A new version of the Commencal Supreme race bike has been spotted at
the Tarrouca downhill race in Portugal.
The bike, which was being ridden by the Commencal Muc Off team, looks to be a refinement on the overhauled Supreme
that was first unveiled at the start of 2021. The previous prototype proved to be extremely successful with Thibault Daprela and Myriam Nicole both piloting it to victories last year. While that prototype race bike had most of its tubing lifted from the current production Supreme, this bike now has a dedicated frame to hang the "Virtual High Pivot" system on.
The new Supreme now has a dedicated tube set
The 6 bar Virtual High Pivot System has been carried over including the link between the chainstay and mainframe and the dog bone link that connects the rocker and the aforementioned chainstay link. You can read more about how the system works in
Dan Roberts' deep dive, here. The previous version of this bike included a lot of adjustability including a flip chip on the lower shock mount, adjustable length on the connecting link and a different mounting point for the connecting link on the rocker. As the previous bike was a prototype, it makes a lot of sense that Commencal would allow themselves as many permutations as possible but it's tough to tell from these photos whether they have settled on a locked-in final set up or whether they will be keeping this bike adjustable for further refinememt.
The connecting link now looks to be less adjustable than on the prototype
One final thing to note is that Commencal said there was "no commercialisation on the cards" for the prototype bike. Now that the Andorran brand has gone to the trouble of creating a whole new tubeset for the bike, it seems more likely that a production run is incoming. Whatever the case, it's clearly a set up the team are loving as they completed
a clean sweep of the junior men's and both elite categories this weekend. We've reached out to Commencal for more information and they told us that the full bike will be unveiled at the Lourdes World Cup.
Coilshocks have the best midstroke support and with a very progressive bike this can lead to a harsh riding sensation.
A Shocknerd tuned my airshock in a way that it does not extend the last mm, by doing so the bike sags under its own weight and feels like coil on the first mms. The midstroke is designed to be like with a megneg and 4 bands - it basically sits in the middle between a classic airshock and a coil. In my expirience coil forks are fine, but matching a coilshock to the frames kinematics is much harder than with an airshock.
I bet the airshocks on probikes have undergone something similar.
A coilspring is basically linear, a coil damper is linear for about 2/3 of its travel. At the end the bumper and the building up pressure in the reservoir make it quite progressive. But still not as progressive as an airshock.
An airspring is in most cases linear in the beginning then slightly digressive and then progressive.
A (also in the midstroke)very progessive bike like a capra can make it hard to use its travel in the midstroke when paired with a coilshock as the linear nature of the coil combined with the progressive frame is a bit too much.
Rock Shox is aware of this. When designing the megneg, which was built to give better midstroke support by increasing the negativ chamber, they also added the possibility, to reduce the added volume by adding bands. A coilshock has still more midstroke support than a rs schock with megneg.
So in reality you cant say a bike cant be too progressive for coil, it all comes down to the leverage curve especially where in the curve most of the progression lies .
Or to put it simple: coils work best (for non pros) with a mildly progressive bike which gets even more progressive at 2/3 of its travel.
An airshock works best with a very progressive bike with a flattening springcurve at the end ( if you look at the linkage blog there is a a great number of modern frames designed with air shocks in mind, for instance the new Banshee generation.)
If you still dont believe me go to insanityofgravity.com and look up all the graphs and bonus info, provided by the german engineer who built the high pivot bike seen on eurobike.
@deadmeat25: your deadmeat anyway.
See it all the time...
I built the bike with a Formula MOD and started with 25% sag, later i got a softer spring and went to 30%. With both springs the bike fellt harsh.(Rebound was a problem though as i had to close the shock all the way to get it slow enough -maybe you are right and it was not slow enough after all.)
After reading the stuff on insanityofgravity i bought a RS superdeluxe on sale and a megneg - after a bit of tuning it works better than everything i have owned in the past 25 years -including DH bikes with coilshocks.
So it was definitely not a too soft spring, rebound could have been too fast.
As I said, I see this all the time...
Hi!
Hab gerade deine Antworten in dem thread gelesen
m.pinkbike.com/news/spotted-a-new-commencal-supreme-breaks-cover-at-the-portugal-cup.html
Habe auch ein MDE und Kämpfe etwas mit der Abstimmung meines EXT Storia V3. Hast du Coil noch hin bekommen?
Bei mir ist es auch der Rebound. Soll ja schnell genug wieder raus um nicht zu versacken aber hald auch nicht kicken.
Hast du im IBC Forum zu deinen Mod Problemen schon was geschrieben?
Ich habe noch einen DPX2 mit dem spiele ich auch gerade an der Negativkammer rum. Da gibt es von FOX auf Nachfrage auch Token. Mit dem bin ich auch relativ happy.
Evtl kann ich von deinen Erfahrungen ja was lernen.
Grüße
Gerhard
Commençal: yes
Amazing evolution and beautiful main frame to boot.
You might be right. The 2 links need to be tied together otherwise it would have a multiple trajectory wheel path. Excited to see more about it!
Maybe it’s not a 6bar-whatever anymore. It’s hard to tell, but it could also be similar to the Specialized system where the vertical link connects seat- and chainstays and drives the shock….
And then a year later, Cascade Components is still going to make another link for this bike.
If you are not 120% confident on your brakes, you'll brake sooner, even if those brakes are trickstuff.
I always think that those black box stuff from SRAM do something extra to the riders. Some other valving, damping, coil conversion...
There's just so so much to look at lol.
There is probably a few more options with leverage curve shape on the Commencal layout and the lower link sits a little higher but it comes at the expense of a lot more moving parts. The Norco layout has the same number of pivots of any other Horst link bike (the idler sits on an extended pivot shaft).
2022 Trek Session: 63.6 degree HTA
And thats with the move to 29er front wheels. The Offset has grown somewhat, but only to keep the trail figure roughly the same.
I will also add that this is one part of the equation. Reach, BB height, offset, chainstay length, axle path, kinematics, flex optimization. You could continue down a list of bikes from 10 years ago, and I'd say most will be different.
My point is that the basic technology is the same- sealed damper rod, right-side-up, air or coil spring, same travel for almost all of the major brands. Structure cycles seems to be the only successful execution of an alternative take on front suspension (Trust wasn't successful, performance wise or business wise haha)
I will agree that we are still using the same tech, but I don't think we have finished refining just yet.
Ohlins are producing some incredible equipment, and I'd say Fox is doing quite a good job too. Things are getting more reliable, and the performance gains are significant.
On that note, I do appreciate your perspective, and enjoy the exchange of observations.
It kinda looks like it on the last picture to the left.
Carbon allows you to tune the flex of the bike easier by controlling the layup in certain areas, while also giving you the ability to create shapes you would have more trouble with if it was alloy.
A healthy DH bike will weight between 35-37lbs +/- a pound here and there. Overall, I have yet to see a benifit to a DH bike under or over those numbers.
That being said, never say never, but I would put money on that never happening with commencal.