You know what they say about opinions, right? Speaking of a*sholes, Levy and Matt Wragg are never short of opinions, and most of them are at complete odds with one another. This time, it's lockout levers and whether they make sense or not. Matt is all about having two bikes in one, whereas Levy is convinced - and will try to convince you as well - that they're just a crutch for a design that could be better. Check out Matt's thoughts on lockout levers and then chime in below. Who's right might not be the best question, but is one of them less wrong than the other?
I don't think many would disagree with the idea that, along with disc brakes and dropper seatposts, modern rear-suspension surely sits up near the top on the list of important things that make our sport faster, safer, and loads of fun. But despite decades worth of really smart people doing clever things with pivot locations and nearly indecipherable shock technology, when faced with a stiff climb, most of us still depend on a tiny lever that essentially turns our modern full-suspension bikes into hardtails.
Just so we're on the same page here, we spend thousands and thousands of dollars to get the latest suspension technology... And then, in the name of efficiency, we make sure that it doesn't work at all.
Today's otherwise impressive bikes shouldn't ever need to have their suspension turned off, but most of us are just fine with doing exactly that.
With a strong rider able to put out something like just a single horsepower for a handful of seconds, it's easy to understand the need to get the most out of what we're working with. One horsepower (if you do your squats and lunges) pushing a 200lb-ish wheeled package up the side of a mountain is a math equation that, thanks to that whole gravity thing, doesn't work out in our favor.
Locking out your shock might save you the slightest sliver of power, which doesn't exactly sound like a bad idea when you're just trying to do your best on that long, steep pitch but your best is, well, barely enough. I feel you because that's me, and it's probably most of us at some point.
But damn, it feels wrong to me every time that I consider reaching down to flip that cheater lever. I don't think we should ever have to turn off, or even just firm up, our rear suspension.
Today's modern mountain bikes, regardless of whatever nominal niche they fit into, shouldn't require the rider to decide when its pricey, high-tech shock is best turned on or off.
They should damn well be on all the time and working for you, not against you. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that the suspension designs we rely on today aren't as good as they could be had the lockout switch never appeared.
Instead of sporting an active rear-suspension that's also incredibly efficient because it has to be, many bikes have active rear-suspension that depends largely on the rider firming it up, which is a bit of a joke when you look at how amazing our bikes are otherwise.
Of course, there was a time, not all that long ago, when it absolutely made sense to have an easy-to-reach lockout lever that helps direct your watts into forward motion. And the further back in time you go, the more important that lever was. Up until maybe six or seven years ago, there were loads of mid-travel bikes that had all the efficiency of rolling coal from stoplight to stoplight through the middle of Los Angles. No one really cared, of course, because it was the first time we had sturdy-ish rigs that we could both pedal way out into the forest
and ride off good-sized drops and jumps without worrying if our headtubes would snap off.
PB's Matt Wragg believes that lockout levers make too much sense to not use, while I think most examples act as crutches for poor designs.
Long climb ahead of you? Flip the shock's cheater switch to turn your rear-suspension off, but also forget to unlock it before dropping in at the top and having a shit ride until you realize, about halfway down, what's happening. Queue reaching down to casually flick the lever open without your buddies seeing. I know you've been there, too.
I'm not saying that lockout levers don't help or that you shouldn't ever use them, only that modern bikes shouldn't require them to feel sporty and efficient. The list of 150mm-travel bikes I've spent time on that can do that is pretty short (Mondraker, Ibis, Polygon, and a few others) and I'm well-versed on the balancing act that designers go through when trying to prioritize suspension action (the cool, interesting trait) with pedaling performance (the boring stuff) and other things.
Yes, I know that reaching down to lockout your shock, thereby turning it into the world's most complicated hardtail, isn't exactly a huge burden, but don't you think that these bikes should be better? Don't you think that your many-thousand-dollar all-mountain machine should be able to, you know, cover all of the mountain without having to literally turn off the technology that's supposed to be so amazing?
Well, maybe you don't, but I certainly do, and I'm tired of reading reviews that sum up an enduro bike's climbing manners with something like, ''It's not the most efficient, but it pedals well when you lockout the rear-suspension.'' Yeah, no shit, Sherlock, and so does a downhill bike.
We shouldn't need to be turning our suspension off. Ever.
Is Fox's electronic Live Valve suspension the answer? Maybe, but not until the price comes down, and even then it's not something that enduro types are all that interested in.
Things were different "back in the day,'' of course. Back when full-suspension was in its infancy, shock strokes were shorter than my attention span, and pivots were higher than me after 5pm, a little cheater lever sure made a lot of sense. If you were around in the early days of ''performance suspension,'' you might remember an overriding preoccupation with making sure that tiny shock wasn't sapping away any ponies, and because of the now rudimentary technology at play, being able to turn your shock into a block of useless metal and oil kinda did make sense. Pivot locations looked arbitrary. The pedal-assist switch made sense back then. It was needed back then.
And it's still needed now, but it certainly shouldn't be.
The solution? I won't even to pretend to know the answer, but I know that using loads of anti-squat probably isn't the way forward, at least not without something else that I'm not smart enough to think of; it just makes for an unforgiving ride and less traction. Regardless of how you feel about their looks, Polygon and Marin's NAILD R3ACT-equipped bikes manage to offer crazy impressive efficiency and ground-hugging traction at the same time without resorting to witchcraft.
Those bikes aren't perfect by any means, but name me another 180mm-travel rig that pedals like a trail bike. Thought so.
I can't argue that lockout levers don't make complete sense today - they do - but it's only because today's bikes require them. We don't make much horsepower, and a lockout lever offers the best of both worlds, right? Sure, but my point here is simply that today's bikes would be much better all 'rounders if the smart people who designed them didn't get to factor in lockouts.
Whose side are you on: Are you good with lockout levers and extra cables, or do you want your bike to work well without any of that stuff?
There's a long list of stuff that we used to think was indispensable but might laugh at now. Bar-ends for extra leverage when you're climbing? Wide handlebars killed those. I think toe-clips are about to make a comeback but everyone tells me that clipless pedals are the future. Tubes and front derailleurs? Never heard of 'em.
All of those sit somewhere between irrelevant, endangered, or extinct because we evolved and so did mountain bikes. Bar-ends didn't disappear just because we think they're dorky now, but because improvements in materials and understanding allowed handlebars to go from comically narrow to comically wide. You (probably) don't use tubes because tubeless rims, sealant, and tires are finally good enough to be relatively dependable. Do I even need to make the case for the great front derailleur cull of 2013?
Nowadays, you might be hard-pressed to find any of those items on a Saturday afternoon at your local mountain, or anywhere outside of casual cycling. I hope that we can say the same about lockout levers at some point in the future, and our bikes will be better for it.
Illustrations by Taj Mihelich
First, the author constantly confuses the concept of 'lockouts' versus 'pedal platform'. I can't think of a single bike sold in the last 15 years that actually has a literal lockout on the rear suspension. So saying you shouldn't be locking out your rear suspension is beating a dead horse. We can't, and nobody wants to.
Second, by implying we should be climbing and descending on the same suspension settings is absolutely bananas. That same logic would mean you should be able to race XC on a good DH bike. Going up hill versus down hill are very different tasks experiencing drastically different forces and conditions(which is why XC and DH bikes look so different). To imply one setting effectively serves both needs fully goes against all common sense and the entire history of race design.
I get it; you're fit, you're light, you can get away with not flipping the switch. Well you're also the 1%. Spreading this nonsense only servers to confuse, opinionate, and provide an overall disservice to the mountain bike community.
*Cue Pink Bike backlash*
But what about the in between... Trails! You know, those things the majority of us ride that (hopefully) have lots of ups and downs and twists and turns. Do you really want to be constantly flipping a lever along the way to best suit the immediate trail conditions? I don't.
A really long fire road climb followed by a really long descent warrants a flick of the lever since it's really only happening once at the bottom and once at the top (if you remember...). Otherwise, you shouldn't have to worry about changing settings on the fly during a trail ride. Or at all.
I'm with @mikelevy on this one.
p.s. This may void my opinion, but I mainly ride a singlespeed hardtail everywhere, and not having to think about shifting or touching suspension settings (I leave my fork alone) is bliss.
*actually use it all the time since switching to coil, thought they were dumb for a short period of time though.
Good points made about the differences between xc and dh bikes though. The author seems to think that if it wasn't for 'cheater' switches, some sort of magical full sus wonder machine would have been created (don't mention the 'e' swear word).
Personally I think the physical restraints are too great (gravity/average fitness level). Can't see it happening until graphene or similar (maybe Buckpaper?) is as widely used as carbon fibre.
@konarider94 Yes I totally agree about the compromise. For a bike that needs to climb and descend, I think I get close enough to what I want on those two ends that I'm willing to make the sacrifice. But I agree, by adding the pedal damping circuit, you are sacrificing a small amount of performance.
@acali LMAOOO just trying to add some context, but yeah totally see what you're saying!
@tremeer023 I appreciate the simplicity of the SS hard tail. Also I agree, I don't think you can just force technology like a wishing-well.
A quote right from the helm article on pinkbike "There's no pedal-assist lever that would firm the fork up for smooth climbs, and Cane Creek says that they decided to not include one in order to avoid sacrificing any damper performance for a climbing aid. That's a telling decision as it shows how Cane Creek intends the Helm to be used. "
Don't be confused its not just on descents you notice those sacrifices. Any transition or corner that can g out the suspension, high speed chatter bumps, square edge hits, these are all typical things that suspension must mitigate even on flat trails.
Hell yea
In the trail category, it's a moot point since there are so many bikes that ride impressively well up and down with the same damper settings. I run the Float X2 on my Fugitive LT open all the time and i'm completely happy with how well it climbs.
- Meh, you know what I mean when I say lockout and pedal platform. I'm simply referring to the act of firming up your bike's suspension, no matter how you want to say it. Your engineer is showing here but it's just colloquial.
- I don't think it's bananas at all to suggest that we should be climbing and descending on the same suspension settings. I think it's bananas that we're okay with doing the opposite An XC race bike and a DH bike are niche examples. Think trail bikes and how most of the world rides... Not in a bike park or on an XC race course.
- I'm neither fit or light, TBH. I just want my mountain bike to work well without turning off the suspension. Crazy, I know! It is an op-ed, though, hence the opinion. But how does it "provide an overall disservice to the mountain bike community"?
We all get to contribute, if so inclined, feel good about voicing our opinion, etc.....and contribute to a growing, self-licking ice cream cone of capitalistic/"journalistic" entrepreneurship.
What a concept. Wish I'd thought of it!! :-)
-Hahaha, definitely and I'll fully admit it. But to me it's the difference between agreeing with you or not. I don't see pedal platform as "it doesn't work at all". If anything, in my personal experience, it works way better(for climbing/flats). Given, it's not a make-or-break. But I'll have an equally bad climb if I'm in DH mode as a bad DH if I'm in climb mode. They just serve different purposes. If we were literally turning the suspension off, I would completely agree with you. That's crazy. Suspension is traction and traction is control(even uphill), you paid good money for that, why turn it off?
-I may be projecting my own riding style here, but I live for the downhills and live hours from decent lift access. So if I want to shred down the local gnar, I have to climb it too. I don't want to ride the same 6"s of dopey, mushy travel up the trail that allows me to shred down. Just like I don't want the same seat post height. XC and DH are extremes, but they illustrate the point I'm making.
-Hey, don't be modest! But this circles back to my earlier point; I don't see it as "turning off" the suspension, I see it as optimizing it with tangible results. I guess you can ask for a bike that does just as well going up as going down in one setting, but experience has taught me there is always going to be compromise when it comes to designing one tool to do two tasks. If anything, the rise of new technology such as dropper posts and pedal platform serve to diminish that compromise. I respect your opinion, and appreciate your article. Again, sorry for the cool tone; but this goes back to my ride group. The fit guy tells everyone to ride with their rear shocks wide open, full-time. I don't think that is good advice for most riders and I think they will have a less fun time riding and end their rides more tired and frustrated and less likely to come back. He can do it, but I don't think they should.
Thanks for responding to my initial comment!
I'm sure Mike Levy rides more than one bike, and I'm sure he probably appreciates that each serves a different purpose and fills a different niche. Different suspension characteristics, different travel and geometry, that suit different styles of riding.
I'm sure he also might change his damping rates depending on the type of trail he's riding - e.g. less low speed compression on a wet day, less high speed compression on a fast chattery trail - such as a choppy bike park trail.
As the above poster points out, we haven't had an ACTUAL lock-out for years and years (my customers occasionally ask me why their fork on their new $5k trail bike doesn't fully lock out. I tell them they don't want it to), and platform damping is a wildly different thing. To call platform damping null and void because 'suspension geometry should be better' is the same as ragging on any type of damper adjustment, because 'suspension tunes should be better'. They're not, because it NEEDS to be tuneable for different purposes.
The few suspension designs that I've ridden recently that have climbed incredibly well have been less than inspiring descenders. There's no magic formula to suspension geometry. There's no unicorn. There just isn't.
Personally i love a lockout lever, frustrates me so much climbing without it and knowing i'm loosing so much energy.
Anything that's really bloody good at something is always uncompromising and anything that needs to be good at multiple things is never as good at one thing, that's just physics. I believe that we pay thousands and expect uncompromised performance and to provide a trail bike that descends like a DH bike it needs to be setup like one with suspension tuned like a race bike but that incidentally doesn't suit the demands of climbing and a trail bike is also expected to climb like an XC bike so in comes the climb mode (side note cane creek does this best) and then you get a bike that can save you energy up the hills, perfect!
I understand wanting one setup to do both but the performance we expect now has gone far beyond what one setup can achieve without compromise, so why not have 2 or 3 setups in one bike, is flicking a switch 1cm away from you thumb not worth that?
Think of all the new cars that have different driving modes on a switch, put it in track mode and it will go very quickly round a track but drive on the road to work in that mode and you'll be very uncomfortable very quickly. but if you expected one mode to do both then it could but it wouldn't be ideal for either.
No one likes lockout levers but it’s horses for courses...
With a farmer, the bullshit is on the outside of the boots.
as a geologist, I couldn't help myself.
However, people's responses are slightly missing the point of @mikelevy's hypothesis. No one is arguing whether lockouts are practical, or whether or not they work. They obviously work. The challenge is that suspension *could* be better (for trail bikes) if the pedal platform were not available to designers to cover up poor pedaling manners. "I'll just make the most supple suspension I can design, they will be ok firming up the shock to climb and not give the company too much grief, and we're all set." This may sound exactly like the bike you want, and for many applications it's just fine. It's just not the core of the argument.
What gets demanded gets worked on. If people are happy (not complaining) there is not much incentive for improvement. This is the reason that most automobiles sold in the US get relatively poor gas mileage -- gas is cheap enough that it doesn't matter much and people don't demand it. Even though high efficiency vehicles are clearly technically feasible because they already exist.
Sure, if you are stuck on a Horst Link, or a single pivot, bike you will need a lockout, and we have been knowing this for at least thirty years. The Horst is an improvement with respect to a single pivot but both would have disappeared if position sensitive shocs had not appeared around the turn of the millennium.
But guess what! if you want a trail bike that climbs and descends without ever needing a lockout you can get a Dave Weagle equipped bike. For example Ibis or Pivot. I have been riding Ibis for 15 years and I never, ever, touch the little blue lever.
(Ad far as fork lock out? That is nuts, unless you ride on asphalt-like trails).
Specialized's FSR is closer to DW Link than for example Birds (i know because i have one) is, which is actually closer to a VPP design. The instant center of rotation moves front to back on the DW Link and FSR, while it moves back to front on the VPP and Bird's Horst Link.
Hell, you can make two bikes with 'the same suspension design' behave completely differently and two bikes with 'completely different suspension' behave similarly. It's not about the marketing names, it's about the nuances in pivot locations.
Old Horst links, (Like my Chumba,) benefit from the lever. Some of the newer Horst links don't seem to need it, (Transition's Giddy Up or Norco's Drop Link.) With Spesh, I can't even tell the difference. It feels like a hardtail with a broken frame 100% of the time.
It's probably super personal and subjective. I know folks who love VPP.
I think Scott and Cannondale's superflously clever designs are really neat, but I'll take a good linkage ridden open over their sorcery.
Inflate your shock and try your experiment again with the shock open and see what happens then.
How to have a change of 10 speed but you have to get off or stop during the fun to change.
Don't stop on all terrains in all conditions, just adrenaline no lactic acid .. Good fun
The catch is that we can make the bikes work without flipping the lockout lever. It's much harder to make them work without dropping and raising the seat. Therefore dropper posts with remotes.
dropper posts help bridge a compromise - noones complaining about them.
On Pinkbike people often refer to engineers as Gods, Masters of Science and Technology as if they weren’t as every single group of human beings where you have 10%morons, 10% geniuses and 80% of everything. And if you come upon a young machinist?! Oh God...
"Now Jenna, medically speaking, for your height, your weight puts you in what we call the "disgusting range". Fortunately, there are solutions. For example, crystal meth has been shown to be very effective. How important is tooth-retention to you?"
Dr. Spaceman, 30 rock
Maybe this can be a feature? Big enough hit and it pops to open, you can set the threshold. Fox Flicks, are you listening??
(errr no)
Remotes would look really ugly on this bike
Being active while pedaling is another whole story. And that's the holy grail: suspension that keeps you up in the travel, but will be supple over bumps without much pedal feedback all while pedaling.
"You get antisquat values through suspension geometry which wants to either squat, extend or do nothing, depending on how it's designed. This is purely from the forward force on the wheel axle influencing the suspension links. With a high pivot, the axle wants to fold under the bike, effectively giving you antisquat, much more antisquat than with a conventional design.
The other part is from the chain being taught by pedalling. If you don't have any chain growth through suspension movement, you don't have any work done from it and therefore you don't have any antisquat from it. And no pedal kickback. And vice-versa.
With a high pivot you can lay it out in such a way to provide enough antisquat from the geometry itself and then configure the idler (well... I'd do it Brooklyn Machine Works style instead of with an idler to have a normal 30-ish chainring in the front, no noise and better efficiency) to not have an effect on it and not have pedal kickback.
I'm sure it can be done or at least approached better than conventional designs and it should therefore work better both up and down and not need a platform as much."
As for antisquat, of course, cars have it too and they don't have chains, at least not for the past 100 years
i.pinimg.com/originals/ef/86/17/ef861788eb491359bb855102839227cb.gif
Any suspension design has these characteristics, but in some cases it's more of an influence than in others. And in some cases other elements also give an influence (chain drive) that are missing in other cases.
Honestly, bikes are an outlier and are, in all actuality, a very complex system. Antisquat is hugely important to prevent pedal bob because the frequecy of pedaling is just right to induce it (you have torque ripple with motorbikes, but don't notice it because the frequency is much higher, ~50 Hz at 6000 rpm for a single piston bike but fast enough for the bike not to be left squatted down. And you don't want constant squat anyway.
Then the bike has to be light enough, the rider weight varies massively, but is by far the major component of the system weight, which means you need different spring rates and damping rates as well! And the centre of gravity again changes massively, much more than with motorcycles, which again influences suspension performance. And then you have relatively big hits which mean high piston speeds and a whole other damping tune again. So you have to civer huge spectrums of different parameters on a very simple, light and 'cheap' design.
Then also make it out of carbon.
I know some say without a lockout they sag too much, I guess that's not a problem for me as I tend to run more pressure/less sag or something or else I setup my pedal position to take it into account. And yeah smooth pedalling under sprint conditions can help.
He was winning a lot that year.
What next? You want a 20lb downhill bike that can take a beating? A slack headangle that feels steep on the climb up? Your getting too soft Levy when flipping a lever is a burden. Run a shock without a lever, problem solved
you can make good climbing suspension (dw-link etc.) but then, it won't behave so well under braking....
But yeah, the levers do make a lot of sense for many of today's bikes. I just wish they didn't haha
There is a market, and the best in the world are at the top of that market.
Just let it be.
I have a bike with dual lockout and it is F-ing awesome when I really need to put down power.
I have a 170mm squish bike w/o lockouts. It is awesome.
But great job stirring the pot pinkbike.
Pros: Superior all round downhill performance, basically no reduction in uphill performance, the difference is so close that a fit rider doesn't even bother to use it, the ability to select when to use it (fire roads) and not to (loose tech climbs).
Cons: Um, sometimes I forget to unlock it . . .
Yeah, can't say I agree with you on this one Levy.
And it doesn't weigh much as well.
Don’t have a bike with good anti-squat? Then you rely on shock tuning and lock out.
Since most of the adrenaline is made on the way down, most people prefer a suspension tuned to these parts. And that's why the cheater lever was brought to us in the first place.
PS Cane Creek got it right with the Climb Switch in keeping the suspension active, just firmer.
Also, loving your new carbon modular frame. You will be my next frame, and I didn't think I would say that about a carbon frame.
I think most trail bikes should be able to climb decent without needing lock out, but if you want the ultimate downhill performance the pedaling is going suffer some because of that. Even in something like a dh World Cup you would ideally want lockout for sprinting on the pedaling sections to be able to achieve the fastest time.
I think the cane creek "lockout" is exceptionally good on trail climbs but for road climbs when pedaling standing up I would prefer if there was an even firmer option.
Honestly I think that geometry changes like the canyon shapeshifter or rockshox dual travel forks need to be more common and developed more. Has anyone ridden a climb on a modern bike and thought that the head angle was too steep or the front end too low? I have a bike with a 160/140 dual air shaft fork and reducing the travel so that the front end is 20mm lower makes much more of a difference to how that bike climbs on steep slopes than any shock lockout will.
I think we have all accidently started a descent without opening the suspension back up before. If you use it regularly it's something that will just become habit, how often do you accidently start a descent with your dropper up or start a ride with out turning your gps or strava on?
Geometry changing is not needed, properly designed suspension AND frame geometries are needed. Geometry changing is just as much of a bandaid as the platform shocks are.
Also, i used U-Turn a lot and ended up hating it. I had DPA on my previous bike and used just enough to see it's horribly useless.
As for flipping the switch on the top, you'd have to flip it also before and after any technical sections on the climbs since an active suspension helps a lot there too. So now you're constantly flipping it. Or you can leave it open...
Sorry bro but you just can't make a bike perform perfectly at climbing with out compromise on the DH.
Just offer us choices and it's all good.
Seems to me that the ability to vary (in real time) the amount of damping in a vehicle's suspension is pretty damn useful, particularly for a vehicle which crosses surfaces with a broad range of roughnesses at a wide range of speeds. And for an MTB, there is the added factor of a rider who might be doing anything from coasting to jumping up and down on the pedals like an uncoordinated overweight gorilla (that's me these days).
For a rider who is really attacking an up-and-down trail with lots of different surfaces, like many modern 'XC' courses, I think a remote 'lockout' is the cat's meow.
Combine said remote lockout with a linkage that has modest anti-squat, and you have a versatile mile-crunching machine --albeit with a cluttered handlebar.
Real question: is it possible to make a bike that climbs and descends just as well without the use of a lever (especially above 150 travel) as a bike that has one? I have serious doubts. It's always going to be a compromise. The lever should theoretically make any bike better both up and down, especially with 3 positions. We spend our lives pushing buttons, this isn't a massive extra burden. Doesn't have to be on the handlebar either.
drive.google.com/file/d/0B7grOSQ82keNXzU4MlhhYVltdDA/view?pref=2&pli=1
If you see the differences between a "padal friendly" and a "bump friendly" setting, it's obvious a compromise can't be done without huge loss.
You don't care but I disagree with you. My 5010 never needs to have the switch flipped and is perfect for most of my riding. But when I go for big days in the mountains I am tickled pink whenever I flick that X2 climb switch on my Nomad after the grueling climb to the top to be greeted by a completely different machine ready to devour everything in its path below the size of a Yugo.
Also, keep up all the great work. I disagree with you alot but love to read/watch your work anyway.
Used U-Turn a lot on the old old bike, hardly ever used (and never liked) the DPA on my previous bike (2015 Reign). Current ultra long and ultra steep 29er climbs better than both of them. And probably better than the old 26" XC whips (because i sit more upright and relaxed and can focus on the technical details more).
Get on the Tantrum review already @mikelevy @RichardCunningham
"Brian Berthold's Missing Link delivers the goods - direct drive pedaling with supple suspension action - and it does so without electronics, remote levers or voodoo shock damping. Compared to the current crop of carbon superbikes, the Tantrum Meltdown looks rough around the edges, but it performs well on the downs - essential for any 160-millimeter trail bike - and its pedaling action is better than all of them.
Bold statement? I've ridden many trail bikes that were supposed to, '...pedal like a cross-country bike and descend like a DH bike.' (I've written that phrase more times than I should have) Only two have actually performed that ballet: the Meltdown with its Missing Link, and a Kona Process outfitted with Fox's prototype Live Valve electronic suspension. Neither are perfect, but both set the bar well above today's crowded pack of carbon uberbikes.
Send the Meltdown to finishing school, add a better component selection and a more sophisticated fork and shock, and I think it has the potential to take on the big guys. Brian Berthold's Missing Link is proof that there actually is significant room for improvement among the present crop of all-mountain trail bikes. Cheers to thinking outside the box. - RC"
The Tantrum works really well. I never ride my other bikes anymore. But unfortunately you can't buy one.
It also doesn't need an modern expensive big aircan shock with advanced pro-pedal or other kinds of low speed compression adjustments. I really hope Tantrum gets more coverage really soon. This linkage is to good to not make it because of unusual visual looks and preconceptions...
We are talking about the bikes that do bob while pedalling. And if you have bob, you need to get energy for it from somewhere. Suspension damping characteristic is a hysteresis by design, air shocks also lose some energy through all the friction in the seals, air heating up, etc. All that energy doesn't come from the air but from the rider.
You get antisquat values through suspension geometry which wants to either squat, extend or do nothing, depending on how it's designed. This is purely from the forward force on the wheel axle influencing the suspension links. With a high pivot, the axle wants to fold under the bike, effectively giving you antisquat, much more antisquat than with a conventional design.
The other part is from the chain being taught by pedalling. If you don't have any chain growth through suspension movement, you don't have any work done from it and therefore you don't have any antisquat from it. And no pedal kickback. And vice-versa.
With a high pivot you can lay it out in such a way to provide enough antisquat from the geometry itself and then configure the idler (well... I'd do it Brooklyn Machine Works style instead of with an idler to have a normal 30-ish chainring in the front, no noise and better efficiency) to not have an effect on it and not have pedal kickback.
I'm sure it can be done or at least approached better than conventional designs and it should therefore work better both up and down and not need a platform as much.
As for Amaury and the factory team, the idler has been moved lower down. Giving MORE antisquat through MORE chaingrowth.
As for kickback, the idler position gives MORE pedal kickback due to more chain growth. Zero chaingrowth would be the case of the idler cocentric with the pivot. This one is lower down so it's going more towards a high pivot design without an idler. And we know those don't work because they have insane kickback.
I'd say the standard Supreme rides well for bikepark and light race use, but the pros required more support during pedalling and don't mind the kickback as much (which presents itself mostly when locking the rear wheel), so the idler was moved lower. You can see it's as low as possible since in some cases (smaller sprockets in the rear) the chain is rubbing on the rear triangle.
As for jack shafts, it can be completely, 100 % the same as the idler. If you used the idler in the same position and of the same size. The chain mechanics will be the same. The catch is that with a jack shaft you use decently sized chainrings which means there is less chain rotation in the links when they go from going straight between chainrings to wrapping around, which means better efficiency and less noise.
As for Amaury's bike, the idler is below the pivot. Which means more than zero pedal kickback. I wrote why. And you can't have negative pedal kickback, otherwise it would be taken up by the freehub and the derailleur cage, but you'd get pedal kickback once the suspension would extend again. And a setup with 'negative pedal kickback' would cause pedal induced bob, so the use case is... limited to say the least.
As for jackshafts, what o you base your claim off then if you don't know why it's like that? One thing to note is that idler pulleys are usually swingarm mounted and jackshafts are frame mounted, so the behaviour of the idler changes through the travel, but not for the jackshaft. But i said same position, same size. The system is the same with the only difference of having two chains. But the power flow, the mechanical coupling, etc., is completely the same, therefore the only logical explanation is that the behaviour is also the same.
If you say most of what i say is untrue, back it up with an explanation please.
There is an effect then, but my gut says it's small enough to be discounted. On the other hand, my envelope of comparison (same position, and, more importantly, same size) would cause a bigger difference since the angle of unwrapping stays the same, but the lenght of the chain unwrapped increases with a bigger chainring.
Gee, thanks man, how can i go to sleep now?!
I have Linkage bought for quite a while actually. And i do more or less know how everything works, it's just that the devil is in the details and if you make assumptions (like the idler being cocentric with the pivot) things change a bit.
Have to disagree with this...
The rockshox oneloc dual lock allows you to have a really good pedal platform for a superdeluxe rtr coil and charger 2 rtr lyrik with coil instantly with the flick of one lever. My 180mm travel bike climbs like an xc bike this way (I have climbed it over 10k vert on a 24 hour race). Coil forks and rear shocks with lockouts are the best thing ever for lightweight long travel bikes if you live somewhere with a lot of climbing. If my main trail system was flat or rolling hills, then yeah, no point in lockouts.
And my bike only has two cables by your metric. One from the left (brake and dropper) and one from the right (brake and shifter). Ziptied together.
As for climbs, i've done 1500 m vertical climbing in basically one go, from the bottom to the top of the mountain. Technical 30 % climbs. Fairly flat rides, the lot. On those two bikes i mentioned above. And yet i still haven't used the lockout on them. Funny eh?
As for the Ransom, it would be better because it would have a)top of the line components (fitting for a bike of that caliber) instead of a FIT4 and ordinary Float shock and b)standard components that can be swapped out or fixed by the local bike shop without the need for a specially trained technician, who went through the peculiarities of the Twinlock required changes in the design of the damper and the shock.
Yet you wouldn't lose anything from the bike. For the few times that you think you need to turn on the platform, you still could. But like I say, with the proper design you don't need that. And i doubt the Ransom has such a bad suspension design to really need the twinlock. @mikekazimer can chime in here, he's swapped out the suspension on his Ransom for a Zocchi and a Super Deluxe
Just another keyboard warrior who thinks his opinion is the best save your wall of text for someone else man. I don't give a shit about your subjective opinion.
And TBH I f*cking love Twinloc all we have is sustained riding where I'm at and I'll f*cking lock that shit out all day to save all the energy I can for my decent and you don't know shit about the rear shock on the ransom if you're calling it an ordinary float shock because it's far from it. No need @ bro because I already don't care. And if you read Mikes right up on the rear shock the only reason he swapped it out is because he would have to ride it fully open (because it's remote only) so he swapped it to the Super so he could use the climb switch. Way to read full articles.
And yea, it's not an ordinary float shock, it has an additional chamber that can be closed off, a ramp control thingie, etc. It's actually a float shock with some more bandaids.
Also about Mike, he swapped out the fork for a Grip2 damper and hated the remote, which is why he would have to run it wide open. So... I was right all along?
And another also, for someone not caring you write fairly long and angry comments
EDIT: oh, forgot to mention it, i do have it figured out, yeah. That's why i'm a bad customer, like i said. I know what i want and i bought that. And i don't have a lockout lever on my fork, i have it on the shock but don't use it because i don't need it, i have a steep seat tube angle, an aluminium frame, aluminium wheels and a bike that rides awesome. I doubt the Ransom can come close to it
I mean, do you have innate knowledge on all aspects of building a bike, through which you determined that the Ransom you ride is the absolute best, perfect thing for you to ride? If yes, props to you. You have some insane bike building knowledge and you've mapped your riding very specifically.
If no... Well you've fallen for the marketing trap.
Scott is doing this twinlock thing because it's their identity. They're doing it on a bike that really shouldn't be held back by it (the Ransom). And they've been doing it since... 2003? The first Genius with the HORRIBLE pull shock came out around that year as an XC racing full suspension bike (with a horst link to boot! but then lost it because patents). All Geniuses since have had it, it has since become a trail bike and the XC bike has become the Spark. Then you had the original Ransom with the Equalizer shock that was a work of art complications wise. And it never worked properly as well. That's what you get when you spec custom components that can't be tested as well.
And saying i don't know if your bike is factory spec or custom... Does it matter? You are saying you love the twinlock. You therefore have it. You therefore run the factory suspension, because twinlock requires a custom shock and a custom fork damper. That doesn't come in Rock Shox, 36 Grip2, Float DPX2 or Float X2 flavour.
As for subjectivity or objectivity, i said that i tried to be as objective as possible. I'm still subjective, of course, because i have my own views on the matter - i think the components on a bike should be as standard, off the shelf as possible. And that the base of the bike (kinematics, frame, etc.) should be as good as possible and not supported by things like lockouts, twinlocks, etc. I think that to have servicing done as easily as possible (no custom guides and tools needed) and to have as good a base as possible. Because all of that is possible and everything else is just differentiating for differentiation's and marketing's sake and making things harder for the end user.
A float X2 with the lever that you would turn would work just as well for you, if you use the platform on long climbs, the fork really doesn't need a lockout on climbs (which is a stance even Matt made in his counterpoint) and the suspension performance could be improved through better adjustability and better control through more oil volume (for the shock).
You can happily disagree with them. I will still think the Ransom would be better with a Float X2 shock and without the twinlock mess on the handlebar.
As for the lockout lever, i don't need it because the bike works. Flipping it on or off would make a negligible difference, so why bother?
As for the olympic winner, it's actually not twinlock, it's a standard remote lockout on Sram stuff. So no multiple chambers and the like. And it makes at least a bit sense on an XC bike to have it remote. More than on a full enduro bike.
EDIT: oh, when you say bikemag review, look at the Pinkbike Ransom review. They said that it's not really needed, but a beefier shock would be a better choice
And you do realise how these comments make you look, right after yelling at me that i am subjective? While i have been calm and have supported my opinions with facts and explanations? That you didn't read anyway.
Also, if you will maaaybe read this comment, here's a fun experiment for you. What do you think is more expensive for Scott to buy, an off the shelf 36 Grip2 and Float X2 or arrange with FOX to setup a parallel production line with a custom fork damper (which doesn't have any clicks in it because the twinlock lever keeps it closed) and a more or less completely custom shock body and aircan with a recalculated and redrawn design? On a relatively small run, compared to the standard Grip2 and Float X2?
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the inferior 'Float' shock with Twinlock was more expensive than the Float X2 option with less performance. Which would mean only one thing. Marketing wins.
Enjoy your twinlock
God I just wanted to apologize for thinking differently from you, I'll let the other losers like myself and the demons over at Scott to heed thine words, and to stop burning money on the Float TR and that it's horse shit that isn't worth any bike and should be stricken from the earth. oh God please forgive me of my trespasses against you as my transgressions were made in vain and a far inferior lack of knowledge to thyself, I seek forgiveness and to be exactly like thee in all shapes and forms of riding across all disciplines.
I'm going to the nearest Bird dealer and picking up my AM9 God, God I can't wait to ride such a superior machine, that isn't dreadful nasty Satan Scott like carbon because ew I no no no WE hate saving grams no God I will stand by thine side and ride aluminum in to the depths of night to battle against all these lyrcra thugs with their step casts forks, God together we can show them the truth and light by riding our 36's Grip2's and X2's against they're abominations.
God I love you and hope to become more like you through the power of aluminum and the our birds we can conquer the pinkbike universe and only keep our opinions limited to Pinkbike and bring in no outside sources. God let me be thine rod to strike all these naysayers and unbelievers down through our downvotes we will conquer I love you God can't wait to hear from you again.
Not sure if they ship to the USA though...
you are wrong to say that lockout makes a full suspension practically a hardtail; as you know pretty much every lockout acts hydraulically to add some dampening, and still has some compliance, especially to large hits.
The world is made a worse place for all every time someone blows smoke, because it obfuscates reality to those who cannot see through it, and burdens those who can with the often prominent perspective of the inaccurate misconstued masses. ie 2016 democratic primaries.
I have come to prefer XC for all of my trail riding. If it gets rough I just get light and get on it and move my body. Lots of fun and I'm ready for the climbs in my light hardtail.
I have a front fork at 100mm but I lock it out and have come to resent the weight it adds. I'm looking for a XC hardtail with a carbon front fork on my next bike. I might have to build it.
All in all, you may as well say: a full suspension bike is a cheating bike compared to a full rigid bike. No shit sherlock!
So yeah, nothing against any Mike but I'm with Matt on this one. If you invest in a bike with rear suspension, you want it to perform there where it matters. If you also care about the pedal efficiency over the smoother (uphill) sections, switchable platform damping or lockout makes a lot of sense. And if you're getting that, best is to keep your hands on the bars and use a remote. What's next? People complaining that after all those years of bicycle design, we still don't have a frame that has does away with the adjustable seatpost (qr or dropper) and just gets us a single saddle that's both high and low? Please Mike, write an article defending that statement. Just for laughs.
And the pedal platform shouldn't do much of a difference for those rocks and roots since it's a closed low speed compression circuit, that gets blown by on a big hit.
Suspensions that lock themselves up exist, but technically speaking it seems way easier to switch a lever than rethinking a whole suspension design from the ground up.
Not a hater of the "cheater switch" but definitely hoping the next bike will have a less cluttered cockpit and less things to go wrong during a ride..
Apparently not changing or changing the force of the contact patch as slowly as possible gives you the most grip.
F1 is all about aero lately, but i just saw an Autosport video on Red Bull's new wishbones that influences front camber through suspension travel (roll mostly) to improve front tyre grip as it's loaded in the corners. So things might change. And will change if the 18" abomination of the wheels gets introduced.
Plus with LMPs you have the space for a more complicated suspension design, like Porsche's separated roll and heave setup, which takes quite a bit of space in the front.
EDIT: so it's not as much the looks that bother me but the general idea of them. And yeah, i do know i seem somewhat grumpy with the 'never something new' style of thinking, but... It's F1! It looks wrong! It's supposed to look wrong!!!
You still notice the Halos? They're invisible to me now but man, it was all I saw at first.
a good design doesn't need a lockout, Elegant functional design is often difficult to see!! VPP, Meastro, DWlink.
I have an old Trek fuel EX9 from 2009ish and it's got a manitou McLeod rear shock (after the fox one died surprise surprise) and it has remote lockout and a threshold valve. So even when locked it will open if it hits a big enough hit and it works a treat. I've tried a £7k yeti SB5LR and the SB5C and despite being unfamiliar with them compared to my own Trek I could never justify the massive price difference even Fe Trek were new. Despite how excellently the yetis suspension works climbing even on open.
As for that rhetorical rubbish about front derailleur and bar ends they have their place too. The MTB world really is a blinkered hypocritical place to be at times.
I ride hardtails and full sus bikes - because I appreciate both. They’re different bikes for different moods.
One time, I bothered to strava my basic loop, and expected to find the HT faster up and FS faster down. It wasn’t; FS was faster everywhere. Rear suspension can work magic at keeping the tail in contact with the surface so that traction is happening rather than letting it ping around as a HT might. Why would I want to turn that off? Ditto forks- BITD lockouts made sense but a good fork now just doesn’t need it. Offering a switch on the crown for the hardcases is fine, but a lever on the bar is a turnoff for me. Likewise shock bodies. If high efficiency XC bikes want to continue having bar setups covered in switches for everything that’s cool but so far as trail bikes are concerned I honestly don’t believe they’re necessary.
"I turned on the platform on my Super Deluxe RCT when coming back from the trail (gravel and aphalt road) today. I didn't like it. I bounced around on the bumps, but the pedal bob was only marginally reduced (from only a little to only a little less). So i got the bob and i had the comfort of a hardtail. Worst case scenario then.
I'll be keeping my lever in the open position!"
And yes, lockout != platform and all of that, sadly lockout is too ingrained into the culture i come from (XC racing from the early 2000s). It's the O.G. full enduro
A good one literally makes the suspension better at doing the job you're asking it to do at that moment. There are a lot of techy climbs that I personally find easier on a mid travel bike with a pedal platform than on a hardtail. So all that fancy expensive suspension I paid for? Still doing a really good job even though there's a lever attached to it.
I'll be keeping my lever in the open position!
We won't get rid of them, people will not be comfortable without them, but yeah, there is no point in having them. The bikes should work, like @mikelevy said. It's the same point i have with geometry, every bike that gets pedalled should have the geometry dialed for pedalling. Same with suspension. Make the descending fit when you have the basics (the most time and energy consuming component of a bike ride) handled. What are you going to do on a short climbing burst during a stage? Flip all the switches? Or just get along with it on a bike that works? I know what i actually do.
Bikes like these exist. And work damn well.
And i kind of think that a high pivot bike could be made even better in these regards since you can tune the antisquat value with the pivot height (since the rear wheel wants to kick under the bike when pedalling) without relying on the chain force extending the suspension. That way you decouple the chain forces and the suspension performance.
Imperfect analogies, but the expectation, or at least what designers should strive for, is for stuff to just work. All the time.
Wait, hold on, I've got to get off the internet so we can unplug the modem and switch over to let someone make a phone call...
The E39 M5 didn't have any. Yet it's touted as one of the best handling and enjoyable cars of the past few years. The suspension is soft, the tyres have a high profile and it hardly has any nannies, but all of that makes it work on the road. It's not razor sharp like the new cars are, but that just means those don't track over bumps as well and only work on the track. For the real world you need compliance.
www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-comparison-tests/a25248/the-comparison-2003-bmw-m5-versus-2015-chevrolet-ss
I went from a 17" shod sports suspension hatchback to a 15" shod high profile, boat-like-leaning huge estate with REALLY soft suspension. The latter must be slower (god i hope it is), but it actually works on the road and doesn't skip over the bumps out of the corner like the hatchback did. It feels slow and soft, but it's much faster over the bumpy roads we have over here.
But people like to be shaken around when they are in 'sport mode' but don't want that in the everyday, so we have switches. It's the same with lockouts, you can design it to work everywhere perfectly fine, but people want that bit of extra, more control over the thing they own or something and that makes these things worse.
EDIT: though automatics are slowly taking over the world. Plus, electric cars...
Well said, and wise.
"the maximum output of a human is a bit more than a single horsepower. For extreme athletes, this output can be even higher with Tour de France riders outputting around 1.2 horsepower for around 15 seconds, and just under 0.9 horsepower for a minute."
energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Horsepower
Yikes. Even 1 HP is likely a stretch for any period of time. Interestingly, a horse is actually capable of about 15 HP work output. Shows you how logical definitions for standard units are in the English system!
In simple words: a bike with lock out on does less bouncy bouncy than the same bike with lock out off.
There is really nothing more to it than this.
Good kinematics work with shitty shocks. Shitty kinematics require world class shocks with platforms.
SHort climb during descend, well I would not reach down for the climb switch... if someone can't climb for a couple of minutes or sprint with open shock, change the sport.
And I'd rather have Orange Five with Cane Creek CCDBcs than Bronson with RS Deluxe Debonair+ Ultimate... anytime. Any fricking time.
Open suspension helps you get over the rocks and roots IMMENSELY, you still have to do the work yourself, but kinda like you said, why not use the help you have?
And i mostly do climbs longer than 15 minutes (the average climb i do on a ride is usually 500+ meters, so 30 to 40 minutes in total), and... Yeah, switch open
I also don't like the Bronson. The Orange? Yeah, not bad, could still be a bit steeper though. And you're implying the Orange doesn't pedal well? Why? The pivot location can be optimised on that as well.
And when you say a couple of minutes, what is a couple of minutes for you? What is the difference between two minutes (which is much longer than i had in mind when mentioning climbs during descends) and 15 minutes? Or 30 minutes?
There is really nothing to talk about.
I'm tall, i've finally gotten round to buying an XL framed bike. And i was very specific at choosing the right one. That 76° seat tube angle that Knolly (and most other brands) advertise? All fine and dandy as long as your inseam is within ~10 cm longer than the stack height. When you add an additional 20 cm to it and extend the seat accordingly, to ~10 to 15 cm over the bars, like i have to, that nice and steep 76° seat tube angle becomes, measured between BB and actual seat rails, much closer to 70°. I've had that with the Giant Reign (advertised 73°, actual 69°) and the effective angle came out to 72°. The Warden, based off a picture, has an actual angle of 70° and an advertised angle of 75° at stack. For me that would be 73,8°. That's too slack.
With my height and so slack seat tube angles, i get too far over the rear wheel, where i hate the feeling of pedalling forwards instead of down. I'm currently on a 75° actual angle (76°/71° based on frame data) with a very long reach and it feels amazing going uphill, because i am actually upright and centred over the bike. Like most people riding M and L frames feel like. Therefore i'm in a small circle of very specific frames when it comes to stuff i like based on what i've seen with my new bike. And i've come to that conclusion a while ago, i've just confirmed it in practice as well now.
So yeah, i'm the 'never steep enough, never long enough' bike camp, because it actually does work for me and my XL size. And no, tight corners at almost 1300 mm wheelbase are not an issue
FWIW, it's not only Knolly that does this (though their frames at least look a bit extreme in this regard), it's the majority of the industry (Santa Cruz is just as bad and very few are 'good').
And it's only logical, the industry designs frames for M and L sizes, where things work, then you scale it up and down a bit and try to make the S, XS, XL and XXL frames fit as good as possible with the design language you have. It's far from perfect and we on the outskirts suffer, but it's, ballparking here, about 5 % of the population that suffers this. It's simply not worth it to spend dollars on the design of these frames to earn pennies from the amount of frames sold.
In a perfect world the frames bearing the same name would look completely differently between each other at different sizes with different suspension geometries (because an XL rider has a much higher CoG than an S rider and thus gets less anti-squat from the same suspension geometry), different frame angles, actually different chainstay lengths (don't get me started on Norco's way of lengthening the chainstays), maybe even different wheel sizes, different shock sizes (larger riders do tend to be heavier, so need a more capable system) with different tunes, etc. But all of this means $$$.
I am sad