebuilds and stuff in the back, but they never get into the meat and potatoes.
I don’t mean to derail, but I just figured it was a Fox thing.
Rebuilds and service for sponsored riders are the reason most of the vendors are there. Fox, RS/Sram, DT Swiss, etc.
The underrated part of suspension tuning is riders get confident to what they feel use to.
Case in point, every WC racer on Fox forks.
When...
The underrated part of suspension tuning is riders get confident to what they feel use to.
Case in point, every WC racer on Fox forks.
When your hitting corners as hard as they are, you just want it to feel the same as it did previously, when you didn't die.
But from a race/engineering standpoint, Fox forks incredible reliance on spring force and lack of damping is objectively worse than Ohlins/Rock Shox, but being very strong and getting use to it, you can be just as fast through rider adaption. Now for these riders to swap they products feel worse/not what theyre used to, and its hard to trust a more spongy highly damped fork when you going into corners at 45km/h
Interesting points. Kind of makes sense how Greg picked Fox over Rockshox for his Norco setup.
It’s been a while, but it seemed like every “Dialed” YouTube video...
Interesting points. Kind of makes sense how Greg picked Fox over Rockshox for his Norco setup.
It’s been a while, but it seemed like every “Dialed” YouTube video I watched were racers coming in and saying this and that, and the mechanic would ask about volume spacers and air pressure and turn some dials... I don’t ever remember an episode where they dig into the damper, or perform larger adjustments. It’s not that I would expect them to, but everything seemed so basic and elementary…
Yeah its that basic stuff that makes the most difference and has more room for gains. The window of different damping tunes to cover every rider is much smaller than people think, especially for forks! So that should be taken care of early in the season and the rest of the time only needs to be a few clicks of damping here and there. The hierachy of set up priorities, with diminishing returns from each step would be -
Tyre pressure
Servicing/Friction
Spring rate
Volume spacers
damping clickers
internal valving
At least at a race - it is possible someone ends up with a shock tune that is way out of the appropriate range if you're buying aftermarket, but without some kind of reference point you would still work through those other things before diving in to the shims
If anyone is struggling to set up a 38, you should try Seb Stott's recommendation. It made a night and day difference for me.
"One criticism...
If anyone is struggling to set up a 38, you should try Seb Stott's recommendation. It made a night and day difference for me.
"One criticism that's often levelled at the Fox 38 is that it sits too low in its travel. You can see from the above force curves that it gives away the first 10 mm of travel without much of a fight, and it sags readily into the travel... To those who find the 38 (or any fork) sits too low in the travel, I'd recommend trying a higher bar height, removing a volume spacer and increasing spring pressure relative to the setup chart"
there is a bazillion page 38 setup thread on MTBR. The TLDR; of it is....
run minimal spacers and more air
run LSR wayyyy faster than reccomended, control the fork with the HSR.
I find the default 5 & 10 clicks from closed on HSC/LSC respectfully somewhat close and dont stray too far off.
If anyone is struggling to set up a 38, you should try Seb Stott's recommendation. It made a night and day difference for me.
"One criticism...
If anyone is struggling to set up a 38, you should try Seb Stott's recommendation. It made a night and day difference for me.
"One criticism that's often levelled at the Fox 38 is that it sits too low in its travel. You can see from the above force curves that it gives away the first 10 mm of travel without much of a fight, and it sags readily into the travel... To those who find the 38 (or any fork) sits too low in the travel, I'd recommend trying a higher bar height, removing a volume spacer and increasing spring pressure relative to the setup chart"
see i dont have This issue with any 38 I've ran, cleaned out air spring and Mine rides high and plush - Can be pushed into for great control, 90kgs.
there is a bazillion page 38 setup thread on MTBR. The TLDR; of it is....
run minimal spacers and more air
run LSR wayyyy faster than...
there is a bazillion page 38 setup thread on MTBR. The TLDR; of it is....
run minimal spacers and more air
run LSR wayyyy faster than reccomended, control the fork with the HSR.
I find the default 5 & 10 clicks from closed on HSC/LSC respectfully somewhat close and dont stray too far off.
In my experience once you do #1 you shouldn’t need to do #2. LSR is sometimes one or 2 clicks faster than suggested but shouldn’t need to be miles different to the chart. There is variation between dampers and sometimes hsr needs to be 1 or 2 clicks faster but often it actually needs to be way slower than recommended. Because the vvc plates aren’t properly adjusted on the valve
The underrated part of suspension tuning is riders get confident to what they feel use to.
Case in point, every WC racer on Fox forks.
When...
The underrated part of suspension tuning is riders get confident to what they feel use to.
Case in point, every WC racer on Fox forks.
When your hitting corners as hard as they are, you just want it to feel the same as it did previously, when you didn't die.
But from a race/engineering standpoint, Fox forks incredible reliance on spring force and lack of damping is objectively worse than Ohlins/Rock Shox, but being very strong and getting use to it, you can be just as fast through rider adaption. Now for these riders to swap they products feel worse/not what theyre used to, and its hard to trust a more spongy highly damped fork when you going into corners at 45km/h
Interesting points. Kind of makes sense how Greg picked Fox over Rockshox for his Norco setup.
It’s been a while, but it seemed like every “Dialed” YouTube video...
Interesting points. Kind of makes sense how Greg picked Fox over Rockshox for his Norco setup.
It’s been a while, but it seemed like every “Dialed” YouTube video I watched were racers coming in and saying this and that, and the mechanic would ask about volume spacers and air pressure and turn some dials... I don’t ever remember an episode where they dig into the damper, or perform larger adjustments. It’s not that I would expect them to, but everything seemed so basic and elementary…
My understanding is that major tuning for both forks and shocks is done ahead of time with the teams and riders. This allows much more time...
My understanding is that major tuning for both forks and shocks is done ahead of time with the teams and riders. This allows much more time for testing.
That way riders are just making small changes to fine tune for each track. I don't think there is time for major changes at every WC race.
Yeah pretty much.
You have a baseline setting and its tweaked for each track, and since they race the tracks each year pretty much they know a very solid starting setup (obviously conditions change that).
My point was more about how, from an engineering stand point Fox products use a lot more spring force for support than their competitors (Ohlins generally are the most damped products from stock, with Rockshox in the middle)
But once you get used to a setup, you just run that. You do major swaps between season (notice how most riders stick to the same frame for a whole season, and will do the prototypes at the beginning of a new one). You just want confidence so you can just focus on riding, and not think about things not gripping. If you stand track-side at a DH, its honestly insane the speed these guys go into things, you don't want any second doubt in your mind.
The average rider will improve their pace substantially more by getting stronger, than spending money on products (excluding new tyres). If you can squat more and bench/pushup/overhead press more, you can hit holes harder and support your weight better, you can drive harder out of compressions and just generally ride faster.
Interesting points. Kind of makes sense how Greg picked Fox over Rockshox for his Norco setup.
It’s been a while, but it seemed like every “Dialed” YouTube video...
Interesting points. Kind of makes sense how Greg picked Fox over Rockshox for his Norco setup.
It’s been a while, but it seemed like every “Dialed” YouTube video I watched were racers coming in and saying this and that, and the mechanic would ask about volume spacers and air pressure and turn some dials... I don’t ever remember an episode where they dig into the damper, or perform larger adjustments. It’s not that I would expect them to, but everything seemed so basic and elementary…
My understanding is that major tuning for both forks and shocks is done ahead of time with the teams and riders. This allows much more time...
My understanding is that major tuning for both forks and shocks is done ahead of time with the teams and riders. This allows much more time for testing.
That way riders are just making small changes to fine tune for each track. I don't think there is time for major changes at every WC race.
Yeah pretty much.
You have a baseline setting and its tweaked for each track, and since they race the tracks each year pretty much they...
Yeah pretty much.
You have a baseline setting and its tweaked for each track, and since they race the tracks each year pretty much they know a very solid starting setup (obviously conditions change that).
My point was more about how, from an engineering stand point Fox products use a lot more spring force for support than their competitors (Ohlins generally are the most damped products from stock, with Rockshox in the middle)
But once you get used to a setup, you just run that. You do major swaps between season (notice how most riders stick to the same frame for a whole season, and will do the prototypes at the beginning of a new one). You just want confidence so you can just focus on riding, and not think about things not gripping. If you stand track-side at a DH, its honestly insane the speed these guys go into things, you don't want any second doubt in your mind.
The average rider will improve their pace substantially more by getting stronger, than spending money on products (excluding new tyres). If you can squat more and bench/pushup/overhead press more, you can hit holes harder and support your weight better, you can drive harder out of compressions and just generally ride faster.
Strength is very overrated, unless you’re Sam Hill your talent will always hold you back. Chug some beers and grow something downstairs (ladies too) and you’ll be get to your top end. I suck at riding so mtbing is just a money dump for me.
My understanding is that major tuning for both forks and shocks is done ahead of time with the teams and riders. This allows much more time...
My understanding is that major tuning for both forks and shocks is done ahead of time with the teams and riders. This allows much more time for testing.
That way riders are just making small changes to fine tune for each track. I don't think there is time for major changes at every WC race.
Yeah pretty much.
You have a baseline setting and its tweaked for each track, and since they race the tracks each year pretty much they...
Yeah pretty much.
You have a baseline setting and its tweaked for each track, and since they race the tracks each year pretty much they know a very solid starting setup (obviously conditions change that).
My point was more about how, from an engineering stand point Fox products use a lot more spring force for support than their competitors (Ohlins generally are the most damped products from stock, with Rockshox in the middle)
But once you get used to a setup, you just run that. You do major swaps between season (notice how most riders stick to the same frame for a whole season, and will do the prototypes at the beginning of a new one). You just want confidence so you can just focus on riding, and not think about things not gripping. If you stand track-side at a DH, its honestly insane the speed these guys go into things, you don't want any second doubt in your mind.
The average rider will improve their pace substantially more by getting stronger, than spending money on products (excluding new tyres). If you can squat more and bench/pushup/overhead press more, you can hit holes harder and support your weight better, you can drive harder out of compressions and just generally ride faster.
Strength is very overrated, unless you’re Sam Hill your talent will always hold you back. Chug some beers and grow something downstairs (ladies too) and you’ll...
Strength is very overrated, unless you’re Sam Hill your talent will always hold you back. Chug some beers and grow something downstairs (ladies too) and you’ll be get to your top end. I suck at riding so mtbing is just a money dump for me.
Lol.
If anything strength is very underrated in DH.
Half the times people crash is because they crumple and lose body position when going fast. Getting stronger improves everything.
You don't have to be powerlifting strong, but stronger is better
I know there exists a video in which Aaron Gwin says his physical strength is the only thing holding him back in going faster so I would not say that strengthy is underrated at all
Yeah pretty much.
You have a baseline setting and its tweaked for each track, and since they race the tracks each year pretty much they...
Yeah pretty much.
You have a baseline setting and its tweaked for each track, and since they race the tracks each year pretty much they know a very solid starting setup (obviously conditions change that).
My point was more about how, from an engineering stand point Fox products use a lot more spring force for support than their competitors (Ohlins generally are the most damped products from stock, with Rockshox in the middle)
But once you get used to a setup, you just run that. You do major swaps between season (notice how most riders stick to the same frame for a whole season, and will do the prototypes at the beginning of a new one). You just want confidence so you can just focus on riding, and not think about things not gripping. If you stand track-side at a DH, its honestly insane the speed these guys go into things, you don't want any second doubt in your mind.
The average rider will improve their pace substantially more by getting stronger, than spending money on products (excluding new tyres). If you can squat more and bench/pushup/overhead press more, you can hit holes harder and support your weight better, you can drive harder out of compressions and just generally ride faster.
Strength is very overrated, unless you’re Sam Hill your talent will always hold you back. Chug some beers and grow something downstairs (ladies too) and you’ll...
Strength is very overrated, unless you’re Sam Hill your talent will always hold you back. Chug some beers and grow something downstairs (ladies too) and you’ll be get to your top end. I suck at riding so mtbing is just a money dump for me.
Lol.
If anything strength is very underrated in DH.
Half the times people crash is because they crumple and lose body position when going fast. Getting...
Lol.
If anything strength is very underrated in DH.
Half the times people crash is because they crumple and lose body position when going fast. Getting stronger improves everything.
You don't have to be powerlifting strong, but stronger is better
Strength also plays a big factor in preventing injury with the inevitable crashes going fast.
Peak Torque is sometimes a bit harsh, but overall is on point and has sensible explanations on stuff.
Also yes, very cool concept for a hub.
Dyno data is theoretical? Top statement of the year there bud!
I’d agree- dyno doesn’t always tell the full story. It’s an extremely useful tool but you must do blind ride testing as well.
MTB suspension testing is incredibly difficult and frustrating from my experience.
I fixed it by getting a tuned damper. Now I can run more LSC for better stability / less dive without the sharpness on impacts.
I think the grip 2 is probably fine for most people and the 2024 changes sound like they address the sharpness that happens when closing LSC on the previous year grip 2. That's what I wanted , more LSC without the harshness.
That’s humbling to hear from you. I do love a good internet argument between tuners…seems to happen a lot for some reason. I guess it kinda backs up your insight.
Suspension setup talk makes me think of a line from a book. “Do you know how to tell a good lie, Master Amadu? I know how to tell a bad one. When people talk false, their words are muddy where they should be clear, clear where they should be muddy.”
Rider’s expressions of how the suspension they’re giving feedback about are often unbelievably specific about a particular moment of the test ride, where how sensitive that rider is portraying themself to be is like some internet forum merit badge. People naturally copy each other’s language, making the lines you see repeated by different people seem like independent corroboration. If people say knifey or pinging or glued to the ground they must be real, we all must be feeling the same thing under the same circumstances, and we must be right about what setting correlates to those — because what are the chances so many different people saying the same thing could be wrong!?!
Anyone, mtb content creator or weekend warrior, could go to the library and get a blind or double-blind test schema for free. A data acquisition setup wouldn’t even be necessary if you had a well made post ride survey and neither would a fancy lab or a science consultant. What it would take is a lot of time, a lot of repetition, and no guarantee of positive results that match expectations or necessarily capture anyone else’s interest. So you can see the allure of just making up plausible sounding stuff for clicks.
*Black Leopard Red Wolf (2019) Marlon James
No I didn't. I'm talking about cornering loads where you're at the edge of traction for the front tire and you can barely make the turn. Like ride on some pavement, and pretend like you're swerving around something or someone that just jumped out in front of you. In these high load situations I can definitely feel a difference in the HSC settings. With more HSC the fork moves less/slower in these situations. With less HSC it feels like I can't turn back the other way from the swerve like I'm going to high side.
...This is on a bike with Cascade Link BTW. Just say no to progressive springs.
Not sure what’s so complicated, it feels good or it doesn’t. If the available adjustments let you get to your good place then it’s a good product. If it’s the charger 3 zeb then you’ll never get to a good place and it has to be retuned.
Just get some cascade parts on your bike, itll be great.
Very cool. The load path is the major thing, but only two bearings spinning at one time is a pretty sweet “feature”, as well.
When doing development you’re splitting hairs- typically looking for tiny improvements.
the time of day and rider fatigue plays a huge factor. Suspension feels terrible first run after lunch with a sandwich still bouncing around in your stomach. Then a few runs later fatigue sets in and everything feels crappy.
very hard to test A/B/A setups with similar conditions, fatigue levels etc. A poorly timed flat tire can ruin a day of testing. You run out of time to do the repeats and get frazzled etc.
Looks like Jordan is on the new Demo.
Yeah this is accurate! I have to say my favourite feedback is when someone tries to describe a feeling with sounds and actions because it seems much more like something bad they actually felt, as opposed to describing what they think they should be saying. As soon as someone tries to say the compression damping feels to firm or the rebound is too fast I almost immediately start looking elsewhere as most people actually can't feel those things! So I would need to dig deeper to find out why they think its rebound or compression that needs changing
The underrated part of suspension tuning is riders get confident to what they feel use to.
Case in point, every WC racer on Fox forks.
When your hitting corners as hard as they are, you just want it to feel the same as it did previously, when you didn't die.
But from a race/engineering standpoint, Fox forks incredible reliance on spring force and lack of damping is objectively worse than Ohlins/Rock Shox, but being very strong and getting use to it, you can be just as fast through rider adaption. Now for these riders to swap they products feel worse/not what theyre used to, and its hard to trust a more spongy highly damped fork when you going into corners at 45km/h
Grip 2 is straight sex, so smooth and predictable
Interesting points. Kind of makes sense how Greg picked Fox over Rockshox for his Norco setup.
It’s been a while, but it seemed like every “Dialed” YouTube video I watched were racers coming in and saying this and that, and the mechanic would ask about volume spacers and air pressure and turn some dials... I don’t ever remember an episode where they dig into the damper, or perform larger adjustments. It’s not that I would expect them to, but everything seemed so basic and elementary…
My understanding is that major tuning for both forks and shocks is done ahead of time with the teams and riders. This allows much more time for testing.
That way riders are just making small changes to fine tune for each track. I don't think there is time for major changes at every WC race.
If anyone is struggling to set up a 38, you should try Seb Stott's recommendation. It made a night and day difference for me.
"One criticism that's often levelled at the Fox 38 is that it sits too low in its travel. You can see from the above force curves that it gives away the first 10 mm of travel without much of a fight, and it sags readily into the travel... To those who find the 38 (or any fork) sits too low in the travel, I'd recommend trying a higher bar height, removing a volume spacer and increasing spring pressure relative to the setup chart"
Like I was saying. I don’t really expect them to.
Just curious what’s the point of having all those mechanics there if all they’re telling the racers to do are to turn a dial or try different air pressure? They are definitely doing rebuilds and stuff in the back, but they never get into the meat and potatoes.
I don’t mean to derail, but I just figured it was a Fox thing.
Rebuilds and service for sponsored riders are the reason most of the vendors are there. Fox, RS/Sram, DT Swiss, etc.
Yeah its that basic stuff that makes the most difference and has more room for gains. The window of different damping tunes to cover every rider is much smaller than people think, especially for forks! So that should be taken care of early in the season and the rest of the time only needs to be a few clicks of damping here and there. The hierachy of set up priorities, with diminishing returns from each step would be -
Tyre pressure
Servicing/Friction
Spring rate
Volume spacers
damping clickers
internal valving
At least at a race - it is possible someone ends up with a shock tune that is way out of the appropriate range if you're buying aftermarket, but without some kind of reference point you would still work through those other things before diving in to the shims
there is a bazillion page 38 setup thread on MTBR. The TLDR; of it is....
run minimal spacers and more air
run LSR wayyyy faster than reccomended, control the fork with the HSR.
I find the default 5 & 10 clicks from closed on HSC/LSC respectfully somewhat close and dont stray too far off.
see i dont have This issue with any 38 I've ran, cleaned out air spring and Mine rides high and plush - Can be pushed into for great control, 90kgs.
In my experience once you do #1 you shouldn’t need to do #2. LSR is sometimes one or 2 clicks faster than suggested but shouldn’t need to be miles different to the chart. There is variation between dampers and sometimes hsr needs to be 1 or 2 clicks faster but often it actually needs to be way slower than recommended. Because the vvc plates aren’t properly adjusted on the valve
Yeah pretty much.
You have a baseline setting and its tweaked for each track, and since they race the tracks each year pretty much they know a very solid starting setup (obviously conditions change that).
My point was more about how, from an engineering stand point Fox products use a lot more spring force for support than their competitors (Ohlins generally are the most damped products from stock, with Rockshox in the middle)
But once you get used to a setup, you just run that. You do major swaps between season (notice how most riders stick to the same frame for a whole season, and will do the prototypes at the beginning of a new one). You just want confidence so you can just focus on riding, and not think about things not gripping. If you stand track-side at a DH, its honestly insane the speed these guys go into things, you don't want any second doubt in your mind.
The average rider will improve their pace substantially more by getting stronger, than spending money on products (excluding new tyres). If you can squat more and bench/pushup/overhead press more, you can hit holes harder and support your weight better, you can drive harder out of compressions and just generally ride faster.
Strength is very overrated, unless you’re Sam Hill your talent will always hold you back. Chug some beers and grow something downstairs (ladies too) and you’ll be get to your top end. I suck at riding so mtbing is just a money dump for me.
Lol.
If anything strength is very underrated in DH.
Half the times people crash is because they crumple and lose body position when going fast. Getting stronger improves everything.
You don't have to be powerlifting strong, but stronger is better
I know there exists a video in which Aaron Gwin says his physical strength is the only thing holding him back in going faster so I would not say that strengthy is underrated at all
Strength also plays a big factor in preventing injury with the inevitable crashes going fast.
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