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DVO Suspension - potential new player?

Dogboy

Turbo Monkey
Apr 12, 2004
3,215
618
Durham, NC
Diamond weight from Bikerumor: 4.8 lbs

Pike weights (claimed, albeit my experience says the real weights are very close to claimed): 26” – 1835g (4.05 lb), 27.5” – 1861g (4.10 lb), 29” – 1876g (4.14 lb)
Source:https://www.sram.com/rockshox/products/pike-rct3#specs

Edit: I'd like to ride a Diamond, but the Pike isn't going to be easy to beat.
Quoted for truth.
 

ianjenn

Turbo Monkey
Sep 12, 2006
3,003
708
SLO
Diamond weight from Bikerumor: 4.8 lbs

Pike weights (claimed, albeit my experience says the real weights are very close to claimed): 26” – 1835g (4.05 lb), 27.5” – 1861g (4.10 lb), 29” – 1876g (4.14 lb)
Source:https://www.sram.com/rockshox/products/pike-rct3#specs

Edit: I'd like to ride a Diamond, but the Pike isn't going to be easy to beat.
That's what everyone said about Mountain Cycle Disc brakes back in the day.....seems like a decent number of riders around here have no issues then others seem to have issues with seals mainly with the Pike all the forks are $1000 its not like the Pike is $200 less than the others.
 
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HardtailHack

used an iron once
Jan 20, 2009
7,666
7,022
Looks good to me, lighter than my Vengeance and may actually fit a decent tyre.

It sucks when a 2.5kg fork struggles to fit a 2.4" tyre.
 

blindboxx2334

Turbo Monkey
Mar 19, 2013
1,340
101
Wets Coast
I love my Vengeance but tire clearance can be tight with large 650b tires.
good to know, i thought you were talking about 26.. ive been toying with the idea of throwing a 650b on the front to see if id notice anything.

curious, did you add in the bumper for the 650b 'conversion'? i thought you had to do it on the vengeance, but i only see it for the velvet on XFs site

http://www.xfusionshox.com/images/pdf/Velvet650B_convertLR.pdf
enduro is going to be over by november? thank god
what i would give for this..
 

StiHacka

Compensating for something
Jan 4, 2013
21,560
12,508
In hell. Welcome!
curious, did you add in the bumper for the 650b 'conversion'? i thought you had to do it on the vengeance, but i only see it for the velvet on XFs site
Nope, no bumpers in either of my two XFusion forks. I have a Velvet RL on a HT and for the tires I run on that bike, I have (barely) enough clearance when bottomed out - and if you have a zip tie around one stanchion, it will work as a redneck little bumper, too.
 

HardtailHack

used an iron once
Jan 20, 2009
7,666
7,022
I love my Vengeance but tire clearance can be tight with large 650b tires. Here's Vee Rubber Fluid 2.4 on a Derby rim.
Haha did have that tyre on mine for a while, such a round tyre, even on a Flow EX. I ride at 90 degrees to the ground, those side lugs were no use to me, swapped for a Butcher, better everywhere.

Also I don't like the Vengence that much, I'm pretty tubby at 220lb and I find the neg travel/top out spring too soft for my weight. The bike just wants to lift the front wheel on climbs and there is SFA small bump sensitivity. I have added some oil to the air spring and fit a longer neg sprig but I need to find a stiffer one in the stock length.
 

StiHacka

Compensating for something
Jan 4, 2013
21,560
12,508
In hell. Welcome!
Haha did have that tyre on mine for a while, such a round tyre, even on a Flow EX. I ride at 90 degrees to the ground, those side lugs were no use to me, swapped for a Butcher, better everywhere.
Well, on a 40mm wide Derby rim, the side lugs actually worked pretty well. Incidentally I have a 2.3 Butcher on that rim now and it is much more drifty than the Fluid. It rolls much better tho and is quite a bit lighter so it is going to stay for a while.

 

Sandro

Terrified of Cucumbers
Nov 12, 2006
3,228
2,541
The old world
I think the Diamonds are coming in this month.....
I've been thinking that for a few months. I know, they are actually in production now and can't be that far away, but none of the shops and distributors i talked to have any confirmed delivery dates from DVO.

They could take a leaf out of Vorsprungsteve's book and wait with marketing their product until they can actually deliver or at least aim for launch dates that are realistic, particularly since a major part of their marketing pitch is their extensive experience in the suspension business.

Mostly i'm disappointed that i have to cancel my pre order because the Diamond won't reach me in time for the year's biggest riding trip.
 
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wiscodh

Monkey
Jun 21, 2007
833
121
303
They could take a leaf out of Vorsprungsteve's book and wait with marketing their product until they can actually deliver or at least aim for launch dates that are realistic, particularly since a major part of their marketing pitch is their extensive experience in the suspension business.

Mostly i'm disappointed that i have to cancel my pre order because the Diamond won't reach me in time for the year's biggest riding trip.
I love this approach as well. Yeti and SC are perfect examples of this being awesome.
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
20,065
10,628
AK
Anyone know max tire size for the Diamond 29er version?
 

Kanye West

220# bag of hacktastic
Aug 31, 2006
3,767
501
Running a 2.3x29 Butcher on some 30mm ID rims just for shiggles right now. Seems to have plenty of room on the Diamond.
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
20,065
10,628
AK
Running a 2.3x29 Butcher on some 30mm ID rims just for shiggles right now. Seems to have plenty of room on the Diamond.
I'm considering the Diamond, but someone said the 29er version was kind of tight, yet the minion 2.5 is kind the aggressive-gold-standard, so it makes sense to design for it.
 

lobsterCT

Monkey
Jun 23, 2015
278
414
JM,

I don't know if the 27.5 is different than the 29. I don't see why they would be. Here is my 27.5" fork with Goma 2.4 on derby rim. The goma measures 2.550 in width with calipers on the derby. I've got about .300 clearance at the top and side without the mud guard. (line of sight, imprecise measurement. Clearance was compromised with the mud guard in place. A heavy 1/16" on each side.
 

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Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
20,065
10,628
AK
Got my Diamond. Side clearance is fine, top clearance is a little disappointing, given I have a smallish 2.2-2.3 in there as my "all around" tire right now. It'll probably take my 2.5, but it won't take a much taller casing. Looking forward to getting it on the trail and seeing how it does tomorrow.

Weight is about .8lb (nearly a pound) heavier than my pike on the bathroom scale. Can tell the difference holding them for sure.
 
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Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
20,065
10,628
AK
So far not totally blown away, the (avalanched) pike seemed to break away for high speed choppy stuff much easier. I rode the Diamond in the morning and the evening on mostly flowy trails with some chunky root sections. Having trouble getting it to feel like the butter the pike was. It may have been starting to loosen up toward the end of the evening ride, but seemed to require lighter rebound than suggested, LSC seemed to work well at about 3.... OTT seems to do what it claims, but I'm not sure that having much of it is really helpful for those chunky high speed sections. Low speed compression is noticeable, keeps the fork higher and more support than the pike, but can't get the great effortless break-away into the HSC damping like the pike. 100-110psi or so for my 170lbs, did some harder drops and was getting to within 1/2" of bottom. Not sure if I can go with less air and more HSC and if it would negatively effect what I'm trying to make better.
 
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Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
20,065
10,628
AK
Have you messed with the OTT much yet?"
For today's ride, I cranked it up a bunch. I was mistaking "clicks" for "turns" yesterday. Still, I don't think that would make the difference through the sharp edged chunky hits at medium speed.

Today it was better though,again not mind-blowing. Through even more chunk at higher speeds it was quite nice, but at medium speeds through rough stuff/choppy roots it's not as good as the pike. Lessening the rebound to 10 clicks from out (halfway), increasing the OTT to 4 complete turns and dropping 10psi seemed to help out with that. The LSC seems effective as well, running more than 2 seemed a bit harsh. HSC didn't seem to make as big a difference, running 2 right now. Again it's decent, definitely better than yesterday on the medium stuff, but not mind-blowing either. I'm looking for more adjustability for climbs and when I go DHing and push it hard, which it has over the pike, but the pike set the bar pretty high.
 
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Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
20,065
10,628
AK
What changed after you Avalanched your Pike?
Seems to be sucking in air no matter what. Thought it was making a lot of "sluurp" sound on a recent ride, so increased the rebound and there was no measurable increase, appears to have gotten air in it. More than likely, I'd assume the charger just needs a full rebuild, but I'm at a crossroads here because my Pike chassis is 3 years old. It has a slight amount of bushing knock, and I do mean slight, within the tolerance that I can live with and I feel makes no difference on the bike. But looking ahead, do I want to do a full rebuild when it's just going to do the same thing after a while? Maybe, but given the chassis I'm not so certain it's going to hold up for 3 more years like my old 06 66 did.

The avalanched pike is buttery for sure (when working right), the other issue I'm having though is the compression adjuster needs to be set to 3-4 from full "hard" to work properly. That is the "correct" setting from Craig. It works, but it doesn't match my rear suspension and it dives a lot through the midstroke. There is no more "firm" setting like it came with, it doesn't nearly "lock out" nor does it even significantly firm up at the top stroke, for all intents, the adjuster does nothing useful anymore, although I found that the above setting was required to make it work properly. More compression is a little harsher, less is a little harsher, but it doesn't really affect how firm the LSC is. At first I thought this was due to air that migrated into the car, which the air most definitely did, but even with a freshly bled cart this was still an issue. Maybe a stiffer HSC stack would force more oil into the LSC and fix this, but at this point I'm putting a lot of time and money into a chassis I'm not sure about that I would probably sell with the bike in a year or so anyway. With the DVO, I'm thinking it will probably be worth keeping for the next aggressive 29er.

The two things that would fix my Pike issues are A) not sucking in air and requiring seals/rebuilds and B) firmer low speed compression. This is after I already upgraded the rebound shaft head seal. There were some that thought when the pike started to get "tired" the rebound piston would start sucking air in during compression, due to the heavy valving associated with the fork. I do remember bombing down some super chunky stuff with the original tuned cart and thought it was pretty damn good, but that feeling faded as the air entered the cart over time. This might be the crux of the cartridge-bladder designs, they get "tired" after a while and have to be rebleed and rebuilt, so A) appears to be an inherent limitation and I just don't want to do B) on an older chassis. The DVO is supposed to be better in this respect and avalanche is supposed to come out with a hard-reservoir to make the charger better, but I go back to the old chassis. I do push it pretty hard when I DH, which is 4-6 trips a year, less this year, but the fork has seen it's share.. I'm usually doing the full DH runs, air, rocky stuff at speed, etc. It's obviously not a fox 40, but then again I'm not pushing it like this every day.

And lastly, I'm a gear-whore. The DVO has more adjustments, low and high speed compression, after the issue with the low speed on the modded pike, it may be better just to bite the bullet for the higher end model, as my Pike was just the low-speed compression model, rather than the one with the 3-selector and low-speed.
 
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tomasis7

stroganoff
Nov 5, 2014
623
65
Electronic bong-shed LEGAL
Seems to be sucking in air no matter what. Thought it was making a lot of "sluurp" sound on a recent ride, so increased the rebound and there was no measurable increase, appears to have gotten air in it. More than likely, I'd assume the charger just needs a full rebuild, but I'm at a crossroads here because my Pike chassis is 3 years old. It has a slight amount of bushing knock, and I do mean slight, within the tolerance that I can live with and I feel makes no difference on the bike. But looking ahead, do I want to do a full rebuild when it's just going to do the same thing after a while? Maybe, but given the chassis I'm not so certain it's going to hold up for 3 more years like my old 06 66 did.
Wouldn't it better run spring-fork like a good old 66, Fox 36 and avoid air problem? Im saying it as Deville owner and I know air issue can be tricky. I saw ACC has air bleed valve bolted on lower of Deville, pretty cool I thought.

For bombing hard down "dh" , spring-damping rock whether front or rear! once cartridge is sorted out
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
20,065
10,628
AK
On an E29? Not really. I don't think any of the problems are the result of the air spring curve, although there was supposedly something about the stock pike that wouldn't let you run a very progressive curve (spacers), as the damping would get overwhelmed. Supposedly that was fixed with the Avy tune. Besides, they only make a 36 Float and Talas these days anyway.
 
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Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
20,065
10,628
AK
Continues to get a little better. I think taking the pressure down slightly, the rebound and increasing the OTT helped significantly, real supple on the roots at these slower speeds. Still a little concerned about the medium stuff and super-chunky stuff. Might go to the DH resort this weekend to pound on it some.
 
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