I agree it's heavier than a pure air fork, but you lost me with the second part.
This.
lolz. I was waiting for this to come up.
Isn't the 12x142 standard just a normal 12x135 hub with an extra 3.5mm stuck on either side so there's a lip to catch on the frame, to make it easier to line things up? Sounds like you should be able to add a spacer to either side to take up the extra space, though lining everything up might suck. I assume the 157mm standard is the same kind of thing but for 150mm hubs?lolz. I was waiting for this to come up.
there are spacers included with the frame/bike to run a standard 150.
Yeah, I didn't read the article, I was just thinking something along those lines aught to work.
The question is will it be Marzocchi Air Assist or Manitou MARS hybrid style.
they dream of F1 style pit stops. every second counts.
Only a very few people knew that there was anything special going on in his fork. Even last week at Windham, no one from Fox would tell me who else was even on that fork, besides Gwin. There's obviously a few guesses that would be fairly accurate, but no one was talking. I found it odd that they'd tell me about what was going on inside the fork in Whistler a few weeks ago, but wouldn't tell me who was on it!
Not the same system at all. The fox is half air spring, half coil spring. Coil spring bottoms out, then air spring kicks in, allowing you to control the ramp up with extreme precision.
did you get any shots of Gee's bike/fork from last weekend? or is it really just a Trek only product?
its a bottom out control? the audio on PB makes it seem like just a preload adjustment like the old Marz forks
So the air spring has no effect on initial spring rate, preload, etc??
It's more than a bottom out, but from what I was told it does that fairly efficiently. It's a hybrid spring basically. So you basically have a 2 stage spring, and the second half can be very precisely controlled.
yeah I mean it's not like my bolt-on Hadley achieves the same thing in the "old" standard... I need the "new" standard because... well... because it's new!
Seems kinda' dumb since your average RM'er is just going to install it once as tight as possible, never remove or grease it the entire season, cover it with mud, shoot it with the hose, and then complain that it's a POS because it's seized and they can't get it out in November.
That is exactly how the Manitou MARS system would be described.
http://www.manitoumtb.com/index.php?page=tech
Seems kinda' dumb since your average RM'er is just going to install it once as tight as possible, never remove or grease it the entire season, cover it with mud, shoot it with the hose, and then complain that it's a POS because it's seized and they can't get it out in November.
Because plain air spring curves just aren't that good on a DH bike. The crappy falling rate at the start of the travel means harshness and lack of support in the midstroke, the only saving grace they actually have for DH applications is the progression. This system sounds better, but it's basically a more refined/easily adjustable equivalent to doing up the footbolts in a Boxxer Team (R2C2 as they're now calling it) in different positions. I think it's promising, but whether it works well really depends on how refined it is.
That would only be true if there was no negative chamber
Ah ok. I've never run an air fork, or paid much attention to them! In my head though I still don't think a negative chamber would make a fork FALLING rate. It'll make it soft at the start, sure, but it still be progressive from the very start, no?That would only be true if there was no negative chamber
You're a spreadsheet guru, run the maths.
The negative chamber is always of a lower initial volume than the positive chamber, which means that for a given rate of shaft displacement, the pressure in the negative chamber drops faster than the pressure in the positive chamber increases. Initially this means you effectively have a very stiff spring rate... however because the rate of pressure drop in the negative chamber is constantly decreasing (ie pressure in neg chamber stays closer to constant), the spring rate actually gets softer as you go further into the travel, up until such time as the proportional change in volume of the positive chamber becomes significant enough to push the spring rate back up again.Ah ok. I've never run an air fork, or paid much attention to them! In my head though I still don't think a negative chamber would make a fork FALLING rate. It'll make it soft at the start, sure, but it still be progressive from the very start, no?
Surely as soon s you move 1mm into the travel, the pressure in the pos chamber increases, the pressure in the neg chamber decreases, and the force required to move it a further mm will be harder than the first mm?
Or am I being stupid? I expect I am - educate me please
I don't really agree that dh forks as a whole need to exhibit what you're describing. I've had one that does but there are many ways to go about it. Although we may be thinking the same things with your 'plain' air spring mention.
So its kind of like what happens when you raise the oil levels in an open-bath fork but with its own independently designed circuit?
Agreed on most counts there. My experiences with the different type of spring/damper combinations could be summed up as this:
Would I be right in guessing you're pretty light, like 70kg (150lbs ish) or less? Because for very light riders, the solo air stuff can work pretty well due to the fact that the air volume ramp up in the lowers has a bigger contribution and you end up running less pressure proportional to your weight (meaning less initial harshness) than a heavier rider. Personally I've tried air and coil in the same Boxxer and preferred the feel of the coil by far.
I spend a lot of time setting up my bikes (especially now that suspension comes with compression damping that works like it's supposed to)...and sell things quickly that don't work. I also switched over from a coil boxxer I've been riding for two seasons.That's a reasonably stiff setting for the spring, that's proportionally about the same (or stiffer) than what I was running in mine, and that was set up pretty stiff. It's also possible that RS have enlarged the negative spring volume for 2011 to help smooth out the initial stroke... or that you ride really stupidly hard compared to me (entirely likely, I'm a pussy), and require insane bottom-out resistance and end up getting your mid-stroke support from the fact that your spring rate is proportionally stiffer anyway.Hah....close. 160lbs. I can see what you're saying about top end BS at higher pressures. That's every air fork that gets weird. I had to put a different topout spring in one of my dirtjumper forks because I set it at 4" and it extended to 5. So yeah that's a good point.
It's not from riding a whack setup man I can promise you that. I know what I'm doing and go back and forth between bikes
FWIW, I'm sitting at about 48-49 psi on the air spring, about a quarter turn in on the chamber/bottom out and about 5-6 clicks in on low speed compression damping, zero HS damping.
