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Nicolas Vouilloz returns to BOS engineering!

top_dog

Monkey
Jan 27, 2006
209
0
Australia
Perhaps he will be back as good as he was back in the 90's/early 2000's now that he's back with Bossard. Could Nico be back to knock Sam off his perch? I'm not sure but its good to see the two back together again.

From Farkin:

Nicolas Vouilloz returns to BOS
A family reunited once more ...


Their association is still in our memory and the quality of their work together helped define downhill racing, not to mention their five World Championship and three World Cup titles. Today, Nicolas Vouilloz and Olivier Bossard face a new challenge together: to develop the new range of BOS forks and rear shocks.

Nicolas Vouilloz and Olivier Bossard started working together
in 1997 at the heart of Team Sunn. Back then, Nicolas
was already the fastest rider on the planet, but from his French team he saw the potential of going still further in the search for perfection. Of course, over the last three years, Sunn themselves have revolutionised the discipline with ultra-sophisticated factory bikes designed by Olivier Bossard.
Then, Nicolas set up on his own and called upon Olivier’s new company to design and bring to market his own downhill
bike.
V Process became one of BOS Engineering’s first customers. It was only when the most titled mountain bike racer in history retired that a different opportunity came along. After winning one last title in 2002, Vouilloz moved to cars. Although BOS is also very involved in rally, the two men’s paths stayed parallel, each working with a different team.

In 2005, BOS dipped its toes back into mountain biking with the launch of its first fork upgrade kits, then with a new rear shock in 2007. Nico also appeared in a couple of downhill marathons, then there was talk of returning to top level short course downhill, which led to him taking part in the World Cup. But, although many were already dreaming about a new collaboration, their paths still didn’t cross ...

Then, at last, the inevitable finally happened!

A few weeks ago, Nico got his old 2002 BOS factory forks and shocks out from the back of his garage and tinkered about with them to see if they would go on his Lapierre just as an experiment. Even with five-year old oil and their old-school geometry, they both worked ...better than the 2007 mass-produced stuff!

A couple of phone calls later and the answer was clear: BOS decided to commit strongly to mountain biking, to produce a downhill fork which will be followed by other models.
Nicolas is still passionate about mountain biking and R&D, and wants to get involved ... so the team’s back together again, not for a re-run but to take on a new challenge:
to give the public a range of suspension to match the best that the BOS/Vouilloz team have produced in the past.

Nicolas will be the official BOS test rider for at least three years to come. His involvement won’t just be to promote the image, he knows that his task is to eliminate fractions of a second at the helm of a real two-wheeled F1 machine. To produce high-performance suspension at this level but still accessible to amateur riders is a massive challenge. Nicolas will be closely involved with BOS in the development of the whole range of BOS products, working with Olivier Bossard and Arnaud Jacob, the head of R&D at BOS and long-time friend of Olivier and Nico from the Sunn days.

There’s one guy at least who’s thrilled about the news: Fabien
Pedemanaud, who is also, of course, an official BOS test rider for 2008, and who is hoping to benefit from his new teammate’s work and advice!

http://www.bos-engineering.com / tel : 05 34 25 33 66
Contact : Jean-Christophe Charrier - jc.charrier@bos-engineering.com

 

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top_dog

Monkey
Jan 27, 2006
209
0
Australia
Especially interesting is this:

BOS decided to commit strongly to mountain biking, to produce a downhill fork which will be followed by other models.
I wonder if it'll be USD like their old forks, or right way up to satisfy market demands?
 

Steve M

Turbo Monkey
Mar 3, 2007
1,991
45
Whistler
Especially interesting is this:



I wonder if it'll be USD like their old forks, or right way up to satisfy market demands?
I'd guess USD - tooling costs for high quality, low volume forgings/castings are a lot higher than the relatively simple lathe/CNC work you can make a USD fork with. Just speculation though.

Sounds freakin cool, I remember reading an interview with Bossard in Dirt a few years back, he reckoned Nico could notice the difference in two turns of preload... fark.
 

Ian Collins

Turbo Monkey
Oct 4, 2001
1,428
0
Pacific Beach, San Diego, CA
I'd guess USD - tooling costs for high quality, low volume forgings/castings are a lot higher than the relatively simple lathe/CNC work you can make a USD fork with. Just speculation though.

Sounds freakin cool, I remember reading an interview with Bossard in Dirt a few years back, he reckoned Nico could notice the difference in two turns of preload... fark.
in a rear spring? or fork?....because in a fork that's all relative to the adjuster, but pretty much on a rear spring its about the same whichever rear shock you have......that'd be pretty crazy to notice that, but i'm not surprised......the bike probably just felt unbalanced
 

Steve M

Turbo Monkey
Mar 3, 2007
1,991
45
Whistler
in a rear spring? or fork?....because in a fork that's all relative to the adjuster, but pretty much on a rear spring its about the same whichever rear shock you have......that'd be pretty crazy to notice that, but i'm not surprised......the bike probably just felt unbalanced
On the rear end apparently, he was talking about rear shock valving and stuff, and said it even varied quite a bit between flat-pedal and SPD users.

I find you can notice changes in preload more from the slight change in head angle than anything else... but still, 2 turns...
 

djamgils

Monkey
Aug 31, 2007
349
0
Holland
In stead of producing a usd fork wouldn't it be better to make a contract with RS, Marzocchi or whatever to buy lower castings from them?
But honda/showa also used a usd fork so apparantly it isn't all bad.

On the website of bos there is something about a upgrade kit for the fox dhx anybody know more about this?
 

pelo

Monkey
Jun 11, 2007
708
0
On the website of bos there is something about a upgrade kit for the fox dhx anybody know more about this?
I talked to Tim at Tftuned a couple of days ago and he said BOS have stopped doing the DHX-kit, unfortunately...
 

Steve M

Turbo Monkey
Mar 3, 2007
1,991
45
Whistler
I think from memory it was 2mm rather than 2 turns, not sure how many turns that is :disgust:
I think most shock bodies have a 1mm thread pitch.

Though anyway, 2mm of preload is about 6mm at the axle, which is about a quarter of an inch... I can see how that'd be possible I suppose.
 

dhkid

Turbo Monkey
Mar 10, 2005
3,358
0
Malaysia
socket, i still think its pretty crazy. a 2mm change in preload would be about 8% change in the force to compress the shox initially.
 

CBJ

year old fart
Mar 19, 2002
12,861
4,158
Copenhagen, Denmark
Sounds freakin cool, I remember reading an interview with Bossard in Dirt a few years back, he reckoned Nico could notice the difference in two turns of preload... fark.
Are you sure the interview didn't say:

he reckoned Chuck Norris could notice the difference in two turns of preload
 

Ian Collins

Turbo Monkey
Oct 4, 2001
1,428
0
Pacific Beach, San Diego, CA
In stead of producing a usd fork wouldn't it be better to make a contract with RS, Marzocchi or whatever to buy lower castings from them?
But honda/showa also used a usd fork so apparantly it isn't all bad.

On the website of bos there is something about a upgrade kit for the fox dhx anybody know more about this?

contracting lowers is horrible for their marketing, as it advertises for someone else.....on top of that, it's a waste of money.....

everyone decent MX bike out there uses USD forks, so yeah, they're legit
 

djamgils

Monkey
Aug 31, 2007
349
0
Holland
the bos shock is 650 euro in europe that is the same as the ccdb but because of the dollar/euro currency it would be at least 1000 dollar
 

MttyTee

Monkey
Jun 20, 2007
209
0
Back on the east coast!
... I remember reading an interview with Bossard in Dirt a few years back, he reckoned Nico could notice the difference in two turns of preload... fark.
I believe it, those top guys are so dialed and so close to the edge even ridiculously small adjustments must feel like they are riding with no seat. I've had moto guys pick up on 1/4 turn adjustments, crazy.
 

toodles

ridiculously corgi proportioned
Aug 24, 2004
5,479
4,719
Australia
I'd guess USD - tooling costs for high quality, low volume forgings/castings are a lot higher than the relatively simple lathe/CNC work you can make a USD fork with. Just speculation though.
If they do go USD, it will be interesting to see whether the suspension quality offsets the inevitable weight penalty.

Be interesting to see what travel they choose to run as well.
 

Steve M

Turbo Monkey
Mar 3, 2007
1,991
45
Whistler
I believe it, those top guys are so dialed and so close to the edge even ridiculously small adjustments must feel like they are riding with no seat. I've had moto guys pick up on 1/4 turn adjustments, crazy.
Ah yes and no... the range of setups that people run varies hugely (for example, one of the fastest riders down here runs his rebound so slow you honestly would not believe it), maybe changing the setup from what they're used to would be super noticeable, but I can't imagine there are many riders who can be all that sensitive. If there were, IMO they'd tend to run more similar "ideal" setups. Even the major tuning houses don't agree on what the ideal setups are - for example, TFT recommend open compression and fast rebound, Mojo on the other hand go to the opposite extreme and slow everything down as much as possible.
 

Mc.Dub

Monkey
Feb 28, 2007
115
0
Montreal
Did a bunch of reading on BOS and Nico after seeing this. Looks really interesting. Nothing I can afford but good for the sport.
 

Whoops

Turbo Monkey
Jul 9, 2006
1,011
0
New Zealand
Ah yes and no... the range of setups that people run varies hugely (for example, one of the fastest riders down here runs his rebound so slow you honestly would not believe it), maybe changing the setup from what they're used to would be super noticeable, but I can't imagine there are many riders who can be all that sensitive. If there were, IMO they'd tend to run more similar "ideal" setups. Even the major tuning houses don't agree on what the ideal setups are - for example, TFT recommend open compression and fast rebound, Mojo on the other hand go to the opposite extreme and slow everything down as much as possible.
Ahh yes, but one of those company's know something about suspension, the (as you say) other recommends you should slow everything down... :pirate2:
 

MttyTee

Monkey
Jun 20, 2007
209
0
Back on the east coast!
Ah yes and no... the range of setups that people run varies hugely (for example, one of the fastest riders down here runs his rebound so slow you honestly would not believe it), maybe changing the setup from what they're used to would be super noticeable, but I can't imagine there are many riders who can be all that sensitive. If there were, IMO they'd tend to run more similar "ideal" setups. Even the major tuning houses don't agree on what the ideal setups are - for example, TFT recommend open compression and fast rebound, Mojo on the other hand go to the opposite extreme and slow everything down as much as possible.
Yeah, I've seen some blazing fast mountain bikers riding horrible setups too. It could be in part due to the rider/vehicle mass ratio but you don't see as many fast guys riding bad set ups in MX/SX. From what I've seen and heard the valvings are in a much smaller range. It could also be due to the maturity of the respected industries and the emphasis (money) put on suspension set up. Regardless Nico was the man, not only fast but meticulous, I have no doubt he could feel small changes.
 

ChrisKring

Turbo Monkey
Jan 30, 2002
2,399
6
Grand Haven, MI
Yeah, I've seen some blazing fast mountain bikers riding horrible setups too. It could be in part due to the rider/vehicle mass ratio but you don't see as many fast guys riding bad set ups in MX/SX. From what I've seen and heard the valvings are in a much smaller range. It could also be due to the maturity of the respected industries and the emphasis (money) put on suspension set up. Regardless Nico was the man, not only fast but meticulous, I have no doubt he could feel small changes.
except for the setup that RC used to run back in 2004/5ish that was so stiff that his suspension guys had to show him video of him verses Reed through whoops to convince him to try something else.

But you are 100% on that most fast moto guys run pretty much the same setups and that an DH rider can compensate for a bad setup due to the rider/vehicle mass difference.
 

MttyTee

Monkey
Jun 20, 2007
209
0
Back on the east coast!
except for the setup that RC used to run back in 2004/5ish that was so stiff that his suspension guys had to show him video of him verses Reed through whoops to convince him to try something else.

But you are 100% on that most fast moto guys run pretty much the same setups and that an DH rider can compensate for a bad setup due to the rider/vehicle mass difference.
That def. was on the stiffer end of things and could be considered bad. I wonder how much he softened things vs. how much he elevated his pace or got stronger. I know Ivan couldn't run his set up last year and I know Chad has gone stiffer as he has had to find speed. It takes a man to hold on to the settings James uses, even he can't hold on all the time!
 

Steve M

Turbo Monkey
Mar 3, 2007
1,991
45
Whistler
Yeah, I've seen some blazing fast mountain bikers riding horrible setups too. It could be in part due to the rider/vehicle mass ratio but you don't see as many fast guys riding bad set ups in MX/SX. From what I've seen and heard the valvings are in a much smaller range. It could also be due to the maturity of the respected industries and the emphasis (money) put on suspension set up. Regardless Nico was the man, not only fast but meticulous, I have no doubt he could feel small changes.

Yep, 100% with you on that one. I too am inclined to think that the maturity of suspension setup in DH is pretty low... there are obviously a few guys out there who know their **** regarding setup but there are plenty more who think they do but don't.
 

Demomonkey

Monkey
Apr 27, 2005
857
0
Auckland New Zealand
Ahh yes, but one of those company's know something about suspension, the (as you say) other recommends you should slow everything down... :pirate2:
Is that because the 'other' are so in bed with Orange bikes and running slower rebound on SP bikes masks some of the inherent qualities of SP bikes?
 

bizutch

Delicate CUSTOM flower
Dec 11, 2001
15,928
24
Over your shoulder whispering
Yep, 100% with you on that one. I too am inclined to think that the maturity of suspension setup in DH is pretty low... there are obviously a few guys out there who know their **** regarding setup but there are plenty more who think they do but don't.

I'm of the mind that 90% of the time, suspension designers have it right these days. DH tracks aren't like motocross tracks where there are only about 4-5 variations in setup for a given track that you have to compensate for. On any given DH track there are dozens more variables to account for than on a motocross track.

Plus, geometry is a given on motocross bikes along with the leverage ratios the shock sees. In MTB, no two leverage ratios are remotely the same!

With talking with the Ohlins factory tuner (yes, I'm lucky that his kid races at our local BMX track), he said one huge factor in rear tuning that you have to compensate for from bike to bike is torque and horsepower. Stock settings or stock shocks on a GSXR off the showroom floor won't work in a race environment on a works engine because the power the bike generates throws the curve off so much.

He said that with MTB, it's a factor you simply have to eliminate from your tuning....since every rider generates a different amount of power or a different way of generating the same power (through spin versus mash). So you just have to settle on a happy medium.

He told me he could program in the suspension curve, leverage ratio, rider mass and track type for my shock and a generic power output from me (the engine) and it would be night and day difference between a stock shock.
 

Steve M

Turbo Monkey
Mar 3, 2007
1,991
45
Whistler
I'm of the mind that 90% of the time, suspension designers have it right these days. DH tracks aren't like motocross tracks where there are only about 4-5 variations in setup for a given track that you have to compensate for. On any given DH track there are dozens more variables to account for than on a motocross track.

Plus, geometry is a given on motocross bikes along with the leverage ratios the shock sees. In MTB, no two leverage ratios are remotely the same!

With talking with the Ohlins factory tuner (yes, I'm lucky that his kid races at our local BMX track), he said one huge factor in rear tuning that you have to compensate for from bike to bike is torque and horsepower. Stock settings or stock shocks on a GSXR off the showroom floor won't work in a race environment on a works engine because the power the bike generates throws the curve off so much.

He said that with MTB, it's a factor you simply have to eliminate from your tuning....since every rider generates a different amount of power or a different way of generating the same power (through spin versus mash). So you just have to settle on a happy medium.

He told me he could program in the suspension curve, leverage ratio, rider mass and track type for my shock and a generic power output from me (the engine) and it would be night and day difference between a stock shock.
Motocross bikes also have an extremely high rigid sprung weight compared to mtbs... like 90+kg vs the usual 14kg or so on a DH bike. Notably they also don't complain about bobbing, and they have enormous tyres run at very low pressures - the similarities between moto and mtb suspension tuning pretty well end at the "well they both have two wheels" point IMO (btw I'm not really disagreeing with what you said here, just commenting on it).

However - that "90% of suspension designers have it right" I dunno. Everyone will pretty well agree that there is no one "correct" setup across the board (even if all riders weighed the same), but IMO this means there will always be room for refinement. The quality and control of damping in MTB suspension is finally starting to reach (and perhaps even surpass?) that found in most moto/automotive gear, right up to race-level equipment. Not only in terms of specific damper curves, but other features (position sensitivity, adjustable thresholds etc) that are more important to mtbs than any other kind of vehicle. However - the vast majority of this expensive, well-made high performance gear is set up like crap by people who, through no fault of their own, don't know what they're doing with it, or assume that their preferences/beliefs/riding style must carry over to everyone else (looking directly in Mojo's direction right now). I'm not claiming to have THE best setup in the world or anything but it's fairly obvious to me that plenty of people get an idea into their head and then believe it into reality rather than tuning their bike based on a response to what they actually feel. This is why I say that I think the maturity of suspension tuning is pretty low. It's only been in the last couple of years that people have been focussing at all on the importance of tuning low speed compression (as separate from high speed) and really understanding what the low and high speed adjustments affect, and now with the adjustable high/low speed rebound as in the CCDB and Vivid, we have another arena open to learn about. In the moto world, all this stuff is old news to anyone who tinkers with suspension.
 

bizutch

Delicate CUSTOM flower
Dec 11, 2001
15,928
24
Over your shoulder whispering
Socket...my reference of 90% have it right is in regards to actually understanding real world suspension nowadays and having legitimate dampers that accomplish what they should do, rather than the old school mindset of doing something different (b/c these aren't motorcycles). I mean, MTB suspension for the longest time was dictated by the mindset that what works for moto doesn't need to be used for MTB. I never understood it. Elastomers? Slick Honey?

The one major limiting factor in MTB suspension design is that they all must make a compromise with their dampers b/c every rear "linkage" of every MTB is so drasticly different and there are very few instances where the shock is designed for the bike it's going on.

With that being said...suspension designers are making shocks that function well enough to work on multiple linkages. Could you imagine if motorcycle suspension was as complex, how crappy some bikes would ride when you slapped a $2000.00 shock on it that was a "compromise"? :D