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DVO Suspension - potential new player?

ZHendo

Turbo Monkey
Oct 29, 2006
1,661
147
PNW
Avalanche'd Pike aside, does anyone have any experience on the Diamond vs. the Fox 36 or standard Pike RCT3? My Marzocchi 350 CR has started to have some challenges and I don't love how quickly the performance has deteriorated, so I'm looking at other options now that 2015 stuff is going to be starting to come down in price. I ride a Banshee Spitfire and would be rocking the fork in the 150mm setting.
 

ianjenn

Turbo Monkey
Sep 12, 2006
2,998
702
SLO
I ran the 2015 TALAS 36 in both travel settings. The fork was very stiff it went where you pointed it and was simple to set up. I had it good by the second ride! I have the Diamond on the bike I am on now. The fork is still stiff just not like the Fox. I still need to do some more OTT tuning on it.

I haven't ridden any long extended chunky section with the DVO yet. But the Fox seemed to be very active and never seemed to pack up or bind under that type of terrain.
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,851
9,556
AK
Better still after a day of DHing at the park and making some more adjustments.

Was sweet at 100psi, wish I could have kept it there, but it was bottoming off big drops/jumps. If I could have kept it here, it would have been way better than the pike. Had to get it up to 120psi to fix it. Decided to do that rather than crank up the high speed damping, as I thought that'd turn it into a jackhammer.

In the mid-range for trail riding, that's where the pike seems to do better. At low speed on bumps they are similar, although they feel quite a bit different, a bit "notchey" with the OTT turned up on the Diamond, whereas the Pike is more seemless coil-like. This just the bumps at relatively slow speed.

My main issue is making the DVO a little softer for high speed damping. Put in an inquiry to ask about OTT vs low speed compression.

One of my main take-aways though from today is that the fork does seem a little more targeted towards aggressive riding than the pike. Riding that you possibly won't encounter most of the time or possibly not on most rides, but the kind of riding that when you point down at the ski resort you know, as it gets real rough real fast and you need it to be ready for anything.

OTT 6
Rebound 9 (10 seemed nearly as good though, 12 was packing significantly)
LSC 2-3
HSC 1-2
PSI 120 (bottoming at 100 and 110 of drops)
170lbs.
 
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rockofullr

confused
Jun 11, 2009
7,342
924
East Bay, Cali
THREAD RESURRECTION TIME!!!!!!!!!!

Who around her is riding DVO? Is the Diamond as good as the fan boys are saying? Does the OTT do what it's supposed to (allow heavy riders to run higher pressures without the fork being overly stiff)?

A friend wants to replace a pike with the Diamond. He's a big strong dude 210+ and smashes as hard as anyone who isn't getting paid to ride bikes so he currently has some spacers in his Pike.
 

SkaredShtles

Michael Bolton
Sep 21, 2003
65,375
12,529
In a van.... down by the river
THREAD RESURRECTION TIME!!!!!!!!!!

Who around her is riding DVO? Is the Diamond as good as the fan boys are saying? Does the OTT do what it's supposed to (allow heavy riders to run higher pressures without the fork being overly stiff)?

A friend wants to replace a pike with the Diamond. He's a big strong dude 210+ and smashes as hard as anyone who isn't getting paid to ride bikes so he currently has some spacers in his Pike.
Has he considered an MRP Ribbon coil? :brows:
 

rockofullr

confused
Jun 11, 2009
7,342
924
East Bay, Cali
How about about a coil kit considering he already has a Pike chassis?
His bushings are developing play and he wants to ditch the whole situation. I'll advise him of that option but I think he wants to avoid sending it off to get bushings/service as riding conditions down in SC are prime right now.
 
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Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,851
9,556
AK
THREAD RESURRECTION TIME!!!!!!!!!!

Who around her is riding DVO? Is the Diamond as good as the fan boys are saying? Does the OTT do what it's supposed to (allow heavy riders to run higher pressures without the fork being overly stiff)?

A friend wants to replace a pike with the Diamond. He's a big strong dude 210+ and smashes as hard as anyone who isn't getting paid to ride bikes so he currently has some spacers in his Pike.
Naw, see my post above. I could never tune that out and it was pretty bad overall, going to chunkier/rockier places (Arizona, Colorado) seemed to amplify it. Supposedly you are supposed to flip the compression piston and take out a bunch of ring-shims or something, there's a big thread on it on the MTBR page, but IMO, it's pretty weak that you have to go to all that trouble when you are within the "normal rider weight" range that it should be set up pretty decent for. OTT kind of works, but it doesn't fix the high speed. When I inquired, DVO was saying "use it like low-speed compression", to which I asked, so if I increase it will that make it more stable and force more oil through the high speed circuit? They went blank on that one. It seems to be valved way too aggressively for HSC, I'm not sure if it's been fixed. It shows a lot of promise through the design, which is essentially the same as a Pike/Fox high end damper. They may not have quite as much adjustability, but when you have to go into the damper to get it to perform correctly anyway, it doesn't matter which you get since you can do this to any of them. My Pike RC was pretty harsh too in similar situations due to it's over-valved compression stack (known issue). In this sense, the Diamond was about the same, no better.

Avalanche cartridge in Lyrik? I don't even think about Diamonds anymore. IF the damper is tuned correctly, there is a theoretical performance advantage to a closed bladder damper like Charger/FIT/DVO, but having a properly tuned damper beats the hell out of any adjustments that come on a stock fork and the servicing for the Avy is stupid-simple, just open up and drain oil and put in as much as came out, vs. the time-bomb that all of the bladder dampers are (when they stuck in air and need to be re-bled). It's not super-annoying to bleed some of these, but it's so much simpler to just do the Avy service that there's no comparison.

In short, when I got my new bike (with fork) I just said F-it, get a tuned cartridge from the get-go, and I've never looked back at the OEM crap. It never lives up to the hype.
 

ID2NVmtb

Chimp
Nov 27, 2018
4
0
Also, for those riding a Diamond, would you agree that the fork is better (stiffer, stronger, more responsive) than a Fox Factory 36?