Selva R represents the “state-of-the-art” of custom tuning for MTB forks. Every single parameter of the Selva R can be modified according to your own specific needs. There is no setting you cannot reach. Your riding style is already built into the fork, it’s up to you to unlock it.
With the CTS technology the possibilities of customizing the damping are potentially infinite. With our new Selva R you get two CTS valves, Gold (installed) and Red.
The 2Air technology allows a very precise tuning of the air side. Thanks to the two separate chambers (Silver/positive and Bronze/negative), you can set the pressure of the positive chamber (Silver) according to weight, like any traditional forks, in addition to that you can also change the pressure of the negative chamber (Bronze) in order to fine-tune the response of the fork in the first part of the travel.
Thanks to the Neopos (one is already included into the Selva R) the air spring is further refined, a riding experience that’s not possible to achieve with a traditional air fork. Every rider will have the freedom to adapt the fork to their its riding style in a simple, fast, and effective way. We feel that the Selva R redefines the concept of custom tuning.
Custom tuning redefined
The 2Air technology is designed to achieve the highest level of customization in an air fork. By changing the pressure in the positive chamber (Silver – main chamber) you can decide how much support you have from the fork according to your weight and/or riding style. While on the other hand, by changing the pressure in the negative chamber (Bronze – sensitivity control), you can fine-tune the suppleness of the fork in the initial travel.
The standard setting suggested on the pressure chart shows always the negative chamber (Bronze) with 20psi more than the positive chamber (Silver). This is a very good point where to start, but there’s still a lot more.
If you want to get a different feeling you can change pressure in the negative chamber (Bronze) within a range from a minimum of 10psi more than the positive chamber (Silver) to a maximum of 30psi more than the positive chamber (Silver).
If you want to increase the initial sensitivity of the fork, you can stay between 20 to 30psi more in the negative chamber (Bronze) than the positive chamber (Silver).
If you’d rather decrease the initial sensitivity and look for more support in the first part of the travel, simply stay in the range from 10 to 20psi more in the negative chamber (Bronze) than the positive chamber (Silver).
Sensitivity control
Thanks to the 2Air system, it’s possible to manage fork’s response in the first part of the travel by modifying the pressure in the negative chamber (Bronze). By adjusting this, you can control the small-bumps compliance of the fork. In a traditional air fork with two air chambers and just one air valve this is factory set and not adjustable.
Travel change
With the 2Air system, it’s possible to change the travel of the fork without having to replace any components. The Selva R can be set from 130 to 160mm (Standard version) and from 170 to 180mm (Extended version).
Longer life
The Selva R o-rings have a longer life because they work exclusively in contact with smooth and unmachined surfaces.
Adjusting the air side with the 2Air system is very simple. This is the procedure to follow:
1) Start with both chambers of the fork (positive/Silver, negative/Bronze) empty. 2) Inflate the positive chamber (Silver) with the desired pressure by using the shock pump. 3) Close the lock-out of the fork on the damping side (golden lever). 4) Inflate the negative chamber (Bronze) with the desired pressure by using the shock pump. 5) Unlock the fork by releasing the lock-out lever on the damping side (golden lever).
Note: every time the pressure needs to be checked or changed in the positive chamber (Silver), the negative chamber (Bronze) MUST be empty.
Compression Tuning System
Thanks to CTS technology (proprietary to Formula) the damping of the Selva R is fully customizable. With seven CTS valves available, each rider will find a tailor-made setting for his style. In addition, thanks to the external compression and rebound knobs, you can fine-tune the damping.
The seven CTS valves transform the way your fork behaves. These are not modifications effected through the use of traditional external controls. The CTS valve is a fundamental structural part of the hydraulic cartridge, changing the valve means changing the cartridge itself, modifying fork’s behaviour.
An obvious advantage of this system is that using different valves is like having more than one forks, each one appropriate for different situations.
The Neopos is an innovative technology (proprietary to Formula) that will allow any rider to better manage the progressiveness and will also give to the fork a way much more comfortable feeling compared to a traditional air fork. The Neopos has unveiled a new age for volume-spacers. Thanks to the Neopos anyone can get the best of two worlds: the feeling of a coil spring and the adjustability of the air spring.
The IFT (Internal Floating Technology) is what truly differentiates our forks from any other fork. Smoothness is very important in terms of suspension performance. All forks, regardless of their stiffness, experience some kind of lateral stress while riding. This type of stress increases the friction of the internal parts.
Thanks to Formula’s design, our hydraulic cartridge is structurally merged with the stanchions and lower legs. In a riding situation, our internals compensate for the external stresses placed on the fork. This causes an incredible reduction of friction.
Hexagon Design
The ability of a fork to resist flexing is a key factor for maximum riding precision. A fork that rebounds too fast may make riding unsafe with an overall lack of control, above all when braking and cornering. In the same way, it is important that the fork is not too stiff, because it may make riding too tiring. When designing the Selva R we had a fundamental aim in mind, finding the perfect balance point between stiffness and flex, this is the same as our standard forks. Thanks to the Hexagon Design, the natural flex of the fork has been dramatically decreased with this lightweight method. In this way, we have managed to combine the advantages of the standard boost with the stiffness of a traditional fork.
Selva is a system
Selva is more than just a fork, it’s a system of technologies. If you have a Selva S, with a positive air chamber and a negative spring, and you want to try the 2Air system, you can buy a kit that will allow you to turn your Selva S into a Selva R. The 2Air kit can be built on each of the Selva models currently on market.
At Formula we don’t want the riders to perceive their forks as being obsolete every time we offer a new technology. On the other hand, we want every rider who uses Formula products on their bike to be happy with the products and keep it them on their mountain bike as long as possible.
Ultraviolet 30
In 2018 Formula celebrates thirty years since being founded. We wanted to celebrate this anniversary with the creation of a special color, a new factory color that we called Ultraviolet 30. Ultraviolet 30 is made with a special paint that reaches a tone specifically created for Formula. A unique color developed by an Italian workshop specialized in custom painting. Ultraviolet 30 is a very durable matte paint of the highest quality. Each Ultraviolet 30 fork is entirely hand painted in Italy.
The fork looks cool, but gotta love the amount of meaningless fluff spat out by a press release like this (never mind the performance of the fork, which I think is probably actually very good). 1. "Hexagon design". Literally zero explanation of what this is, what problem it solves or how it solves it. Total fluff. 2. "The Selva R o-rings have a longer life because they work exclusively in contact with smooth and unmachined surfaces." What? What kind of concrete rubble surfaces do you think most seals work with? Sorry, BS. 3. Neopos. Despite the claims of magic, this is no different from a standard volume spacer. Have tried it, it will not make your air fork feel like a coil fork. Sorry, BS. 4. "Internal floating technology". Again literally zero explanation of what this is, or how it solves a problem. "Structurally merged with the stanchions" - weird, most dampers just levitate in the right place, nobody ever thought of actually attaching them to the fork. 5. "Ultraviolet"... a new colour for Formula that never previously existed on the spectrum of colours. What an age we live in. 6. CTS making completely physically impossible claims about affecting progression of the fork, from a speed-sensitive damper. Sorry, BS. Not to say it isn't a cool or useful feature, but you make snake oil claims about its performance.
Seriously @rideformula , the fork might be the greatest thing out there (and I actually believe it's very good based on what I've seen so far), but do yourselves a favour and have one of your engineers proof read the marketing speak so people don't read it and think "what are these guys smoking".
1. Neopos definitely has a different effect than traditional rigid volume spacers and would definitely increase linearity, not that I totally get why people are so obsessed with linear spring rates in their fork. It's fine if you don't understand why this is true, but that doesn't make it untrue. 2. There are no claims about CTS changing progression in the sense of spring rate, which is that I assume you're talking about. Different damping curves can be achieved by installing different CTS assemblies and some of them are progressive, which is what the website claims. Nothing new here, just a handy way to drop in a different shim configurations (which may or may not have progressive damping curves, totally physically possible). 3. The article does not claim a new color was invented that was unobserved, only that a new paint option was available and that the color is unique. Not a technical advantage, but they aren't claiming to defy physics.
I agree the marketing is speaking loudly and the article is short on tech details, but you've got to be kidding me with your post. No sense in getting on the internet if you just want to shit on things you don't understand (or can't be bothered to read).
Air springs are speed sensitive. The faster they are hit, the lower the spring rate. A speed sensitive damper will certainly help with the progression of the air spring.
By like 2 percent most of the time.
1. Hexagon design is a design that manages the stiffness of the fork adding more material outside. So the fork is not too stiff or not to flex. 2. With two chambers there's no passage of air since they're separate. With other technologies the airs flows through a passage which is a machined section of the stanchion. The o-ring goes up and down through this machined section. With two separate chambers, the o-ring is in contact only with flat surfaces. 3. Neopos is a world different from other volume spacers. Have you tried it on a Formula fork or on other brands? 4. Thanks to the IFT the internals of the forks floats while the fork flex (every fork has flexion while you're riding, no matter how stiff it is). This means more smoothness and less friction, so, more effective settings and longer life to the bushing. 5. Is a new color cause there's not industrial code for that, either ral or pantone, is a new mix of colors. 6. CTS changes completely every single parameter of the progression curve like a shim stack would do.
Sorry, you believe these points make no sense, we'll put more effort to explain them better in the future.
@shredteds: You forgot the o-ring part. They refer to the fact that there are separate air chambers, so no transfer ports that the seals have to travel over and wearing them faster.
@Socket: The sad part about your post is not that you're completely right, but that the guy making fun of you for pointing out the marketing bullshit being spewed, has more positive votes than you. It almost feels like the MTB community on Pinkbike likes being fed bullshit, or are too damned stupid to realise it
@rideformula: thanks for replying. I think the fork looks very interesting, but I'm still confused by "the feeling of a coil spring" in regard to Neopos. On page 2 of the pdf linked it compares the curve with and without Neopos against a standard spacer. On page 8 there is a graph showing a coils linear progression. When compared to the first graph, the standard non spacered fork looks to be the most coil like. I understand that spacers are designed to increase ramp up (and I see that Neopos doesn't ramp so hard) and so make it less coil like.
@rideformula: you have some words mixed up. Dampening, or damper curve, not progression curve. I would suggest consulting a technical writer for your adverts, because this reads like garbage.
Formula products rock by the way. Any plans for an air shock to match?
@shredteds: "No sense in getting on the internet if you just want to shit on things you don't understand (or can't be bothered to read)" You must be new here.
@rideformula: I thought your marketing material/copy was fine and I was able to understand the problems you were trying to solve, your engineering intent and the results. That said, the additional clarification helps further elaborate the benefits you guys believe you provided. Best of luck.
@kiksy: What you're saying is correct in some sense. What we would like to focus on is something not very discussed in mtb. The response of an air spring cannot be simplified with a graph with just one compression speed. The thing is that air spring changes his response at different speeds, even if the load is exactly the same. While you're riding you change your compression speed constantly. Coil spring is different, does not change the response at different speeds, is constant. This is why a lot of people perceive the coil spring as more comfortable. What the Neopos does is exactly this, it's still an air spring but it makes the air more constant in the response while speed is changing. With Neopos you can achieve that but without the weight of the coil spring and with the advantage of the infinite tuning of the air. Of course, the air cannot behave "exactly" like a coil. Neopos is a "new positive chamber", something in between traditional air spring and coil spring. On top of that with Neopos you get rid of a good amount of high frequencies vibrations on the handlebar. Maybe is a complicated concept to explain here but we hope this makes sense.
I have installed neopos in Pike and it certainly behaves differently, I would say it works a bit better (Iused to have 0, 1 and 2 token setups before). I have even had to adjust rebound a bit, so It's true that it changes air spring behaviour.
@R-trailking-S: air springs are speed sensitive in the opposite direction to what you just said. Adiabatic compression gives a gamma value of 1.4, isothermal compression is 1.0. Faster compression = higher spring rate.
@rideformula: Thank you for the clarifications there. Had these points been included in the original press release, it would have sounded a lot more like a well designed fork and a lot less like a google-translated tourist brochure, although there's realistically still no details on how the "hexagon design" or "IFT" achieve the claimed goals. You guys are clearly working very hard to try to bring good products to market and I have a lot of respect for that, so let me be absolutely clear that it's the marketing copy that is a bit of a letdown, not the fork itself. I am personally nothing but stoked to see more good options on the market.
Regarding Neopos, I actually both calculated and measured what it does. Unless there's some magical properties where it only behaves in a certain manner inside a certain brand of fork, it does not matter whether you use it in a Formula fork or anything else. It's identical to a volume spacer, but one of a smaller size than the Neopos spacer physically occupies. It's fundamentally a compressible element that's stiffer than just the volume of air it would displace, with some material damping (that actually exaggerates rather than reduces the adiabatic vs isothermal discrepancy, the opposite of what you claim). I've read the marketing material many times over, it has errors.
Regarding CTS, in your link it claims position sensitivity, when in reality it's speed sensitive. Maybe your explanations were trying to relate softer low speed damping to small bump compliance, but the descriptions are technically incorrect and they make you sound like you don't really know what you're doing. You're also not being very clear on whether you mean position-sensitive progression or speed-sensitive progression when you say "progression curve" because the CTS system does not change the position sensitive aspects in spite of the claims on your website. Those too are a bit inconsistent - some of the more highly digressive curves are said to be "softer in the first two centimetres of travel" despite having far firmer damping than the other curves. It is a cool system to be able to swap that out very easily for different damping characteristics however.
The colour thing I was just ribbing on because it's easy
@shredteds: 1. No it doesn't. Neopos does not have a substantially different effect than rigid volume spacers, they are just equivalent to smaller volume spacers than they first appear. PM me if you want full details. 2. Yes there are claims about progression in terms of position sensitivity (I never mentioned spring rate). They're right here - www.rideformula.com/technologies/cts
Assuming I "don't understand" what I'm talking about here would be a funny assumption to make, and is just trying to play the man instead of the ball.
I will reiterate - my criticisms aren't of the product at all, just the marketing spiel being poorly put together.
@RedRedRe: yeah, Rockshox pay me $500k/year to sit on the internet and bitch about press releases from other companies. SRAM's press releases are arguably the worst of all in terms of fluffy BS per word written (28.99? Boost?), but I rarely comment on them because plenty of others get on it and call them out in a hurry. Kindly remove your tinfoil hat... chemtrails get through those anyway
1. So the fork got the perfect flex for the 120kg weekend warrior and his 60kg wife? I still dont get it. Maybe I am still still thinking square or in circles, but not "hexagonal".
2. That makes sense, it is the reason I loved the old dual air springs of RS. However, people tend to f*ck up their setup so it was dropped in favour of a self regulating negative spring.
3. Makes sense.
4. Why dont you give some drawing to the marketing department so they can show us how it works instead of tons of marketing BS noone understands anyway. My brain tends to shut down when the marketing BS level reaches a certain threshold.
5. Yeah, makes matching with the rest of the Bike far easier... ...not.
6. I take the shimstack any day of the week, thanks. I see the advantage of the external change, but I dont trust the system until I see some dyno runs, especially of the rebound valving!
I'm in marketing (in another industry), and I love this post. Empty marketing language is bad marketing, end of story.
The worst part is that it doesn't have to be this way. You can explain the value proposition of a product without spilling proprietary information; you can explain why your new product is a legitimate improvement without being full of shit in the process. They just...didn't.
@Socket: Isn't the neopos made out of a different material from other volume spacers, so it would have a different modulus of elasticity, which would change the spring curve by some amount? Not saying if its good or bad because I haven't tested it, but it would still be different.
@wstrials: it is, but a softer material (rather than being basically rigid) means that it simply behaves like a spacer smaller than its original physical volume for as long as it maintains a comparable pressure-volume curve shape to the air chamber P-V curve.
@Socket: So its like a tender or a helper spring on a wrc car, except the main spring is progressive? Which seems like it could lead to some pretty interesting looking spring curves, instead of the standard inverse relationship of an air spring. If you have any graphs showing its behavior, I would be interested to see them.
@wstrials: It's literally like it's air, except some of the space is taken up by the polymer. Because that's pretty well exactly what it is. It doesn't give you any strange spring curves, it gives you an air spring curve like any other.
Think of it this way - you have a small airtight container, like tuppreware filled with air at atmospheric pressure, and you put it inside an air spring chamber. You then pressurise the air spring chamber, and the airtight container begins to deform and crumple because the pressure inside is lower than outside, so it compresses until the pressures balance again. The air inside behaves as though it was air inside the fork, except the plastic of the container takes up a bit of space. Now imagine you have thousands of those little containers, except they're not tupperware, they're just a piece of closed-cell foam. That's exactly what Neopos is and how it behaves.
@Socket: that is an incorrect analogy. Neopos is foam. Foam has damping properties. The faster it is hit, the harder it is to compress. Air springs behave oppositely all the way to the speed of sound, where the air sprig has no support.
@R-trailking-S: Foam does have some weak damping properties which damp it somewhat (which as I mentioned before is the OPPOSITE of what Formula claim), but you are 100% wrong that air springs behave the opposite. The faster you compress air in a confined volume, the higher the gamma value, up to a ceiling value of 1.4. Google "adiabatic compression" and "isothermal compression".
@Socket: the gamma value is the ratio of specific heats at constant pressure and volume... Which is part of the work and internal energy system. Which sums to 0. Which is not speed dependent.
Regardless of whether the resistance is zero for an instant or not, the work done and resulting pressure are the same. If somehow airsprings got harder the faster they are hit at all times, then the work done would be less than the change in pressure and you would have invented a perpetual motion machine.
@R-trailking-S: you do not understand what the gamma value is in a dynamic context. When you compress a gas quickly, the internal energy (which is vibration of the molecules, banging around into each other) is constant, there is no substantial loss of energy (adiabatic compression) because there just hasn't been enough time for it to happen yet. However, because the molecules are now closer to one another and knocking each other around more, the temperature increases, hence the pressure increases disproportionately, ie halving the volume very quickly generates more than double the pressure (in fact, 2^1.4 times the pressure) - but only temporarily. The fact that the temperature is higher than the surroundings (around 1g of air in an air spring, surrounded by at least 100x that mass of aluminium) means it bleeds off some energy as heat over time to the surroundings. As a result, temperature drops back to equilibrium over the course of major fractions of a second and therefore so does pressure, because pV = nRT, if T changes, but n, R and V don't, then p changes also. However, the effect is that faster motions generate higher spring rates. I have personally measured and verified this, it's not made up no matter how much you want it to be, and it is 100% in accordance with the fundamentals of thermodynamics.
I went from a Pike to a Selva, it is just another level. Maintenance is very easy, it feels like a coil on top, very easy to tune while riding and very precise steering. Very cool all the upgrades on new models can be retrofitted to older models.
Pretty cool that you can install custom valving without going to the internals of the fork, looks like it just a simple bolt on... definitely an appealing fork.
Is the 2Air much different than rockshox old dual air? This might be my new fork if its similar. The only reason I haven't upgraded to a new rs is they are all solo air now and I didn't like the solo I had previously because it seemed to make a top out noise no matter what I did with it.
Similar concept but different technology and application. With more volume, you can use the negative (Bronze) chamber to fine-tune the first part of the travel.
This seems like an amazing level of tunability and customization. I frequently have to explain to the people I ride with about the difference between low and high speed compression, so I don't think this fork will be showing up on a group ride here in December.
Except there is no way to adjust high and low speed damping independently it seems. You have to pick one of seven valves and then get 12 clicks of "compression adjustment" on top of that. Also no high or low speed rebound. I don't really want to tear down my fork to adjust things.
@taquitos: The CTS does not work like an HSC, the CTS completely changes the curve and the damping. Is like have a custom shim stack based on your style.
@rideformula: yeah and a custom shim stack is what I don't like about it. Not great if you want to run more low speed in say the bike park for a short period and then switch it back to the usual. Seems reasonable for people who don't like to mess with their adjustments...
@taquitos, the low speed compression is still externally adjustable. The CTS allows riders to get closer to a custom compression tune compared to what most forks offer.
@mikekazimer: I don't buy that one bit. It's effectively like giving any old fork with just LSC seven different stock tunes to choose from. Or I suppose you could stretch it and say it's like 12 clicks of LSC and seven of something similar HSC, but if it had LSC and HSC you wouldn't have to take a valve assembly out and put a new one in.
@LOLWTF: Wow you guys are thick. Shim stack and adjustment knob are both ways of changing the damping coefficient. There are effectively seven damping curves to choose from and then you can increase or decrease damping over some or all of that curve. But what if you don't wan't any of those curves and want something in between or more extreme? Until someone shows me a graph depicting the actual curves that can be achieved through changing the valve and the compression damping I'm calling marketing BS on this.
@RadBartTaylor: I'm pretty sure I fully grasp it... The shim stack defines the region in which your damping curve can live. Adjustment to HSC and LSC change the curve, but it still lives within that region. If you want the curve to move outside of that reason you change the shim stack. You could do that with a fork that has LSC and HSC and have more control over the actual curve. Once you pick a stack adjustment is inherently limited and only having one control over compression damping limits that even more.
@taquitos: The CTS gives you the base, then you have three more tools on the Selva R: compression (which is a wider range than just LSC), air pressure in both chambers (the bronze enable you to change the sensitivity), and Neopos. So, you have pretty much everything you can find in between the CTS curves. In the end, this is a different take compared to current industry standards. We're here to try to innovate and to offer something different. We've great Competitors with great products and there's no point for us to emulate. Our aim is to find our way and try to be innovative, as we always did. If you believe that a separate LSC and HSC is the way to go, well, this is not the fork for you. But we hope you'll have the chance to test it at some point.
@RedRedRe: I just don't get people here. One second you're all complaining about marketing crap, which is completely valid 99% of the time in my opinion, and next thing you're all slobbing all over some manufacturers knob.
@rideformula: I'd give it a chance as soon as there's HSC and LSC along with CTS. Being able to easily change the valving as well as the various other things is a great concept, but I'd like to see a wider range of damping adjustments after the valve is swapped. That's the one area where the adjustments are average.
@taquitos: The all thing about CTS is have a simple custom tuning and get rid of one compression knob. Once you have the CTS you like our fork is very simple. This is the aim of the design. But thx a lot for your feedback.
@taquitos: The shim stack, depending on it's complexity and design, can also adjust how LSC and HSC effect one another at various pressures based on rider weight or preference.
@rideformula: in that link, there are repeated claims that your damper gives "great sensitivity in the first two centimetres of travel" and "great progressivity at the end of the travel". This is not physically possible with a speed sensitive damper - or at least, it can't be attributed to the damper itself. Please have your engineers review what your marketers are saying.
@Socket: At that link, you can find the graphics that explain how every single CTS valve behaves at different compression speeds. Of course, a speed sensitive valve has different behaviors at different speeds. The Red valve, for example, gives you a lot of sensitivity at the first part of the travel at low speed and way more support at high speed. It's all explained in the graphics.
@rideformula: I think what @Socket meant is that there is nothing like "first part of travel" when talking about speed. You can get high speed in the first part of the travel, those are completely unrelated concepts. So he is right that your marketing message lacks a bit in terms of correctness and also in terms of clarity.
@lkubica: Ok, but there's always a "first part of the travel" at high speed or at low speed. Each graphics of the CTS explains the behavior at different speeds (low, mid, high). So every CTS will have a different behavior in the first part of the travel according to the speed. For example, the red one will make the first part of the travel very supple at low speed but will give you more support at high speed. At this link you can find all the graphics explained www.rideformula.com/technologies/cts - We'll do our best in order to communicate better in the future. Thx for the feedback.
@rideformula: I understand that you refer to acceleration time, but I doubt (although I have no measurements to support this, you should come up with those) it has much influence. I mean, the fork seems to get up to speed extremely quickly when you hit something.
@taquitos: I’m not gonna get involved with the suspension debate but you’re absolutely right man...people love to complain about EVERYTHING here then turn around and start brown nosing the manufacturers as soon as they show up in the comments. Everyone wants to feel like they’re somehow mates with the brands cus they tagged em in a comment
@taquitos: I have this fork - the previous model. What they say is not made up, it acually works. It is a top quality product.
It is not like when soam other brands bla bla blay the press and repropose the same “benchmark” cheap product again and again and the problems are not resolved.
Very nice fork, however I can see a periodical trend in coming back to recent solutions, in this particular case it's a negative chamber that can be inflated independently. I do not say it's bad, cause I can't even imagine how well this fork must work, but my point is that it's almost impossible for bike industry related companies to come up with new ideas of improvements, although they change everything slightly, they do not invent anything new.
I have been thinking about this fork. It's great if you actually understand how air springs and damping circuits work.
Unfortunately I have heard relatively intelligent people tell me that an air negative spring does the same thing as the positive spring! So no clue on how much air to add the either side. Same with damping. Most people can't grasp the concept of tuning shim stacks.
For me this fork is brilliant. It offers the almost the same amount of shock tuning that I would get if I took my fork to a suspension specialist.
It's too bad only a handful of people know what to do with a fork like this.
I don't even know how to make my fox 34 rhythm feel good. like it think it feels good then i click the rebound five times and think it still feels good. what the heck. do i just not have the feel?
I like the psuedo custom valving, especially for heavy or light people and DEFINITELY kid (tho price wow). I'd still want to be able to tailor my ride with custom lsr/hsr and lsc/hsc tho.
Yeah I can't tune my Fox 36 Grip2 but for like 85$ or so I can get it custom tuned for me and then I still have HSR/LSR and LSC/HSC with some spacer adjustments etc. It is pretty damn amazing how a few extra clicks of stuff can drastically alter your ride... especially once you add a spacer or so and drop a bit of psi. Everything changes immediately so have the clicks helps bring it back to ideal
The main problem with formulas is that most of them are either made up, wrong or just inappropriately applied to the problem at hand. Those that work are the stuff of either ridicule or legend.
Whole lotta marketing hype in this one haha... The 2Air is cool. Like the Dual Air from RS and the Cane Creek Helm fork's independent pos./neg. system. That is actually pretty nice but the setup on this looks overly complicated compared to the Helm.
Not sure about the rest and science has shown purple is 28.99% faster on video.
I have some selva forks, the stanctions wore out in 5 months. So a change in seals is probably a smart move. Replaced under warranty, so it was all good.
Although, in the UK, I don't know anyone who services these forks??? Which is a pain in the butt, given that i cant even find a reliable source of parts so I can service them myself.
Finally. I'm running them in the 180 option, and I feel that they have a but too much flex. I'm a heavy ish rider, but I do feel that these are pushing it a bit in the 170-180 length options...
"Note: every time the pressure needs to be checked or changed in the positive chamber (Silver), the negative chamber (Bronze) MUST be empty." @rideformula, does this mean that everytime I attach my shock pump to Selva's main chamber valve I need to release all the pressure from negative chamber? This complicates any air adjustments dramatically. I often experiment with my fork pressure, even when on the trail, it usually take a minute or two, not i t looks like it would get twice that. I know it's not much, just a minute, but it complicate something that was easy before.
On the Selva R the negative chamber can be inflated between 30psi or 10psi more than the positive. Changing this value you can tune the sensitivity (more pressure in the Bronze=more sensitivity). The 2Air in addition to CTS and Neopos makes for a great tunability.
So what about Neopos in an airshock? Anyone know what material it really is? I want to make custom volume spacers for my fox shock I might start with cork from a wine bottle
Someone has actually seen if the CTS has compression shims? In the pics I see only orifices. And the CTS seems too small in diameter to actually have a shim stack.
Their customer support is badass...Anything ive ever had any issues with, they have always went out of their way to get it handled and or product warranty, shipped very fast.
Hey, we are the distributor and service centre in Canada, based in Whistler. We have demo forks and spares available. Check out our website at albadistribution.ca and give us a shout if you need anything!
Neopos is designed and engineered to be compatible exclusively with Formula forks. Formula is not responsible for any improper use of the Neopos on non-Formula forks. you can find out more here www.rideformula.com/technologies/neopos
You should definitely try these mods too 1. SKF low friction seals ( amazing improvement) 2. Unharsh my ride by shockcraft 3. Luftkappe 4. Sd components dynamic volume spacer
Obviously info for @rockchomper Thanks mr formula for great product options and innovations and your time replying to all the “experts “ about your own products.
Once you find the CTS for you, which for most riders is the stock one (Gold) or the Red one (to be found in the aftermarket box), the Selva is a super simple fork, one compression, one rebound.
"We wanted to celebrate this anniversary with the creation of a special color"... Special is certainly one word you can use to describe it. Are they actually colour blind?
1. "Hexagon design". Literally zero explanation of what this is, what problem it solves or how it solves it. Total fluff.
2. "The Selva R o-rings have a longer life because they work exclusively in contact with smooth and unmachined surfaces." What? What kind of concrete rubble surfaces do you think most seals work with? Sorry, BS.
3. Neopos. Despite the claims of magic, this is no different from a standard volume spacer. Have tried it, it will not make your air fork feel like a coil fork. Sorry, BS.
4. "Internal floating technology". Again literally zero explanation of what this is, or how it solves a problem. "Structurally merged with the stanchions" - weird, most dampers just levitate in the right place, nobody ever thought of actually attaching them to the fork.
5. "Ultraviolet"... a new colour for Formula that never previously existed on the spectrum of colours. What an age we live in.
6. CTS making completely physically impossible claims about affecting progression of the fork, from a speed-sensitive damper. Sorry, BS. Not to say it isn't a cool or useful feature, but you make snake oil claims about its performance.
Seriously @rideformula , the fork might be the greatest thing out there (and I actually believe it's very good based on what I've seen so far), but do yourselves a favour and have one of your engineers proof read the marketing speak so people don't read it and think "what are these guys smoking".
2. There are no claims about CTS changing progression in the sense of spring rate, which is that I assume you're talking about. Different damping curves can be achieved by installing different CTS assemblies and some of them are progressive, which is what the website claims. Nothing new here, just a handy way to drop in a different shim configurations (which may or may not have progressive damping curves, totally physically possible).
3. The article does not claim a new color was invented that was unobserved, only that a new paint option was available and that the color is unique. Not a technical advantage, but they aren't claiming to defy physics.
I agree the marketing is speaking loudly and the article is short on tech details, but you've got to be kidding me with your post. No sense in getting on the internet if you just want to shit on things you don't understand (or can't be bothered to read).
2. With two chambers there's no passage of air since they're separate. With other technologies the airs flows through a passage which is a machined section of the stanchion. The o-ring goes up and down through this machined section. With two separate chambers, the o-ring is in contact only with flat surfaces.
3. Neopos is a world different from other volume spacers. Have you tried it on a Formula fork or on other brands?
4. Thanks to the IFT the internals of the forks floats while the fork flex (every fork has flexion while you're riding, no matter how stiff it is). This means more smoothness and less friction, so, more effective settings and longer life to the bushing.
5. Is a new color cause there's not industrial code for that, either ral or pantone, is a new mix of colors.
6. CTS changes completely every single parameter of the progression curve like a shim stack would do.
Sorry, you believe these points make no sense, we'll put more effort to explain them better in the future.
You forgot the o-ring part. They refer to the fact that there are separate air chambers, so no transfer ports that the seals have to travel over and wearing them faster.
It almost feels like the MTB community on Pinkbike likes being fed bullshit, or are too damned stupid to realise it
Formula products rock by the way. Any plans for an air shock to match?
You must be new here.
Regarding Neopos, I actually both calculated and measured what it does. Unless there's some magical properties where it only behaves in a certain manner inside a certain brand of fork, it does not matter whether you use it in a Formula fork or anything else. It's identical to a volume spacer, but one of a smaller size than the Neopos spacer physically occupies. It's fundamentally a compressible element that's stiffer than just the volume of air it would displace, with some material damping (that actually exaggerates rather than reduces the adiabatic vs isothermal discrepancy, the opposite of what you claim). I've read the marketing material many times over, it has errors.
Regarding CTS, in your link it claims position sensitivity, when in reality it's speed sensitive. Maybe your explanations were trying to relate softer low speed damping to small bump compliance, but the descriptions are technically incorrect and they make you sound like you don't really know what you're doing. You're also not being very clear on whether you mean position-sensitive progression or speed-sensitive progression when you say "progression curve" because the CTS system does not change the position sensitive aspects in spite of the claims on your website. Those too are a bit inconsistent - some of the more highly digressive curves are said to be "softer in the first two centimetres of travel" despite having far firmer damping than the other curves. It is a cool system to be able to swap that out very easily for different damping characteristics however.
The colour thing I was just ribbing on because it's easy
1. No it doesn't. Neopos does not have a substantially different effect than rigid volume spacers, they are just equivalent to smaller volume spacers than they first appear. PM me if you want full details.
2. Yes there are claims about progression in terms of position sensitivity (I never mentioned spring rate). They're right here - www.rideformula.com/technologies/cts
Assuming I "don't understand" what I'm talking about here would be a funny assumption to make, and is just trying to play the man instead of the ball.
I will reiterate - my criticisms aren't of the product at all, just the marketing spiel being poorly put together.
1. So the fork got the perfect flex for the 120kg weekend warrior and his 60kg wife? I still dont get it. Maybe I am still still thinking square or in circles, but not "hexagonal".
2. That makes sense, it is the reason I loved the old dual air springs of RS. However, people tend to f*ck up their setup so it was dropped in favour of a self regulating negative spring.
3. Makes sense.
4. Why dont you give some drawing to the marketing department so they can show us how it works instead of tons of marketing BS noone understands anyway. My brain tends to shut down when the marketing BS level reaches a certain threshold.
5. Yeah, makes matching with the rest of the Bike far easier... ...not.
6. I take the shimstack any day of the week, thanks. I see the advantage of the external change, but I dont trust the system until I see some dyno runs, especially of the rebound valving!
Best Regards,
Stefan
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3-KLvO0tZ4
The worst part is that it doesn't have to be this way. You can explain the value proposition of a product without spilling proprietary information; you can explain why your new product is a legitimate improvement without being full of shit in the process. They just...didn't.
Think of it this way - you have a small airtight container, like tuppreware filled with air at atmospheric pressure, and you put it inside an air spring chamber. You then pressurise the air spring chamber, and the airtight container begins to deform and crumple because the pressure inside is lower than outside, so it compresses until the pressures balance again. The air inside behaves as though it was air inside the fork, except the plastic of the container takes up a bit of space. Now imagine you have thousands of those little containers, except they're not tupperware, they're just a piece of closed-cell foam. That's exactly what Neopos is and how it behaves.
Which is part of the work and internal energy system. Which sums to 0. Which is not speed dependent.
Regardless of whether the resistance is zero for an instant or not, the work done and resulting pressure are the same. If somehow airsprings got harder the faster they are hit at all times, then the work done would be less than the change in pressure and you would have invented a perpetual motion machine.
So he is right that your marketing message lacks a bit in terms of correctness and also in terms of clarity.
It is a top quality product.
It is not like when soam other brands bla bla blay the press and repropose the same “benchmark” cheap product again and again and the problems are not resolved.
Give that a read my dude
Yeah I can't tune my Fox 36 Grip2 but for like 85$ or so I can get it custom tuned for me and then I still have HSR/LSR and LSC/HSC with some spacer adjustments etc. It is pretty damn amazing how a few extra clicks of stuff can drastically alter your ride... especially once you add a spacer or so and drop a bit of psi. Everything changes immediately so have the clicks helps bring it back to ideal
Also, what happens when in a year or two there's new 2mm difference in offset? Will I have to buy new fork???
Not sure about the rest and science has shown purple is 28.99% faster on video.
Although, in the UK, I don't know anyone who services these forks??? Which is a pain in the butt, given that i cant even find a reliable source of parts so I can service them myself.
Finally. I'm running them in the 180 option, and I feel that they have a but too much flex. I'm a heavy ish rider, but I do feel that these are pushing it a bit in the 170-180 length options...
Any chance the air chamber upgrade is also compatible with a 35 fork?
Do you have plans for a Selva C?
Are they gonna support their product when it does?(they all do)
And the CTS seems too small in diameter to actually have a shim stack.
Voids all warranties on everything bike related you own.
1. SKF low friction seals ( amazing improvement)
2. Unharsh my ride by shockcraft
3. Luftkappe
4. Sd components dynamic volume spacer
Great understandable reviews by therodfather.
therodfather.co.nz/product-reviews
www.shockcraft.co.nz/technical-support/high-flow-pistons
www.shockcraft.co.nz/service/tuning/rockshox-charger-1-rct3-tuning
www.shockcraft.co.nz/dynamic-volume-chamber-v2-sd-components.html
Thanks mr formula for great product options and innovations and your time replying to all the “experts “ about your own products.
Out of our riding group only one person always clicks his fork, all other 9 simplicity rides set and forget option