[Greyhound]

Am I missing something obvious, here? I can't figure it out. If the SGS expert has a 7.8 eye-to-eye length,, with a 2.28 stroke, how does it get the same amount of travel as the Pro version with an 8.5 eye-to-eye and a 2.5 stroke? Are the linkages different? What am I missing?

 

[Kornphlake]

My wild guess is that the linkage is different or you've actually got the wrong numbers for the shock. Or maybe, just maybe they don't actually get the same amount of travel, like how 7" forks really only get 170mm travel which is closer to 6.5".

 

[Lumpy_Gravy]

isnt the expert a freeride frame with less travel and the pro a downhill frame with 8" travel?

 

[Greyhound]

No no......check the Ironhorse website. All three freeride models get 7" of travel, I'm just curious as to how it's acheived on the Expert model with a shorter shock and stroke as opposed to the Pro and Team models which have a longer shock and stroke. It's gotta be the linkage, right?

Here's why I'm getting at what I'm getting at: I test rode the Expert model yesterday. I really, really liked it a lot. It rode like an extension of me. Not what I was expecting at all. The shop employee says to me "You're gonna want the Pro version of that bike, because the leverage ratio with that shock is too high, and will blow it up."

Doing the math quickly, I came up with roughly a 3.1:1 ratio---not the best, but it's not the worst, either. With the longer shock and stroke on the Pro, the leverage mellows out to about 2.8:1. Definately better. So, my question then became, "Well......without having the two here to compare, how do both bikes acheive the same travel with different shock lengths?" And, "If I were to get this bike, and wanted to change shocks, would I need new linkages?" Are the linkages the same throughout the line, or is it the frame that changes? All of these questions he had no answers for. And not finding the info I was looking for with the Search function, I thought I would pose it to a few 's and see what their thoughts were.