Been having fun diving deeper and deeper into dampers and how they work. Assuming the piston issue has been resolved by Fluid Focus, WPS, or (maybe?) Charger 3.1 or the new base valve in the shocks, what about the following?
I think I understand that on "normal" dampers with LSC flow below the HSC compression shim stack and a HSC adjuster that puts preload on a shim stack, for the same level of overall damping you'll get better damper performance from (i) a firmer HSC stack and more open adjuster vs (ii) a softer stack and more closed adjuster.
On the Rockshox stuff, HSC works by reducing the flow of oil. I'm not entirely sure whether this creates more damping in and of itself or whether it increases pressure and then speed so that the oil hits the stack at higher speed. Maybe some of both.
At any rate, question is whether the same thing applies for a HSC adjuster that works by restricting fluid flow. For the same level of damping, are you better with a stiffer shim stack and more open HSC adjuster than a softer stack and more closed HSC adjuster.
My gut tells me yes, because the common theme seems to be that the more damping relies on shims without any preload, the better the damping performance. But is the difference as pronounced for a Rockshox damper as for a "normal damper"?
Or do I (still) have no idea what I'm talking about?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli%27s_principle
Theres definitely no simple answer - but all of those variables depend on each other, and each has pros and cons so it comes down to the priority you have when designing the damper.
A key thing to keep in mind with all of it is pressure balance and the way the pressure builds inside the damper. There is a delay between the shaft moving and the pressure in the chamber increasing and the high speed circuit won't start working until there is a certain amount of pressure in front of it. If you have a small cartridge or small shaft then it can take a moment for the flow rate at the base valve to be high enough to build that pressure.
With a zero preload base valve, you would also need a very small low speed bleed and small ports for the shims so that once they open they don't allow the pressure to drop too suddenly. This might theoretically be the "best" performance but you need all those factors to be perfect and either way your adjustment range will be very small. The charger 2.1 RC dampers were an example of a soft, non preloaded base valve and large bleed which has no support and extremeley soft damping overall.
The Charger 3 HSC circuit is supposed to work by accelerating the oil before the shims, in theory similar to using a base valve with smaller ports. In use the adjustment change is very small and I still need to do more testing with them, but I think there are better ways to adjust high speed. The Formula CTS valves are another similar concept - for stiffer tunes it is sometimes necessary to reduce the relative flow rate (depending on the layout of the rest of the damper) because adding shims can have diminishing returns after a certain point. So theres no single "right" way to do it for everyone, which is why production forks alway have some kind of compromise built in
The other other part of the equation is the rebound check/mid valve which can give a small "boost" to that initial build up of pressure. This allows the pressure to build fast enough that the back pressure from the base valve can actually start to create some high speed compression damping. In most forks though these are very soft and contribute very little, if anything to that build up in force, which is why most dampers will use some kind of preloaded base valve to generate that pressure. It's not perfect but its a "safer" architecture that can accomodate a wide adjustment range without approaching situations where the mid valve damping is too strong.
See the last iteration of Fox Grip 2 VVC - they went back to a rebound check valve with more shims and less float, since those forks were very soft and adding damping at the base valve quickly felt harsh because of the lag in the way pressure was building. It was a small change but allowed for slightly more HSC without feeling as harsh as it did before.
Thanks so much for the thorough reply. I think I understand it to a decent degree. I've learned a lot from your posts and greatly appreciate you taking the time to share knowledge.
My more practical issue as a consumer is getting a quasi-custom tune on a charger 3 and picking between compression tunes. Is is better to err slightly firm and run HSC more open or go lighter and maybe end up running HSC more on the closed side. If the adjuster was preloading the HSC shim stack, I think it's clearly better to err on the side of a firmer stack and open adjuster. But not sure if the same is true for the Charger 3.
I'm also thinking about just trying out an MRP Lift.
Ok I get you - I think with the charger 3 the difference in HSC adjustment is too small for it to matter much, ie one tune with the adjuster open is probably close to removing 1 shim and running the adjuster closed. I haven't actually tested that but its the kind of range I'm talking about. With the 3.1 coming out I'll have to do some tests on the trail to see if thats the case though.
For Charger 3 & 3.1 specifically the LSC has a large effect on a wide range of speeds so its the one I would consider more. With both I would suggest less preload and firmer shims (the 3.1 apparently has less preload now already) but the 3.1 damper has more range on the LSC adjuster so you can afford to go with a relative stiffer base tune (the actual arrangement will be different). The base valve has large ports so I imagine it would be difficult to make a high speed tune thats wayyy too stiff. If you had a soft tune that needed the LSC cranked right in that usually feels harsh pretty quick
The MRP damper looks pretty cool - I will need to get one in my hands soon as it does seem to be a tidy execution of a traditional shim stack thats designed to suit a specific range instead of as wide a range as possible.
I always feel like my answers seem a bit confusing/contradictory - the main thing that gets lost is damper tuning doesn't quite behave how people think it will in theory. The assumption is that adding shims makes for a steeper damping rate but in a lot of cases that doesn't really happen, adding shims often raises the whole damping curve without much increase in the gradient, or sometimes even barely any effect at all. This is why you often need to tune the low speed and high speed together, by blending enough freebleed with a lightly preloaded stack you get something close to a linear curve.
Adjusting with preload can work well within a certain range, I find if you target having no preload on the valves you end up with little external adjustment so you will need to try several different tunes. Even then, certain aspects of the curve aren't able to be tuned and are fixed by the ports, size of the LSC free bleed and shape of the needle. Having something that might be a compromise but has noticeable adjustment range is the best overall I think
Huge thanks again for the replies. My takeaway, in combination with everything else I've read, is that if a charger 3 gives me that little HSC adjustment, the adjustment is not worth some of the inherent compromises and whether the fork works optimally for me is going to come down to the HSC shim stack either way. With their 15% off July 4 sale, MRP was pretty much the same price as the tune (with custom piston) of the charger 3. Rolled the dice.
You got any thoughts on how helpful the new high-flow piston is for the Super Deluxe? While the smoother transition between LSC and HSC sounds appealing, the "less damping" does not. I'm on the heavier (210) and decently aggressive side of things.
Thanks again for the info.
Yeah it can be tough to make a stock damper tuneable for everyone, theres always certain limitations which will be fine for some riders but not all.
I'm not sure what to make of the new super deluxe piston yet - will wait and see what it actually does. The press releases don't normally give the full picture, and a lot of updates are dressed up to sound like they do something different than the actual intent. eg the hotdog pistons were more about fixing a knock in those shocks than being "high flow" but that doesn't sound good in the marketing material
From the photos the port area doesn't look much bigger than the current piston, and similar to many other good shocks so its possible it could still work well. The current tunes are mostly pretty soft already so it will mostly relate to how easy it is to add damping - RS also mentions changes to the reservoir which might make that easier but theres no details on what that change is either. Either way there are more to these updates than what we get told but won't know for sure until they hit the market
I found with the Charger 3 that almost closing the HSC and using the LSC adjuster to dial in the overall damping works pretty well. I just got a 3.1 upgrade kit and am hoping it gives me a few more tuning options as the HSC has more range on the stiffer end.
Thanks for all your responses. In trying to get a deeper into suspension and really learn how things work, it's really hit home how little information there is, both from the manufacturers and the after-market tuners. It seems similar to if fame manufacturers eliminating geometry charts and instead offering a few hyperbolic, cliche-filled paragraphs about how the bike rides.
That's interesting. Thanks for sharing. I definitely find myself either closed or one click from closed to try calm the fork down.
Interesting, what is the reasoning there? I have a hard time visualizing how that works but it sounds interesting.
This is correct. I'm always impressed by how uninterested brands are in educating their customers. Once a chart becomes standard issue, i.e. geometry chart, anti-squat chart, etc, then brands will accept it and publish it, but their general goal is to play keep-away with as much information as possible. I guess that's the hole that journalism, bike shops, and the internet are supposed to fill.
Yeah it sucks how little info there is out there, and it's not a small gap but a gaping hole which creates a kind of paradox where I'm cautious about how much I put out because it's so easy to be misinterpreted. But then there are people (companies, tuners, forum experts) who make all sorts of claims but no way to verify any of it. The consumer just has to accept they know what they are talking about? And most of the journalists writing about tech stuff aren't any more informed either....
I'll come back in the next day or so to add some data to this thread, rockshox has published some graphs related to these dampers which are pretty interesting
Few things I felt compelled to share...
1) Objective measurement is largely lacking in suspension tuning and testing. Yes, the big guys all have/use them and I know its expensive but a suspension dyno is a tool that is *so* needed to confirm/disprove a hypothesis or show why something may be a certain way. I know they have limitations, too, but without showing what a tune/change/knob fiddling does across a test battery, its pretty hard to talk about this stuff.
2) A lot of this is largely academic. Its cool, and #nerdsunit but I don't need to know why something works in order to use it.
3) Nobody does it, but this is why bracketing is such a good setup tool. That said, you start to get into suspension's equivalent of the "three body problem" in which all of these knobs influence one and other so its literally impossible to bracket into a "perfect" setup.
4) For most riders, this stuff is overboard. I don't mean that in an arrogant way, and I'm even talking to myself. I need a middle of the road setup that doesn't do anything weird and lets me work on the most important thing, riding. Most of us need to work on the thing in between the ears, and our technical ability as a rider. Changing setup like you are cosplaying Greg Minnaar doesn't help you in this quest. You need your bike to feel more or less the same all the time.
Not trying to disparage the conversation, I think its cool, nerdy and fun. I'm just making sure we all remember sometimes you can end up in man's land through approaching setup in the "theoretical", end up with a setup that isn't as good as your brain might want to believe (and way off of "suggested") and you end up having a worse time as a result.
YMMV.
Points #1 and #4 can kind of go both ways, I often get riders who
a) think something is wrong with there damper, I test it and its within spec so they're like "OK something else is going on then"
or b) Experience some kind of issue like sore hands, struggling with grip or harsh terrain and think it's their fault and they aren't good enough or strong enough. I test it and see a major problem, and can fix it and things are way better
Either way its confirmation and closure for them, and don't feel like they're going crazy. It doesn't have to be about dialling in the "fastest" set up, if you spend a ton of money on a bike there should be decent pathways to getting it set up well so you feel comfortable and happy on it. That might mean spending a little more money but at least its there. I've never understood the attitude that you have to be Greg Minnaar to worry about suspension set up - if your bike came with a horrible seat, you change it right? You don't just suffer through or "harden up", so you can apply that to any part of the bike. It's just a lot harder for the average shop to quantify certain parts than others. There's always going to be a limit where you should maybe not worry so much, but thats different for everyone and being able to measure something like a damper definitely helps.
Coming back to the original topic, if you bracket all your settings and find yourself fully open on compression, there can be 2 wildly different situations - #1 your damper has a narrow range of tuning, where full soft is actually still very stiff compared to other dampers (uncommon in forks, common in shocks though) or #2 your damper has a massive range from super soft to really hard and you have either overshot the sweet spot in your bracketing or there is another issue in your set up. Having actual info on your fork and how it works is the only way to understand which scenario you fit in to
My interest has been spurred by the fact that I never got along with the Charger 3, and the difference in what I got from Rockshox and what I got back from a nationally-known tuner was about as subtle as a frying pan to the face. I was formerly in the camp of "at 210, I'm barely within the range of a stock damper and I should worry about something else." I moved without leaving a forwarding address.
I've come to two central conclusions. First, I don't think the people at Rockshox, Fox, etc. aren't as smart as that tuner. Rather, I think you don't have to be all that great of a tailor to make me something that fits far better than what I can buy off the rack, especially when what's available off the rack isn't a 44L, but rather some sort of one-size-fits all, adjustable-waistband getup.
In addition to my experience, it makes intuitive sense to me that a product designed to accommodate everyone from, say, 100 to 250 lbs with a few clickers would have some inherent compromises. But I don't necessarily need the tailor. In fact, I think something like a Lift damper would probably do me just fine on another of my bikes (I'll know in a couple of weeks).
Second, the people at Rockshox, Fox, and the companies spec'ing one-size-fits-all products aren't nonprofits dedicated to optimizing the experience of avid mountain bikers. They are for-profit businesses - the same ones, in fact, that are trying to sell me builds with Transmission and crappy brakes. I emphatically think I can do a better job of selecting components for my bike than a product manager tasked with maximizing profit. (As an aside, I agree with Henry Quinney that product managers ride what they spec - for example, I bet the product manager for Megatower enjoys the hell out of the AXS Reserve Coil CC build on which they're scooting around).
Coming back to my tuned Charger 3, I did the work to find settings I like, and I vary between two setting groups based on whether I'm local or at bigger, steeper hills. And otherwise I don't think about it. I want to know the damping curves (e.g., force and velocity) so I can see how it matches with my shock and the forks on my other bikes.
Bracketing doesn't do any good if I can't even get to the same level of HSC on my stock shock. With time, I could probably sus that out with testing. But what if I just can't get the bike to feel right, and, if I could see the actual data, I'd know that I'm achieving similar HSC damping on the rear shock (accounting for wheel travel), but that the fork has fairly progressive compression damping while the shock has fairly digressive progression damping, so maybe that's why I can't get fully dialed in and I could explore that. And what if instead of getting the rear shock tuned, I was curious about an Ohlins or other stock shock. If those shocks had data available, I would have some idea of which ones were more apt to play well with my fork.
Bringing it back to geometry, if I let my buddy ride my Madonna v3 and he liked it a lot, he could look at geo charts and see, for example, that it had a longer rear center and more stack than his bike. And then he could find other bikes with similar attributes and test ride and see if that was it.
That's virtually impossible with suspension, but it shouldn't be.
All fair points.
My intuition is most people chase things without knowing they ought to chase this "thing" in the first place. What ends up happening, for most people, is some form of confirmation bias mixed with placebo effect. Placebos are great, btw, so to each their own, but what you are looking for and what you are trying to do with your dampers are all probably 3 standard deviations away from the rest of the market. Heck, your final point, a standardized forces curve would be pretty challenging to put out there - but with access to a dyno you could do this, I'm just not convinced you'd be able to parse much from it without the air spring (or coil spring) being shown in tandem with the damping curve....not to mention all the different settings and the interactions with one and other. It gets super complicated, super fast.
To your point about geometry, I often remind myself we don't ride "one number'. A bicycle is a collection of systems. Yes, geometry is part of that, but when we make these loose correlations between feel and, say, rear center, we often end up attributing feel to something that may not in fact be the "thing" that makes the bike do what we like. (or it might be!) After all, frame stiffness, wheel stiffness, stack, handlebar, stem length, offset, head angle, rear center, front center, BB height, speed sensitive damping, position sensitive springs...the damn durometer of the grip. You have so many damn knobs to turn its dizzying. Oh, and to make it harder, we're all different heights, builds, weights with different riding styles.
As a result of just how complicated this all is, you usually have some form of follow-the-leader in these sports (moto, mtb, ______), where most people just follow whatever the fast guys are doing, or whatever the fast local guy/girl is doing and call it good. Who can forget the Sam Hill Rides Low Bars So I Must Too trend in the 2000s...where now Dak has that one flipped upside down (kinda...and pun not intended). Other trends flip flop too, based off what is closer to emotion than objective decision making.
I applaud those willing to think in "first principles", but just remember, to really do this well you need accurate measurement, and you need to verify assumptions objectively, or you can super quickly end up with a setup you are positive is better - but the clock (or dyno) might say otherwise. Controlling a variable is super hard in bikes, right on down to how many beers your test pilot had the night before. lol.
At 39, I just want a setup that works pretty well, doesn't require a PHD to adjust and puts the proverbial ball in my hands. This stuff is usually way better than we are as riders, and getting used to what you have is often more important than "perfect" (unless you have the time...)
Those are all great points I generally agree with, other than I'd say that, to some degree, the points about chasing the perfect setup, Greg Minnaar, and requiring a PHD are straw men. That's not what I'm saying or seeking.
I just bought a Lift damper, which doesn't even have a HSC adjuster. You'll never catch me on anything but GX cranks and X01 mechanical (unless I get really convinced Transmission offers much longer chain and cassette lifespans on my mid-powered ebike). I've never owned a frame for less than four years. I'm running 7-yr old Code RSC's on my trail bike. I've rebuilt both calipers and at least one MC.
All that is to say that I am overtly and affirmatively against latest-and-greatest consumerism in mountain biking. My goal when riding is to not think about the bike (or much of anything, for that matter). I just never got along especially well with my Charger 3, so our of curiosity I got it tuned when it needed a damper service. I wasn't expecting much, so I'd like to think there is less confirmation bias than normal. I'll have another data point when I get some rides on the Lift.
I absolutely agree that we don't ride one geometry number - no one actually thinks that. But just because geometry charts and linkage curves don't tell the whole story when shopping for frames doesn't mean they are useless and should be ignored. They simply help you form hypothesis so you can test ride or, more likely, make an educated guess and hope for the best. The question isn't whether a geometry chart is an accurate basis upon which to make a decision, but whether it's a better basis than the alternatives.
Objective information about the air spring (how progressive) and the levels of damping would just let you do the same thing for suspension. And it wouldn't have to be a lot of information to be helpful. While it'd be nice to see the rebound curve, just seeing the outer bounds of the compression curves (assuming a HSC adjuster) with LSC fully closed would be a huge help. If I have a hypothesis that I prefer more damping than average, those curves would be helpful. The shape of the air spring curve can be played with, but it'd definitely be nice to see actual numbers on how much it ramped up with no volume spacers.
Manufacturers obviously have the data. And any competitor can throw their forks and shocks on dynos and get it very easily, which it makes it frustrating they won't just provide it. If you were going to an internet-based mountain bike scavenger hunt, a meaningful manufacturer-produced line graph with labeled x and y axis would be a good item.
Just to be clear, I'm really not calling you out in any of this. You genuinely are curious, thoughtful and looking for answers you know are out there. You are marrying a whole lot of experience with an objective approach to what you want. Plus, you seem curious, and enjoy the process.
What I'm flagging are the people that latch onto one thing or another in "complex systems" and it throws the entire sport for a bit of a loop. Not sure if that makes sense, but I so often see univariable attribution in a multivariable model.
#nerdalert
I didn't think you were calling me out! I've enjoyed the conversation.
After thinking about it some more, maybe the reason some of the manufacturers don't publish the damping curves is that the pictures aren't very pretty? Maybe some regressive curves and compression adjusters that don't have much range?
I'm in my mid 40s. Compared to when I was younger, I drink a lot less, sleep more, eat healthier, do more mobility work, etc. I view spending a little more time and money on suspension the same way. As I am less and less capable of compensating for shortcomings in suspension performance, better suspension lets me still ride hard trails, get in more laps, ride more days in a row on trips, etc.
I've enjoyed your posts in the going out of business thread. I'd be curious for your thoughts on why more customized suspension hasn't taken off in the US. I don't have any actual data, but anecdotally there are the prices of top-end real bikes and ebikes in general, as well as components like transmission and ridiculous cranksets and derailleur cages. All these data points make me think there are plenty of people in our age brackets that would pay for a component that actually improved performance if it was marketed to them in the right way. I think those people are the ones that would have to form the foundation of a significant customized suspension marketplace. Serious racers and bike nerds aren't materail segments of the market.
I think you've made a lot of good points about the industry, and pretty much nailed a lot of the things I've noticed. The big brands like Fox and Rockshox are always going to be making products to work really well for the widest range of people, as they should! And they do it well, but there is a lot of marketing and journalism that makes out that the newest Factory or ultimate-level fork is the greatest thing ever made, and considering bike prices you would be forgiven for thinking that! But there is a significant number of people who are willing to pay for gear that works as good as possible (their motivations for that aren't my concern), which can either be maximising performance from stock parts or supplying upgrades. That's where things get harder, and the industry doesn't seem interested in supporting it, especially since it would erode their image of products being the absolute best you can get already.
Why they don't supply dyno data - its a double edged sword, you would literally be needing extra staff to communicate that stuff, and be able to explain the different curves. Do they publish basic PVP plots or CVP plots and Full adjuster sweeps, each adding more confusion. Like you say, there are a lot of things that look weird on a plot and without full context or understanding it would add more questions. Adjuster ranges are almost always non-linear, from huge steps near closed to no change at all for the last few clicks. It would be really good to know though, as you can narrow down your tuning range so when it comes to bracketing settings you have eliminated the wasteful settings right from the start.
It would be good for service centres as well - every time a new product comes out, people want to know how different it is, and I can't afford to buy every single new product as soon as it lands to run on the dyno so its a chicken and egg problem where I can't give advice on things until I've tested it, but I can't test it until someone buys it........We could do our job a lot better with more data, but that hasn't really dawned on people yet
I really appreciate that first sentence. Very reassuring that I haven't totally gotten lost in trying to learn more about this. Going stir crazy on family beach vacation and this has better than worrying about work.
I thought your Insta post the other day was great and illustrated some of the benefits in a concrete manner. I'd also say kudos on recognizing that fox and rockshox make necessary products (something has be on complete bikes) and do a pretty damn good job of it. Tuner attitudes that oem stuff is patently terrible gives off a snake-oil vibe that I think turns people off. It seems to me like a one-size-fits-all damper has some significant inherent comprises, but so does using the same front triangle for multiple models and whole host of other things.
The gradation of steps the Lift damper offers seem more than good enough for someone like me. The lines they've shown have good shapes and progression, and the way MRP has communicated it seems no more complicated (maybe less complicated) than leverage, anti-squat, and anti-rise curves, which have become standard fair for avid riders.
All these companies are for-profit enterprises that respond to market pressures. Hopefully MRP has a ton of success with the Lift, especially with people dropping them in Fox and Rockshox forks, and it puts a little pressure on the bigger players as well as raises awareness of the benefits of customizing other dampers. I think Ohlins basically has Lift-like, stepped compression and rebound tunes with labels attached to them, but I can't even find them on the Ohlins website. That's crazy to me.
pardon shitty noise.. -> https://youtu.be/JEBNlHXUGdE?si=Rh2BrrTl7irGG1Nu
Yeah people like you are pretty much the reason I started the suspension lab - I could see a large enough group of people that either weren't getting enough help ie everyone outside of the typical PB commenter or bike shop staff the industry thinks is the majority (spoiler: they are not). Or just really wanted to get in to the details of tuning and maximising their bike. Funny thing is even the elite athletes struggle to get decent technical support - most shops can build wheels or rebuild a shock that might last a year under a weekend warrior, but the top guys will expose any issues within a couple of rides. It's easy to make a bike work "fine" for someone who is just like you, but extrapolating that out to someone with different needs is much harder.
The snake oil thing is a tough one to counter - there are always going to be people like that, and I possibly go too hard trying to not sound like that! I could for sure rant about a lot of shortcomings from the big brands but in reality there is a crap ton of people who love riding those products as they are and thats all I really want to see.
So anyway I did mention I'd post some data for this thread, here are the tests I've run on charger 3 & 3.1 in the past. Blue is 3.0 fully open and fully closed, red is 3.1. The HSC adjuster is less noticeable when the LSC is closed, its effect is more at very high speeds, but overall I found it to be pretty consistent with what they claimed. The interesting things are in the second 2 pictures
This is a pretty typical compression speed distribution plot I pulled from a 160mm Enduro fork data logging run, the 2 black lines represent the 50% and 75% quartiles, ie 75% of the time the fork is compressing is below 0.4m/s and only breaks 2m/s occasionally
Now Rockshox did make this plot of adjuster range for the new 3.1 damper, so I converted my dyno chart to freedom units and overlaid it. Also roughly drew that 75% line on there (about 16in/s). So they mostly correlate pretty well - there is obviously slightly higher forces on my plot which could be some variation from the conversion but also might be because PVP plots are made by picking off the peak velocity from several runs, so the speeds you choose to run can have a big influence on what that graph looks like. So while I overall think the new damper does exactly what they claim it does, it's maybe not super useful when you consider those changes mostly affect speeds outside of the typical range. This plot goes up to about 6.3m/s which is REALLY fast, and while totally realistic for what a fork can achieve, even fairly aggressive enduro riders will only reach 4-5m/s in extreme events 99.9% of the time.
Also Ohlins has published their settings info in the past - I had these saved and couldn't remember where from but it was actually a 2018 press release for the updated TTX18 damper. It also shows their HSC working in a much more useful speed range! Not sure how this relates to current forks - unfortunately there isn't much support for them here so I don't have any actual info on what they sell today
HUGE thanks for taking the time to post all of this. I may actually understand a decent chunk of it.
The speeds-that-actually-matter was a huge help. I've read and got notes about speeds, and what you're saying totally checks out. But I probably would have missed it if you hadn't pointed it out. Again, I think with a little education avid riders could attain a level of understanding that would empower us to call BS on this sort of thing. Doesn't seem all that different from looking at anti-squat curves for different cogs, where a consumer-level understanding of what's going on with those curves isn't rocket science.
On Ohlins, it's fascinating to me that the difference in the two trail, non-lock-out adjusters is pushing 100N at 1m/s. But then if you go look at the settings bank, at 1m/s all the lines seem to fall within 50N of each other. Even at very high shaft speeds for a non-pro rider on a rear shock, the force difference between a lot of those settings bank curves isn't much more than 50N. I'm not sure whether that adjuster is affecting a huge shift or those different tunes aren't actually that different - maybe some of both? Regardless, it seems really strange to me that for a big chunk of common shaft speeds, a single click on the HSC adjuster moves you a couple of tunes. Seems like it ought to be the other way around.
At 215-220 geared up with a hip pack and still a decently aggressive rider, I've always worried about Ohlins because of a generic damper tune and only two clicks of HSC. Looking at the 3.1 and very roughly converting rear shafts speeds to fork speeds by multiplying by 2.5 to compare 1m/s, you'd be looking at about 40"/s. If we generously call that range 20lbs, then the four clicks of HSC on the 3.1 is providing close to 100N of adjustment.
So with Ohlin's 2 clicks compared to 5 clicks, maybe I wouldn't be giving up overall range, but rather finer jumps in compression adjustment. But I would be getting a damper that might be considered less gimmicky (and would let me enjoy being subtly elitist and condescending to all my riding buddies
). However, I worry I'm missing something, because all the reviews consistently describe Ohlins as more heavily damped, but maybe that's compared to the 3.0 and prior versions. It seems like both Fox and RS both have recently upped the available compression damping.
All of this is at best a semi-educated guess because of my lack of knowledge and the fact I'm using a single screen to eyeball shock and fork graphs with different units. But even it's a bit (or even a lot) off, it reinforces my belief that if manufacturers (or someone else) would provide this info and websites would write about it, a good chunk of avid riders could learn enough to make better purchasing decisions.
I think where all this leaves me is about a week or two away from convincing myself to buy the new Motion Instruments DAQ. Seems like the process would be fun and it would be a purchase that would actually improve performance and fun on the bike.
In case you wondered if anyone else cared, I am really enjoying this thread. Thank you both!
Weight has very little to do with compression damping. If the sag/spring is set correctly the damper shouldn’t see much difference in force between different weights.
Rebound needs have a large range as it is resisting the extension caused the spring.
@TheSuspensionLabNZ Have you ever tested (dyno or other) a Rockshox or Fox damper after 200hrs of use? I've (and many of my friends) have always wondered what 'happens' to a modern Charger 3.0 or Fox Grip2 damper when it's ridden beyond the 200hrs service interval. Does it gain more damping and therefore is harsher, or is it losing damping ability because of air ingestion, etc.? People understand the reason for and can feel the benefits of a lower leg service> However, a more costly damper service often isn't noticeable by mortals and it makes it hard to understand what benefit, in terms of riding feel, is occurring from the service.
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