Labyrinth Minotaur

It's got balls!


Just kidding. Looks like a commencal or if you stretch your imagination, an evil. It's just a single pivot with what should be a rising rate link. If it's not a rising rate link, nah. It looks like it has a "multi-progressive" shock link, which is probably totally different than a "dual-progressive" shock rate.

I hope they mean high leverage ratio early in the travel, as that usually contributes to a bit ultra sensitivity off the top.

Tomasis said:

Would be nice know which is better

-linear shock for frame with varying linkage rate
or
-custom tuned shock for frame with linear linkage rate
or
-custom tuned shock for frame with varying linkage rate

What kind of shocks are capable for crazy tunning? Lets say that Rc4 seems better at the beginning of travel ie more sensitive for smaller bumps as Sunday owners prefer it when Sunday frame has a little lower compression.

When I think more about Minotaur frame, it offers linear rate at middle part of suspension then I'd tune the shock for my preference. Logically, it is easier to design linkage with distinct separations under the whole travel as beginning, middle and bottom out. When one tries to tune shock, it is harder to change the curve as all parameters are more dependant on each other. For example, bottom valve of Fox shock is unnecessary.

Click to expand...

Well, the only shocks on the market now that offer anything particularly crazy are the RC4 and, to a certain extent, the CCDB Air.

The RC4 offers a similar boost valve to others, that adds damping when the valve engages, which if I'm right is an evolution of position sensitive damping, only less awful. LSC and HSC and LSR and the ability to change the shock's progressiveness, so that you can add damping late in its travel.

The CCDB air offers a normal damper with a spring that can be tuned for linearity or additional progressiveness, but the damper is not affected by those changes.

Most shocks on the market offer no weird adjustments like boost valve any more, but rather offer a degree of bottom out protection via the change of volume or pressure in the reservoir. More pressure and smaller volume makes for more resistance to bottoming, but doesn't really add progressiveness so much as reduces hard bottoming, I think.

The best frames, on paper, are ones that feature some degree of progressiveness built into their linkages, which means you don't have to rely on a damper for it. That means less heat, and a damper that can focus on just going over bumps better. In my opinion, it's a little easier to tune a shock on a frame with a rising rate, as the frame will be handling the craziness of getting deep into travel vs. midstroke vs. top end vs. bottoming, instead of trying to do that with the shock. Most modern bikes are following this trend, and as a result, more dampers are dropping weird features. The 2014 RC4 has almost no boost valve, apparently.

Linear frames are helped by progressive shocks and springs. An RC4 and a linear bike are a great pairing, as are air shocks, since most have some level of progression built in. Air shocks don't really help with adding more damping late in the travel, which I actually think is kind of important/nice in a frame design. ie, deep in the travel, more compression to help resist hard bottoming or going even deeper in the travel. I ride a linear bike with an air shock, and while it works well, it lacks that "gobble everything up" feeling that you get with a nice rising rate.

Further still, I wonder if a linear shock rate is best for racing. Hill won so often on the sunday, which was pretty linear. His first year on the demo he won too...but I recall that early demos were more linear than progressive. On that yakuza, which I didn't ride much before it asploded, I ran a coil shock with no air helper, and noticed that it destroyed roots and rocks. It would bottom out through jumps and off drops, but going WFO through a section really seemed to offer up no objections from the bike. That seems to mirror what a lot of people say about linear bikes destroying rocks, but not wanting to do much jumping, AKA "feeling dead".

So...in other words...rising rate best for 90% of riders, linear shock best for 90% of riders, 10% of riders will benefit from a shock with adjustable progression or wacky other features.

One more thing...the dual progressive curve is interesting in theory. It allows for super-soft, rising initial travel, gobbling up small rocks and settling into sag easily, followed by a linear section that allows you to destroy rocks and roots as I mention above. Then, it ramps up, resisting bottoming and packing up.

It's a great design, in theory, but sometimes I wonder if there would be so much going on in the back end that it would be hard to know what your wheel is doing, say vs. a linearly-progressive design, that ramps up without arcing back to linear, which would always give a positive feel to the rider.

The take home to all this, though, is that fast riders are going to be fast no matter what they are on, and I am going to continue to geek out on theory and other cool ****.

Tomasis said:

Sam Hill loves Pulse frame and it is not linear leverage. Times are changing Shocks get better and better.

Click to expand...

Sam hill gets paid to ride a bike! He'll like whatever you put him on! The session appears to have a pretty strong rising rate and gwinner won everything on it...now he's on a rising rate demo and can't win.

To your point...I think the best thing going will always be a shock that doesn't do anything funky, and instead focuses on being universally adjustable and adaptable to rider and frame. With air shocks getting so good, I wouldn't be surprised to see more high end bikes being stocked with an air CCDB or the like. Most people have settled on the 9.5 x 3.0 shock size, which just makes so much darned sense!