Bike Check: Eliot Jackson's DVO Sprung Giant Glory - Crankworx Rotorua 2018
On his second year with the Giant Factory Offroad Team, Eliot Jackson has switched to quite a few different products during the off-season. After spending most of his career on Fox and Shimano, moving to Giant last year put him on full SRAM componentry. For 2018 the entire team has switched to Shimano and DVO with the green-edged suspension brand supporting an international race team for the first time.
The only familiarity with last year's bike is the standard Glory Advanced carbon mainframe and alloy swingarm. Eliot says that making the switch back to Shimano was simple as he was familiar with how their work and their performance. The change to DVO has been interesting for his statistical mind, and they have been developing the internals of the fork and shock almost from scratch to build specific racing dampers.
 | The DVO stuff has been amazing, it is super cool to get to develop something from scratch, all of us get to mold it around what we want and they're so involved, more involved than any brand I have ever worked with. I can talk to Bryson, the CEO directly, and get stuff done within a week. |
Mum always told me that "blue and green should never be seen...," I say, "shut up Mum, it's DVO!"
| We started with the production air-sprung Onyx and have then been prototyping new parts from the ground up, basically making a brand new race fork. This version is the cream of the crop. |
'Giant Custom Tuned' Eliot says there is a lot of interesting stuff going on inside the DVO products which could eventually trickle down to consumer level.
The Onyx has pressure release buttons to remove any air build up during riding.
The DVO fork is nearly at its maximum ride height, but he runs no spacers under the crowns or stem. The Pro Tharsis 9.8 handlebar has a 30mm rise.
Eliot says the fork is pressured to 72psi with an "interesting tune going on." Currently, he has the high-speed compression fully closed to get some more bottom out resistance so they can run lower pressure. The idea is to get more ramp up from the compression side instead of relying on the air spring. He sets the rebound as fast as possible, trying to find the limit and speed it up a click or two more until he finds it skipping and trying to run off track, then he will wind it back in a little.
The rear shock is tuned to mirror the fork. There is another special tune with more compression, less bladder pressure and the 350lbs spring is lighter than normal.
| We are trying some stuff that isn't really possible with other suspension brands. We can tailor the tunes to racing. But all of the stuff we are working on is likely to trickle down to consumer level. |
The Jade rear shock has also undergone specific changes to give Eliot maximum performance for his style on the race track.
ODI Elite lock on grips.
Tire choice is Maxxis Minion DHF and DHRII with full DH casing – Eliot's go-to setup. He says dry tires just always work well even with moisture on the track, but sometimes changes to the Maxxis Shorty if it gets really wet. There is plenty of traction in Rotorua's hero dirt, so he's running 25/29psi, a little higher than normal for safety.
Eliot doesn't run any pins in the HT X2 clip-in pedals as well as an extra spacer under the shoe cleat. He likes his feet to float around with no contact between the shoe and pedal body.
The Saint groupset is standard all around.
| [on using 10x gears over 7x] I know I shouldn't be thinking about it like this, but I just love the lower gears for the pedal back to the pits, haha! |
Eliot runs complete 10-speed Shimano block and shifted by a Saint derailleur with a 36t chainring
MENTIONS: @officialcrankworx @giantbicycles
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Two: Way to combat perceived racism with ACTUAL racism. Well done.
He made a comment that sounded pretty damn racist... granted I made a mistake about his country of origin but I wasn't assuming anything...
Totall agree ! Even though its a DH bike I still like ot be able to pedal up little hills and stuff or even take it out for the occasional freeride jaunt. During a race I only need about 3 gears anyway, so never saw the advantage of some tiny little 7 speed road cluster and losing even the option to pedal out of trouble
BTW, since owning a DVO Diamond I have become a HUGE DVO fan boy!
I remember Dave Garland saying the exact opposite last year when setting up Eliot's suspension according to their data acquisition equipment that was strapped to the bikes. More open compression circuits as damping shaft speeds increase...
Would be interesting to hear about the full 180° and why it's different now.
Can confirm Bryson and Ronnie function 24 hours a day
I have both the Diamond and Emerald. I love them both, but I like the damper in the Diamond better.
I remember Fox made a USD fork for some of their top athletes a while back and they all said they didn’t like it as much as the production chasis and it never got heavily used on the circuit.
I suspect that Giant athletes got to test both DVO dh forks and decided on this one. I think DVO could’ve gone through the same customization process with the emerald if they wanted it...
If the above comments are correct and the team starts using the emerald, I’ll be wrong. You guys can come back and roast me lol.
"We will be updating the Emerald with new damping while dropping some weight off it. Later on, the team has their choice to use it or the Onyx DC."
"The Emerald isn’t dead! We will be updating the Emerald with a new cartridge and damping system and dropping nearly a pound off the weight. The Emerald is our personal favorite and will never die!"
I'm not bashing what they are doing, or saying one fork is better than the other. As the quotes that someone else found suggest, the riders have a choice here. I'm just curious as to what it is they prefer about the standard fork over the inverted. Is it just that DVO is customizing the new damper in the standard fork first? Is it the weight? Does the inverted flex to much for a pro rider? I mean it could be any of these things. I'm just curious what the factors are.
The the argument pro USD is lubrication of the seals and lower unsprung weight. I'm actually curious whether there are any numbers of unsprung weight of USD forks vs the more common designs. Common lowers have a larger volume yes, but are also mostly empty. Magnesium cast, bushings, bumper, seals, brake and that's it. Pretty safe hose routing too. USD forks require some kind of solution to connect those lowers. Curnutt used a 30mm axle but the audience is not ready for a standard that's so old that it comes across as new. DVO has some load carrying rock guards that may add something considerable to the unsprung weight. So yeah instead of the standard "unsprung weight is lower so it is better" I'm actually interested in the numbers. As for the lubrication of the seals, is this even an issue? As long as there is enough oil flying around to keep the foam ring soaked, it doesn't matter much whether gravity is dragging even more oil towards these seals. And these USD seals may be designed to be even tighter because dripping oil is less acceptable because it would affect the brake function. Either way, lubrication of the bushings is much more demanding and I don't think the USD concept would do such a better job there.
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