093 - Fox vs SRAM RockShox: Electronic Mountain Bike Suspension Systems Compared - Mountain Cog

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson (00:21):
this guy went to the doctor, okay,
okay.
And he told the doctor Doc,help me, I'm shrinking.

Dane "The Suspension Guru" Hi (00:30):
I feel like that sometimes,
mainly when it's cold out.
You know what the doc said,what?

He said settle down, settle down,
man.

Dane "The Suspension Guru" (00:38):
You just have to learn to be a
little patient, oh my God, andI'm drinking a schmirnoff ice
crisp citrus original I feellike you know this is gonna
offend people, but that's kindof a girly drink, like I'm okay
with my manhood, yeah, yeah,well, I have a diet pepsi, so I
don't know what the heck I'mtalking about yeah.
No, it's not like a diet pepsiwith lime oh yeah if it was that

(01:02):
well, I, straight out of thecan is more manly I could.
I'm drinking straight out ofthe can is more manly.

I'm drinking straight out of the can
too.
Although it's a, it's a powderblue, baby blue.
Can I do like that it has?

Dane "The Suspension Gur (01:11):
citrus in it.
I have some theories that ifyou drink a lot of citrus you'll
be healthier is that true?
I don't know.
I went four years withouthaving a cold punk rock.
It's a lot of vitamin c yeah,that's what I think it was.
Uh, latelyately, though, thecold has been on the rampage.

Jesus man, I got one right now, do you
?
Yeah, don't get too close.
We hugged on Sunday, you mightget it.

I hope not.
There's a picture of us hugging.
My whole family's been sick.

I know that's hilarious.
Did you notice that our belliespushed us apart?

Yes , so true.
It's like Weebles wobbling andthey can't hug.

Oh, Jesus Christ.
Did you like the music I picked?
I didn't hear it.
It was the Toy Story, you know.
Like you got a friend in me.
Anyways, all right, I shouldn'tbe singing, that's okay, all
right.
So this is a follow-on toepisode 88, where we talked
about whether or not the cost ofelectronic components was worth
it.
Yes, and we set off and we hada whole list of things to talk

(02:13):
about.
Got halfway done.

Dane "The Suspension Guru" H (02:14):
We got halfway done.
We could talk for many episodesabout this, but just a brief
recap.
We went over shifting systemsRecap.
We went over shifting systems.
So SRAM, di2, the old access,the new transmission.
We weren't really talking aboutlike Garmin's or anything like
that.
We're just kind of talkingabout the pros and cons of the

(02:35):
shifting systems.

I think we talked about saddles as
well, or?

seat posts as well, droppers?

Yep, yeah, we pontificated whether or
not there was going to beelectronicppers Yep, yeah.
Uh, I pontificated if whether,whether or not there was going
to be a electronic breaking.

Yes , yeah, and I think we can both
agreed.
And then we got on big tangentsabout torques and I forgot what
else.
I was listening to to it and Iwas thinking this is.
I actually enjoyed it because,uh, the torque conversations
come up when we're training theguys all the time.
Yeah, you know, because there'sa lot of ideas about that that
get misconceptions.

(03:08):
I'd like to do a whole episodeon misconceptions like oh yeah,
we can do that.

People think, yeah, let us know if you
think that'd be an interestingtopic.
Yeah, so like uh, putting yourweight back when you're riding
your bike no, I'm trying tothink of one.
Oh man, like taking air out ofyour shock will make it totally
plusher.

Well , oh, so close.
Like low pressure tires havebetter traction, is that not
true?
That's not necessarily true.

Oh la uqba hudda kalam, I do not
believe your words.

Yeah , so I believe that low traction
or less air has better tractionit has to do with as you're
going around corners and thetire squirm.

So you have to have enough to have be
supportive.

Yep , yeah, right, so there's a
balance between yeah, people askme all the time about that and
it's frustrating because I can'tcome up with the right answer
because everybody's so different, and then how you ride is
different and how much you weigh.
Yeah, I was slapping a berm andI didn't have enough.
It was, I was at the pump, thepump track, so it's a concrete
berm, yeah, and I just wentaround it really hard and burped
the tire and it was cause I haddidn't have enough pressure and

(04:12):
so that could have hurt my rim.
Luckily I had enough to not hurtmy rim, but it you know, it
almost blew the tire out.

All right, so we probably need to
just take a minute and explain.
When I said burp the tire, whatdoes that mean?
What happens when that happens?

That's when the usually on a tubeless,
uh, the tire kind of D beads it, it gets pushed off of its bead
seat and a little bit of airand sealant can kind of come out
the side, Uh, and so, andsometimes the air pressure
itself will pop it back on, andso you'll still be able to ride
out, but you're not at a lowerpressure.

So I burped a tire about a week ago
in front of my house.

I burp after this Diet Pepsi
every time I drink it so onething we didn't get into was
electronic suspension.
Yes, and so I wrote up notes,that's how excited.
I sat and did research.
I got like numbers and thingsthat I usually don't have and
just kind of.
You know, I use generalization.
This one is a little bit moreaccurate well researched.

(05:06):
Disclaimer.
Some of these uh, you know,facts may have changed because
they've changed some of thesesystems.
So, like, uh, we're going totalk about fox live valve.
Is that fox neo?
Is that the same?
That's what what I was going tosay is.
So the older system is calledjust fox live valve, and that
was around, still around.
We have a bike in the shopright now with one, uh, really
cool system, and then we'll talkabout flight attendant and then

(05:29):
we'll talk about fox neo whichis the flight attendant is
shrams, shram systems, yeah, andso I have them first on my
notes, so we'll go through those.
One thing I found out aboutflight attendant um, so flight
attendant is basically aelectronic brain that controls
your suspension.
So what does?

that mean controls your suspension.
It's got little servos on it.

Okay , so is it just opening and
closing the valves.
Yeah, In most cases it's alow-speed compression adjustment
and it's opening and closing it, or sometimes putting it in a
middle position, so like climb,trail, descend which SRram will
be mad because that's a fox term, but I feel like we should
probably back out a little bitbefore we dive into this and
just give some context for ourlisteners.

I also want to establish that I think
that these systems are garbageand that they're we don't need
them, do you what?
So?
So, electronic suspension?
I, because I'm in, what wouldwe say?
I'm like, I'm cheap, uh uh,home.
I'm a neophyte, whatever.

Dane "The Suspension Gu (06:25):
Luddite , luddite, there you go A whole
bunch of reasons why.

So I am not sold at all.
So you're going to sell metoday.
But before we start talkingabout low speed, high speed,
compression, rebound stuff let'sgo over what those things mean.
So first of all, what iscompression?
Compression is usually somesort of oil management, as the
oil is moving through the damper.
Before you describe it in theshock, describe what does it
mean to the rider You're pushingdown.

(06:50):
So compression is when the forkis going down it's compressing
so when you adjust compression,you're adjusting what it feels
like and how fast it goes down.
And then what's?

rebound .
Same thing, except opposite.
It's how fast it comes back up.
So the air spring is going tobring it up.
If you don't have rebound, it'sgoing to pop up really quick.
If you have a lot of rebound,it's going to come up real slow,
just like the door you know,your screen door, the little
thing that shuts it.
So it doesn't slam shut.

So compression is when the fork is
going down.

Rebound is when the fork is coming back
out or coming up, and then Ihear high speed, low speed.
So what's the differencebetween high speed and low speed
, compression and rebound?
Uh, this, this is a wholeepisode on itself.
It's crazy.
We can give them a okay 30second.
So the biggest thing that Itell people is compression.
When people talk about highspeed and low speed, it's really
important to understand thatit's the shaft of the
compression damper, right howfast it's moving, not the
rider's speed.
So high speed doesn't meanyou're doing 30 miles an hour

(07:48):
and low speed doesn't meanyou're doing one mile an hour.
It's the suspension compressionspeed.

So I think of high speed as big drops
and low speed as kind of smallbump.

Yes , that's perfect, and that's
both on rebound and compressionOn some forks or suspension.

I'm saying that's perfect, yeah, and
that's both on rebound andcompression uh, on some forks uh
, or suspension.

I'm saying the concepts are the
same.
Yeah, that, so they, they.
You can separate if, if themanufacturer has separated those
two adjustments, right, uh, soyou can have a compression
adjustment, uh, which means thatyou can change how fast it
compresses and how slow itcompresses, right.
And then you can separate thatand have it using valving and

(08:30):
just ports and moving oilthrough the shock at different
ways.
You can separate it to where itis activated, at different
speeds, and that's high-speedand low-speed separation.
And so higher-end dampers willhave a high-speed and low-speed
separation and usually they'rejust, you know, you're
compressing the fork and it istrying to adjust low speed in

(08:53):
most cases, and then it'spushing past that and hitting
high speed.
If it's really fast, it's.
Companies will do it differentways, but it's basically the
gist, right.

So compression, pushing down,
rebound coming back and highspeed is is for small bump, I'm
sorry.
High, high speeds for big drops.

It's high speed, shaft movement.
And the reason that's importantis because if you go into a
rock garden fast actually, andyou hit those square edge bumps
fast, it'll move fast, it'llhave a lot.
It could activate the highspeed circuit Got, circuit Got
it.
And then so like I like, lowspeed.
For me is, you know, whenyou're in the bike shop and
you're pushing down on the fork,that's what you're feeling.

You're feeling low speed.

And if you were to crank the high
speed, it usually is harder todetect.

Until you go, take a five-foot drop or
something or hit a rock gardenat 30 miles an hour.

And this is also why you know,
lower end forks tend to justhave a low speed compression
adjustment and not separate themand because they don't feel
that rider is ready yet to tryand differentiate.

Right, like I have a grip two and I
still don't know that I'm takingadvantage of all of the
features that that has, and I'msuper happy with my grip damper.

The amount of people that will buy
a new damper from me and get agrip too and I don't think they
actually know how to use it ispretty common.
But you know, I don't discountthe fact that somebody just
wants the ability to learn andif you don't have the separation
you can't figure it out Likethat 3.1, you just put my Zeb.

I don't know what I'm doing with
it, all right, so my zeb, yep, Idon't know what I'm doing with
it, all right, so I just wantedto set that baseline.
First that I'm I'm a skeptic ofthis, so you can convince me
that I'm wrong.
And then also I just wanted tomake sure our listeners kind of
understand, because you're goingto talk about low speed, high
speed stuff, so they kind ofknow what it is you're talking
about.

Well , a good baseline is that almost
everything that we're going totalk about electronics is
adjusting.
Adjusting the compression, okay, and so the electronics are
kind of taking over the job ofyou turning the knobs.
Okay, and their job is to do it, but not.
We've had electronic lockoutsand remote lockouts for a long
time where you can do it fromthe handlebar, um, but this is a

(10:58):
new level where they put abrain somewhere on the bike,
whether it's attached to thesuspension or a separate on the
bike, and then there's sensorsthat actually are sensing the
ground as you ride it and thisis different than like
specialized had their brainsystem like a long time ago and
that was a mechanical systemyeah, that's a great I I didn't
even think about that, butthat's great something to touch

(11:18):
on.
So the specialized brainconcept was actually developed
by fox, believe it or not?
okay, uh, for what's called aterologic fork, way back and I
remember those yeah, I have abunch of the cartridges still,
so if you ever want to make aterologic?
I don't call uh, but uh, butthey're, um, they use a weighted
system and basically this brassweight was covering a hole

(11:38):
where the oil could go throughand it was on a spring and if
the suspension moved a certainway, that brass uh weight would
move away and unblock the portand allow the fork to move and
then the spring would return itand then they would start tuning
the spring on how fast it wouldcome back so you could change
how long it stayed open.

(11:59):
It was a really cool concept.
It really uh, uh.
Honestly, it was really awesome, but it had some limitations
and even specializes kind ofgoing away from that, because I
don't think.

I don't think even any of their
2024 bikes had the brain in it.

Yeah , I can't remember, I think,
some of their race epics andstuff in the fork still cause
I've de-brained them.
So we take the brains out.
No, you lobotomize them.
Yeah, um, no joke, we call itthat, uh, but we?
Um, it was a cool concept, it's.
It's got some limitations andthe probably the biggest one is
that because it's mechanical,it's not really thinking, so

(12:35):
it's kind of dumb and you canfool it and usually it is
hitting a bump before it reactsand it doesn't react as fast as
the electronic system.
So you would have kind of aharsher ride.

Okay, so that was the Fred Flintstone
error, yep, the brain.
And now we're in the Jetsonerror of electronics.
So talk us through, like whatthese different things are, how
much it costs all that stuff.

So a flight attendant is.
The SRAM version came out.

I didn't know this but it's been
in development for nine years.
I had no idea.
Uh, it's a long time.
I thought you're telling methat shram like turned stuff
over every 12.
That's why I was.

That was serious.
That's why I was surprising so Ido remember when it first came
out it was really uh specific tothe bike, uh, so like there was
only like four or five brandsthat had it.
Um, you couldn't get it onanything and but when flight
attendant came out it waswireless and that's uh, you know
we're skipping ahead causethat's first on my sheet.
Uh, Fox live kind of came out alittle sooner than flight

(13:34):
attendant than flight attendant,but flight attendant, like SRAM
, already had the wirelessprotocol so they could already
make it wireless, which was agreat.

So we'll fight a attendant work on,
you know a typical like Lyricor Zeb, so yeah, yeah.

So when it first came out, they
were really touchy about what itwent on.
It was on specific bikes, itwas bikes.
They tested it, it did, okay,but it didn't really take off
because it wasn't really anaftermarket option, right.
And then they changed it.
They figured out they could addother sensors that are already

(14:11):
on the bike and they could getthem to talk to it and get more
out of it and make it predictive, which is really nice, okay.
And so they started integratingit in with their power meters,
which now tells the flightattendant you know.
So I should.
I should tell you about whatsensors it uses.

So these optical sensors like
they're they looking at thetrail ahead of you.

No , God, that would be cool.

That's the next gen.

Yeah , that would be awesome.
It looked like thoseself-driving cars, or you have
that big nodule on your headlike on your helmet or something
where all the rocks are andtune the air pressure and that's
coming.

We should probably be quiet and we
should take this and patent this?

Yeah , for sure, but um so, no, they
use.
Usually they'll useaccelerometers, uh, and position
sensors, uh.
I think the accelerometers arejust basically their bump
sensors, you know, and basicallyit will hit a bump and within
fractions of a millisecond 14milliseconds, I think, is what
they were saying.

Jesus Christ.

Yeah , like really, really quick.
It will send signals to thebrain which will analyze what is
coming in at and then it willchange the suspense and settings
.
But they've also put thesensors on the front and the
back of the bike and in thepower meter on flight attendant,
and that allows them toactually know pitch of the bike.

(15:31):
So the power meter, like in thepedals, like power power meter,
yeah, so you can get a coupledifferent types of power meter
on your bikes nowadays from SRAM.
And when you hook the powermeter to the bike and you hook
up your flight attendant withyour transmission drivetrain,
which is wireless, you can linkall of them and sync all of them
together.

(15:52):
And now your suspension not onlyknows when it's hitting a bump,
but it knows what angle you'reat.
It knows how much power you'reputting and whether or not
you're hard pedaling, is softpedaling or coasting.
It knows, uh, whether or notyour um weight bias is different
, uh power.
There's one other one uh angle.
So when I calibrate, when Icalibrate my bike, I have to

(16:15):
tilt it to tell it which sideit's tilting, right, uh, so if
it's going around a corner orwhat have you, and that way you
know basically what, what'sright and what's left.

Oh, interesting.

So they're crazy.
It knows all this stuff andthen you link it to your drive
train and now knows what gearyou're in.
So so it knows what gear you'rein From what I hear, this
hasn't happened yet, but Ibelieve they're trying to
develop it so it actually knowswhat's going on with your
dropper too.
So then you'll know, it'll knowif your seats up or down.
And so now your your brain,they they call it adaptive, I

(16:50):
believe, is the term and theadaptive system can now use all
that info to adjust yoursuspension and kind of predict
and learn how you ride andadjust the suspension
accordingly.

Does it learn over time?

Yes , and it remembers that stuff.
Yeah, yeah.

Okay, and do you give it feedback like
thumbs up and thumbs down?

That I haven't seen yet.
Okay, you can fine tune it.
So it has a really nice app,right, and you can go into the
app and you can fine tune it.
You can change it through LEDson the brain, which is usually
the fork portion, and the brainwill talk to the rear shock.
But you can adjust it throughLEDs and change compression
settings so you can fine tune it.

(17:30):
You can kind of make it biasedto be more open or biased to be
more closed.

So this is really just adjusting
low and high speed compressionyes, yeah, for the most part low
speed.

Okay , um, I haven't.
It's not really doing much onthe uh high speed side it's
really kind of one adjustment.
Um, so that would.
I would say that's the biggestdrawback.
So, like I went through my prosand cons, so on flight
attendant for instance, uh, Iwas trying to get costs for this
stuff and it's kind of hard.
Um, yeah, what is the cost?

(18:02):
Cost is it's variable on howmany things you add to it, but
just the suspension, uh, with apower meter, is around two to
three thousand depending onwhich suspension you're paying
five hundred to a thousand,000just for the power.
So yeah, $200 to $300 for someof them.
Okay or a pedal sensor, notnecessarily a power meter.

(18:23):
So that's the other thing iswith flight attendant, you can
back it off to whatever levelyou want.

Right.

The basics are you need the fork,
the shock and a cadence sensor,which is usually put into the
crank, to know that it'sspinning sensor, which is
usually put into the crank, toknow that it's spinning.
And interesting note, you knowwhen I got mine.
So SRAM got me a set to testout and I've been testing this.
I had my carbon cranks on myaltitude.

Which bike do you have this on?
On my altitude, your altitude,okay, yeah.

So it's got a Zeb with flight
attendant and a super deluxeultimate on the rear.
Okay, so, um, and one of thereasons I wanted you to get the
buttercups is because the zebhas the buttercups and they are
amazing.
it's so awesome yeah, I lovethat um, and if you don't know
what buttercups are, well, let'stell uh.
Well, they are like, uh, enginemounts for your fork.
I don't know how to explain it,but basically they're isolators

(19:12):
that that are little rubbersuspension that's built into the
end of the damper rods, uh,that attach to your lowers so
that your fork is kind of ridingon engine mounts, so you get
this little bit of suspensionseparate from the air spring.

And what I would say, like in
practice, like what I feel whenI'm riding, is it kind of takes
the edge off the small bumps.

And I think the perfect example.

I was doing a ride last week and I
came out on a dirt road that waslike washboard and I was
hauling ass on this washboardroad and usually it's like
rattling my brain and it reallytook, I don't know, 50% or 75%
of the fucking rattle out of it.

They were just real small.
Washboards yeah, vibration, itjust gets rid of that.
It was great.
Washboards yeah, vibration, itjust gets rid of that.
It was great.

That, that feedback, that road
feedback.

But these buttercups.

These are.
These are mechanical.
This has nothing to do withelectronic, but we're just
talking about those in the inthe RockShox fork.

So anyway the cost.
So then I, I'm putting it on myaltitude and I got the cadence
sensor which goes in the crank.
And I didn't buy new cranks.
I have my Truvado descendantcarbon cranks that I've had for
five years, that I love on mybike, and I stuck them right in
there, went and rode and Icouldn't get it to work and the

(20:27):
thing wouldn't work and I'm likeplaying with it.
I'm, I'm doing, I'm pulling outthe app, I'm doing everything
and it just is not telling me.
Dane's always playing with it.
I'll tell you what usually Iget results when I play with it.
At this point I had to call ina friend to help me play with it
, you started.

I did, I did Fair enough, fair enough.

So I did call a buddy and he's
like, yeah, I don't know what'sgoing on.
He actually goes hey, I'll bein there next week.
This is your friend from SRAM,from SR.
Yeah and uh, we'll, we'llfigure it out.
And so he couldn't figure itout and we're trying to figure
it out.
He's trying to call techsupport.
We go on a ride.
Um, what we figured out was myold cranks had the big hole that

(21:10):
you stick the skating sensor inon one side, and the new dub
cranks that it was designed forhave the big hole on the other.
And this thing's so sensitiveit knows if you're going
backwards or forwards.
So I had it in backwards, ohfunny.
So we cranked the cranksbackwards and the system came on
and knew what was going on, andso we figured it out.
Uh, so did you put new cranks onyep, I actually switched out to

(21:32):
some newer uh transmissioncranks, so and that took care of
it and this worked pretty muchflawless, since, other than if I
forget to charge a battery.

How long does it last?

Uh , I, you know.
They say, um, probably 24 hoursnonstop.
Uh, it's hard for me, becauseI'll let it sit in the garage
for a week and I'll ride it onceor twice, um, and then I'll
forget how many times I'vecharged it.
I can get four or five rideswithout even thinking about it.
The cool thing is is when Iforget to do it, it just stays

(22:02):
open.
So it's just a regular justlike your regular fork, exactly.
It's not like it.
It doesn't stay locked where itlike is unrideable, and so
there's very low penalty.
I don't get the automaticsuspension.
That's it, you know.
And so, yep, um, so it's beenpretty cool.
Uh, I did put this.
So we're talking to 38millimeter zeb fork at 170 mils,
travel right, and I'm superdeluxe at 230 millimeter, eye to

(22:28):
eye with I forgot 65, I thinkis my stroke.
It's long, yeah.
So 165 millimeter rear and 170mil front enduro bike Right, and
I go ride that system with mydaughter on cross country trails
and I can hear the suspensionchanging and you hear the little
motors going.
Uh, they make the little.

(22:49):
They sound like the derailleurs.
You know a little a littleservos and um and it's just
constantly adjusting.
It'll go from open to trail toclosed, uh, constantly.
And it is really cool as I'mgoing up a hill, it knows I'm
going up and it'll adjust forthat, and then when I'm going
down it'll open wide up and it'spretty noticeable and it's it's

(23:11):
gotten to where I really kindof appreciate the sound, you
know, of the motors yeah I'veheard some people complain that
there's a noise.
Um, for me it's like, oh mystuff, that I spent a lot of
money on works, so I don't havea problem with that you get that
validation that it's actuallyworking but it's not loud and
annoying, it's just no, no, youjust hear it.
You know working.
You know I have a buddy who'sgot a silent hub and he

(23:34):
absolutely loves a silent huband he may not like this, you
know and there's people thatcome in and they hear a little
creak two or three times ontheir ride and it drives them
insane.

They may not like it you know I need
my, my bike, to make noises so Ican like drowned out the sound
of me wheezing, yeah, trying toget up the hill.

It's true, yeah, whether or not you
hear it depends on your lungcapacity, right?

but uh , so it's two to three grand.
Yeah, this does not include thecost of the fork.

No , no, this is the fork and the
rear shock and the cadencesensor.

Okay.

And then the reason it's two to
three is because I don't thinkthat includes the power meter.

Okay, so just for a comparative, if
it's two to three grand, whatwould it be with?
What would it be for asuspension system without this?

So if you buy a Zeb, ultimate it's
around 1100 bucks and a Zebsuper deluxe ultimate is around
600 bucks, right?
So you're talking 1700, andthen you can get this stuff from
two to three grand.
So it's not it's not, it's notcrazy, you, you know, it's not
significantly more.
Yeah, now that it's also two tothree grand, because it may
depend on which model you get.

(24:41):
So I have another system that'sgoing to go on one of my bikes.
That's a lyric, you know, it'sa different fork, and then
lyrics of 36, 36, 35 millimeter,35, yeah, long travel, and um,
that one we're going to do acustom build on.
So they, they make a VividUltimate.

That's the rear air shock.
Yeah, Vivid Coil.
Oh, it's a coil.

Well , they do make it, but they
weren't available, and so Italked to SRAM and we're going
to do a custom Super Deluxe Coil.
So we're going to make thisshock, so I'm going to use their
flight attendant unit andinstall it on a standard super
deluxe ultimate, and so we'llsee how that goes.

(25:23):
Uh okay but it was fun because Igot to call colorado springs
and talk to double d it's ramand he's a super cool guy um,
and kind of work through thedetails and kind of make sure
before I buy all this stuff thatit'll it'll bolt up, and so
it's an experiment.

We'll see how it goes weight wise.
What am I adding to my bikewhen I add this electronic
system?

Ah , that is a great one.
So around 300 grams I thinkquarters of a pound.
Yeah, Three quarters, and thatwould be again.
The info was hard to determinewhat exactly that was, but that
should be the pedal sensor andboth brains and batteries on
them.
Cause they each, each thing hasa battery.
So that is one thing to knowabout flight attendant.

(26:04):
You have a battery on the fork,and now you have a battery on
the rear shock, and you have abattery in the cadence sensor.
Jesus.

That's a lot of batteries.

Yeah , so lots.
And then of course you havebatteries if you have your
transmission, so you getbatteries all over.
If you've a a full, you're likefive pounds of batteries on it,
pretty much.
Yeah, so, um.
So a little bit more weightthan I expected, but it's not
not crazy.
So, um, so the big other.
The other thing is that sincethis stuff's wireless, it's it's
aftermarket compatible, whichmeans you can put it on.

(26:34):
So I basically uh told tram Igo here's theto-eye on the
stroke that I need, and I wasable to get a shock.
And then I told them what typeof fork and I was able to get
that you can get a SID with thisstuff on it and a short travel
rear shock.
You can get a lot of differentversions available.
Not everything is available,but for the most part you can

(26:56):
fit it.
It is not a bad idea to maybejust get some help from somebody
who knows what they're doing,just because the brain system
does stick out a little bit andyou want to make sure it's going
to clear, like on the rear,that it's not going to hit
something.
And on the fork it hangs offthe back and it's aluminum, so

(27:16):
it's pretty durable.
But I've seen some bikes wherethey actually have bumpers.
You know so, if that fork comesaround, it hits.
So you want to be careful thatyou're not just throwing it on
something and ruining it so likefor this system in particular.

One of the things I've heard is that
it's like more I guess moreapplicable for xe use than it is
for trail or enduro downhill.
Do you feel the same way?

so , uh, two, two things that I
noticed about it is because itonly is affecting the low speed
compression.
I don't get to get theadvantage of setting up two
different scenarios for when I'mriding.
So when I'm uh racing downhillbikes and I hit a rock garden at
speed, I'm really looking atthe high speed.
Or if I'm doing a drop or a bigjump where I may take a big

(27:58):
fast impact on the fork, yeah Ikind of want to set up for that,
but my low speed is the chunderand keeping me stuck to the
ground, and so, uh, low speedalso can help me with brake jack
.
Or you know, if you put thebrakes on um and the fork dives,
your low speed can help youwith that, and so I I like the
ability to have those twoseparations, and it's kind of

(28:21):
important to have that abilityon at a race level.
And so the bigger hit bikes it'sharder to justify.
I know SRAM will probably getmad at me for saying that
because it's top of the linestuff, but I think like on a
downhill bike or an enduro racebike I would be.
I don't know if I would be thejuice is worth the squeeze.

(28:43):
Yeah, I don't know if it wouldbe that worth it.
Now, on the cross country racebikes, I think is 100% worth it.
Yeah, flight attendant, oncross country, where that thing
is controlling your suspension,you don't have to think about it

(29:04):
while you're trying to put out110 to to make it around as fast
as possible.
You're not trying to hit alockout or forgetting to hit a
lockout to unlock it.
Um, it's basically keeping yourbike as efficient as possible
with the minimal to zero effortfrom the rider.
I think that is by far a across-country application for it
.
The other application that Ifound out with my altitude that
I was really impressed with isit gave my altitude two distinct

(29:25):
personalities.
I can go ride it on across-country trail with my
daughter and it was superefficient, easy to ride.
It made a big pillowy bike thatI do huge, huge jumps on and it
made it cross-country rideableand then I can either leave it
wide open or I can set the biasto be open more often and I can

(29:46):
go hit big trails.

So if I only owned one bike and I
really had that really differenttype of ride, that two
different opposing types ofrides, right, it would be a good
compromise and it would becheaper than two bikes and if
you had it on there and you wantto go, do you know, enduro race
or something like that, itstill works great, you could
just not run it.
Yeah, you want it to turn itoff.

You can turn it off, but it still
works great, um, and what it'sgoing to do is just make you
more efficient between on theuphill yeah, on the uphills in
in your transfers, so, um so.

So you still set, you still set your
rebound and your air pressure.
Yep, the same way you would setyour sag and all that stuff.
Yeah, it's really just dorkingwith the low speed compression
it's.

It's really just a little monkey on
there turning on and off for youand it's got us.
It's a smart monkey, you know.
It knows what it's doing okay,right now right on.
So that's Flight Attendant.
So here's my pros.
You want to hear what I wrote.

Yeah, go for it Makes worse.

Dane "The Suspension G (30:43):
pedaling bikes do better Offers.
An automatic lockout for racingCan be used to make long travel
bikes more versatile for XCapplications or XC bikes faster.

So does it make a difference if the
bike geometry is more linear orprogressive in their suspension
?

Dane "The Suspension (30:59):
kinematics you it?
It uses the same uh shim stack,from what I understand as the
standard stuff, so you cancustom tune it if you need to.
Okay, and which is cool.
Uh, so then you can kind ofaddress that.
Now, if you have a bike, that'sreally just better with coil.
You want to try and get thecoil version right um, but air.
you know they have air already.
And then the can.

(31:21):
The air can is still the samecan, so you can put in volume
spacers and tune it that way too, so it still has so much
versatility of the standardultimate.

It doesn't take anything away from
the suspension products Notreally.
It just adds a new feature.

Yeah , I would say just a little bit
of the high speed, low speed,separation.
That's about it.
Can you still manually adjustyour compression?
If you wanted to?
Um, you can press buttons, okay, and do it through the brain
okay, but there's no, butthere's no like tactile no, yeah
.
Yeah, I'm trying to, I'm tryingto make sure that I'm correct
on that.
Yeah, because on fox live valvethere still still is a manual
adjustment.

Well, that's a good transition.
Let's talk about Fox.
Okay, oh, hang on.
You didn't finish your pros andcons.

My cons Still has a harsher.
Feel Much better withbuttercups.
Cost is high.
Charging batteries Not allconfigurations for all bikes and
only integrates with SRAMe-bike.
That's kind of a weird onebecause that's really more the
transmission and stuff.
I'm not 100% sure how flightattendant integrates with the
SRAM.
Oh yeah, I am Sorry.

(32:25):
So I got one of these systems.
That Lyric system I was talkingabout was for one of my e-bikes
and then we found out after thefact that it does not talk to
Bosch, which is what the e-bikeI have.

Okay.

And so what Does it matter?

Well, because I wanted to use the
power, so Instead of putting apower meter on the pedals, you
wanted to get the power ratingfrom the actual Bosch e-motor,
from the Bosch e-motor and so itdid not talk to it and because
it's a Bosch motor, there's nospace for that cadence sensor.

So there's no space for that
cadence sensor.
So I don't know if they have away to fix that, but it
basically killed that suspensionfor that bike and that that
suspension is getting moved to anon e-bike.
Now I know that they, that myrep didn't realize that when he
told me about it and so he wassurprised and they're still

(33:15):
figuring that out and I thinkit's something they're working
on, but again, that's tramtrying to write software that
then works with Bosch and thenBosch cooperating.
That takes a lot more time thanif you just had a SRAM e-bike
motor.
They wrote everything so theycan make it work Right.
So all right.
So Fox live valve.
So we're going to talk aboutthe, the old Fox live valve.
So this old fox live valve.

(33:41):
So this is the.
I I hate to say old, but therewas two old versions there was a
non-bluetooth and a bluetoothversion.
Okay, and then?

um, was the non-bluetooth a wired
version?

well , they're both wired, oh yeah,
so these are the old again.
We're not going to talk aboutneo yet, which is the newest
stuff.
Um, this stuff came out, uh,because we're a pivot dealer.
We saw it on pivot and I testedon pivot.
God, lots of years ago.

I mean , it's been out for a while,
like five years ago, or 10 yearsago, or what do you think?

at least probably five yeah okay,
I remember it was on a 5.7, no,5.5 pivot.
I took it to north star and Iwrote it and I tried to fool it,
uh, so so the premise on thisis it has a sensor on the fork.
It has a solenoid, just likethe flight attendant on the fork
compression damper, and thenthe rear shock has a solenoid,

(34:26):
and then it has a sensor on therear wheel and then it has a
sensor in the brain, which isusually mounted somewhere in the
middle of the bike, and so it'sgot these sensors that allow
that, allow for it again to knowpitch, um, so it knows if
you're going uphill or downhilland it's, it's more, um, it is
more sensitive to the uphill andthe downhill than I think

(34:47):
flight attendant is.
Uh, and we'll do a lot moredepending on that.
It'll change the settings ofthe front and the rear and it
doesn't always do the samesetting on both.

And again, this is just a
compression, just compression.

Yeah , yeah, you still set your sag
up, you still have reboundadjustments.
Fox live is a little differentbecause they do have compression
adjustable so you can manuallyadjust your compression or fine
tune.
It is what they say.
Okay, so it's like fine tuning.
Now here's the big difference.
Um, so, flight attendant and Idon't know if I mentioned this
or made it clear, but flightattendant, when you're riding,

(35:21):
it is defaulting open, uh, whichmeans that it is squishy until
it decides to shut.
So as you point uphill andstart pedaling hard, it goes.
Oh, it's smooth enough, andthey're going uphill and working
at it, we're going to lock out,uh.
So they learned their lessonfrom the old brain, from the old
brain.
Fox Live is the opposite.

It's default closed.

Default closed, and when you hit an
obstacle, the front sensor picksit up and within milliseconds
changes the fork and the rearshock settings and then has a
certain time that it allows forthat to stay open before it
shuts again.

As long as it's not feeling any
additional bumps.
So if you're going through arock art that clock is
constantly resetting.

Yeah , and on the brains of these you
can adjust the sensitivity.
Usually they have about fivedifferent levels.
And the newer Fox Live Wire,you can do Bluetooth and they
have an app.
So I think you can do even morefine tuning with that okay the
bikes that we sold at pivot.
They didn't have the bluetoothbrains on them, so we didn't get

(36:26):
to play with that too muchdidn't play with the app too
much um, but the um.

We already established that you
like to play with it I do liketo play with it.

Dane "The Suspension (36:33):
Sometimes I need help, so, but uh, so the
, uh, the, the uh fox livesystem is wired, and that's
probably, I would say, thenumber one drawback to it are
they still selling the fox livesystem?
why not?
Really they, okay.
So I I will tell you that I'vetalked to fox live about this
stuff and they they considerthis like a, their baby, their

(36:55):
pride and joy, and they stillsupport it and they still feel
like it is the best thing in theworld and anybody who has this.
They want to take care of themlike gold.
So that's the attitude I getfrom Fox Anytime I have a
question on live valve.
So they've made that reallyclear.
So if you do have a Fox livevalve wired, you're not getting
left out in the cold.
So this system was around$2,000 upgrade on bikes for

(37:20):
pivots and if you bought it,around $3,000 to $3,500,
depending Again, depending onwhat level of suspension how
much it costs.

And does it work?
Did it work or will it work ona Fox 36, fox Float Rear?
I mean?

is there a specific, so you would
usually put it on, it wouldusually come it on, it would
usually come with the fork, okay, uh, so, and again, not really
an aftermarket so that threethousand to thirty five hundred
dollars includes the fork andthe shock itself.
It's not just the yeah, theelectronics I wanted to put
prices that kind of had theforks to the full thing.
Okay, yeah, gotcha um, now,like the upcharge uh that pivot

(37:56):
was doing, you were alreadygetting Fox factory, so it was
$2,000 extra.

So we're talking about?
We said it was $2,000 to $3,000for the live valve.

I'm sorry for the flight attendant.

Yeah, and that was compared to like
$1,700 for like an all-acoustic.

What's the?

Josh "Magellan" Ande (38:15):
comparable .
What's the non-electronic costfor a fox factory setup?

so it would be around 1500 to 1700
, so roughly the same price.
Yeah, yeah, but but moreexpensive?

yep, the fox product more expensive
than flight attendant?

yeah , it is uh, and it had more to
it.
It had a brain.
So here's the big thing isant,even though it came out
originally just with a fewbrands I think there was four
they are now figured out that itwill adapt and it can go on
most bikes.
There's a caveat that not everybike, but it can go on most
bikes Fox Live.

(38:50):
You need internal routing andspecial mounts to have that.
So you need to have a certainmount in the back of the bike
where you can run wires, uh, tothe back for the rear sensor,
and then you need a place to putthe brain, a mount for that,
and different companies do thatin different ways and then you
need wiring ports so that thewires can get from the brain out

(39:11):
to the suspension.
So you can't really do it aftermarket unless the bike is
already piped for it okay, andso that is a big drawback and I
think fox knew that.
But I saw fox live on a lotmore bikes than I saw.
Flight attendant okay, so um,now, that could, because we sold
pivot and they, they did themand rocky mountain did them.
But, um, you know, giant uh didflight attendant and I, I think

(39:35):
I've seen like three in thewild.
Right you know All right.
So Fox live adjustments,external adjustments, shop
serviceable, serviceable whichis important to me, and flight
attendant shop serviceable or no?
Yes, for the most part.
So when I say serviceable, thatmeans we can usually rebuild
the dampers, air systems, allthe normal stuff.

(39:57):
If your motor isn't workingcorrectly, um, then that's a
warranty product, that's awarranty or a new part or
something.
So um the uh interesting.
It said that fox live valveonly added around 150 grams okay
to a traditional double cablelockout system, which means a

(40:18):
remote cable system.
Ah, so so maybe probably thesame.

Yeah, it's probably close, because
that's about 150 grams betweenall the cables, housing and the
lever.

So , yeah, so about the same weight
yeah, they were comparing it ona scott bike which has got that
big old honking mess yeah.
So, um, there's no pedal sensor,so that it did not use data
from your cranks or power oranything like that.
Um, and you do have tocalibrate both of these systems,
which means they have to knowwhich way is up.
So with fox, you cut, youcalibrated by putting it on a

(40:50):
level ground and letting it knowwhat level is, and with rock
shock, you tilt it.
Uh, level ground and tilt it sothat it knows which way uh
drives.
I think it's drive side, Ican't remember.
So, um, let's see.
So low speed adjustments.
So same same there yep, um, andthen I would say the fox live

(41:12):
was a little quicker.
Uh, so the suspension was, thereaction was quicker, reaction
was a little faster.
So it's difficult because youhave two generations of flight
attendant the initial generation, which really didn't take off
right, and the engineers, Ithink, had to go through and
kind of reprogram and kind offine-tune right, and then you
have the fox live generation,which was pretty much it, and

(41:34):
the only thing that changed forthe most part was bluetooth to
allow you to use an app.
And is that neo?
No, no, that's, we're stilltalking about wired.
Okay, so, um, so, but thegeneral consensus from our
customers and people I've talkedto and myself, is that the fox
live system was a little fasterto react.
Okay, so, and it was prettyinstantaneous, you know, even

(41:55):
though it is using a sensor onthe fork and feeling the the
wheel move up before it unlocks.

It was so fast that it was just could
you hear it as well, the sameway you could hear it makes a
little clicking noise not asnoticeable as the flight
attendant while you're riding,but uh, but it does make a
clicking noise.

there's a cool video I saw where these
guys are like kind of justholding it in the air and then
they tilt the bike down likedownhill and you can hear it
click.
And then you tilt it up andthen you can hear it click and
then they shake it and herehere's, both of them click.
So it was kind of cool becauseyou can actually hear them, uh,
working.
So, uh, let's see my notes onthe Fox.
Live wired is, uh, is, it knowsthe pitch, front and back,

(42:37):
which is great.
Front and rear sensors, whichwas a little more accurate.
You can adjust the suspensionwithout bumps.
I don't know what, oh, thesensors to adjust the suspension
without bumps.
So what it does is, you know,normally, like on the old brain
shocks is you had to hitsomething to activate it and
then it had to delay open.

(42:58):
Fox is a little similar to that, except it also uses the pitch
of the bike.
So if you're going uphill it'sgoing to bias towards closed and
, as you point, downhill.
The other thing is it hasaccelerometers in it so it knows
when you're free-falling, and Itested that at Northstar.
I went and did the drop zone atNorthstar and did all the drops

(43:20):
and every single one, even thebig one which had me hanging in
the air quite a while.
Still it was open when I hitthe ground.
Oh wow, so I could not fool it,that's good.

That would have been bad if you had
hit the ground and it had beenclosed.

Yeah , well, it would have been for
the shock and probably my wristsand ankles, but yeah, I was
pretty impressed because Iactively tried to fool it and I
couldn't.
Right Now, something to note onFox Live is that Fox pretty
much sets it up at the factoryand they usually work with the

(43:53):
OEM to do that.
And they usually work with theOEM to do that.
And one of the things that Iwould tell you is that Fox live
would normally always beconsidered a cross country race
setup.

Okay.

Dane "The Suspension Guru (44:05):
Until Pivot started putting it on
their Firebirds.
Which is their like a bigenduro, big, you know big enduro
bike.
Yeah, mini downhill bike, it'sa big, big travel bike, and so
it's a bike.
It's like Mini downhill bike.
Uh, it's a big, big travel bikeand so it's a bike.

(44:25):
It's it's like a downhill bikewith a with a single crown.
Yep, yeah and uh, I, I wrote it.
And what pivot did was theyworked close with Fox.
They tuned the um, the Fox liveto not have a really a closed
circuit.
What they had was theyexplained it to me.
It's kind of like when it'sclosed, it's not closed, it's
basically like a standardsuspension and then when it
opens, it's like super plush.

Okay.

And so what it was doing was giving
you the same ride quality as anormal switch or, sorry, a
Firebird.
But when you pointed itdownhill and it knew you're
hitting stuff, it opened up andmade pillow mode Okay.
So their efficient pedalingplatform was great and it stayed
that way, yep, and it was sogood that they didn't need to
lock out the suspension.

(45:06):
What they really did was use itin the opposite way, which was
to make the suspension evensofter Right, which was crazy.
It kind of blew my mind.

Okay, that makes sense.
So they basically changed thebaseline of the starting point
Exactly, yeah.

And that is.

Josh "Magellan" Anderso (45:19):
Because the Firebird itself, basically
all pivot bikes are like, soefficient to pedal Yep.

Yeah , it didn't you didn't need the
closed circuit.

Yeah, you didn't need it to be biased
to closed.

No , and if that could foreshadow
the future, I would tellcollaboration.
I think fox learns just as muchwhen they collaborate with bike
companies as the bike companiesdo.
Absolutely, I think that kindof taught them something too,
because that really made thatbike it.
It, just it.
It made sense.
You know, it wasn't like hey,let's stick this stuff on and

(45:48):
try and sell some wires, it waslike hey, let's, how can we make
this bike better?
And making it an automaticlockout didn't make any sense,
right.
So not on a firebird, and I wasreally impressed because that
was really a good application ofthat.
I rode, um, not to dog, uhshram, but I rode the rock shock
, uh flight attendant on some ofthe early stuff on some giant

(46:09):
bikes and giant in my opinion,keep in mind people will argue
me are not very efficientpeddlers.
Their maestro system isn't asefficient as what I'm used to
and so and I was reallydisappointed because the bike
just it just kind of had like aJekyll and Hyde personality.

Have you ridden a recent Giant?

That was probably three years ago.

Yeah, you got to try one of the new
ones.
They've put a lot of work intoit.

I don't know man, this was one of
the new ones.
They've put a lot of work intoit.
I don't know man, this was oneof the new ones, but I'm not
going to dog on them too much,because what happens is you get
a taste for a style, right, andthen you kind of like that style
.
And then when you havesomething different, which could
be better or worse, it doesn'tmatter, it's just different, and
you just notice the difference.

You know how you you can feel like
you're on a bike versus in abike yeah yeah, on the giants I
always feel like I'm on the bikeon top and every other bike I
have I feel like I'm in the bikeyeah, that makes sense.
But like yeah, now, which doyou prefer?
Prefer in the bike?

yeah , me too, yeah yeah, I, I don't
want to feel tippy, so yeah, um,but you know people love giant.
They do a great job, they're agreat company.
I don't want to dog on them, Ijust I'm used to a certain type
of pedal platform and when youswitch it's shocking.
So so, um, back to Fox live.
Uh, my pros were the pitch.
The you can fine tune, which isgreat.

(47:26):
Longer battery life, althoughyou had wires.
And then, of course, the commsare the cost.
Obviously, uh, need a bikebuilt for it, so you can't just
put it on anything.
And the wiring harness is anightmare.
I've had to swap out a few andthey are time consuming, it's
it's bad, because you've got towire this thing all the way

(47:47):
internally routed, internallyrouted all over the place, with
these random ports, and mostcompanies, I think, do a good
job, but I could see you knowsome companies that don't keep
their QC as high as some of theones we deal with having a
nightmare of it.
But even the ones that we'vedealt with were pretty hard.
Okay.
So now we come to more currentFox, fox, neo.

When did Neo come out, like last year
?

Yeah , it just came out, I mean last
year, in 2024, I guess.
So yeah but it feels like sixmonths.

Okay.

So maybe less.
So cost on NIO is about $1,400,and you have to buy everything
modular.
Now here's the crazy part ofFox NIO it is just a rear shock,
that's it.
So you get two sensors, one forthe front and one for the rear,
and you get a rear shock andthen you get a charger and

(48:39):
that's it.
So there's nothing on the fork.
There's nothing on the fork.
Okay, and they do make a coil.
Most of them are built off ofeither a coil DHX format or a
float X format.
I guess some of the commenterswere upset that they weren't on
X twos and stuff and it had todo with how the valving works

(49:00):
and twin tubes and getting theelectronics to fit on them.
So I have no doubt that they'llget there, they'll come out
with other things, but theydidn't want to redesign the
shock.
They were able to put this Neoon existing.
You know um with existing.
You know um with with minimalredesign.
So, um, they've been testing itfor a while.
We've been seeing stuff on onworld cup pits and stuff and spy

(49:22):
photos for a while.
I Niko Malili.
Yeah, god, I can never rememberhow to pronounce his last name.
Um, he's, he's been testing itfor a while, so, and uh, he's
liking it too, so, uh, it'sreally cool.
Here's the big thing is uh, youknow, right now we've got

(49:42):
flight attendant out there and Iwould say, if I was going to
ride a cross-country bike and Iwanted that thing to be the most
efficient race weapon that Icould have, flight attendant is
the right choice.

You want that More than the old Fox
Live.

Yeah , and it's also a great choice
if you want a big hit, if youwant one bike and you want to
have two completely differentpersonalities you know.
I think it can really help youwith that, and it's cheaper than
two bikes.
So, um, so, flight attendantsdone a good job of covering, but
I don't think you're going tosee flight attendant floating on
the downhill bikes or the superenduros.

(50:14):
I will see, you know.
You know, um, the thing that Ialways have to remember about
sponsored racers is that they'repaid, you know, and so they use
what the companies give them.
Yeah, you know, if you watch theprivate ears you know the guys
that have to buy their own stuff.
That'll give you a little bitbetter idea of what is good
stuff.
Yeah.

Cause they're only going to buy the
stuff that works the best.

Yes , exactly um.
So neo is really um, gravityfocused.
Uh, so fox really doesn't feellike they need to do anything
with the fork.
They want that fork to move,they want it to move over stuff
and it's not necessarily umbuilt for somebody who's going
to stand and sprint and doesn'twant the front to dive like a

(50:55):
cross-.
Racer.
It's really trail orientated ordownhill orientated and you're
not really wanting that fork tohave any interruption.
You don't want to have that lowspeed only option.
You want a high speed and lowspeed separation for your
compression.
So it allows you to run yourfork as a normal fork.
But they put the sensor righton the brake because they want

(51:17):
that sensor to to be.
These sensors have their owncoin batteries in them and
they're wireless.
So which is all obviously that,if I didn't say that before,
the new neo is wireless.
So no more wires fits on almostanything as long as the shock's
being made for it, and I don'tsee any reason why they couldn't
pretty much fit everything outthere.
That's current.

Okay.

So if you've got like an old, like
you know, non-metric rear shockon a bike that can't take
anything else, you may be out ofluck.
But everything current they'remaking it for on the bigger hit
side, I don't think there's anyshort, short ones.

Okay.

And then wireless sensors on the
front brake and the rear brakeand they will know where Like
where, on the front brake andthe rear brake, and they will
know where, like where on thebrake?

Are they on the piston or on the?

motors .
You mount it right under thebrake bolt so it's got like this
little wing that kind of sticksout and it's tucked enough to
where it's not going to get justsheared off with every ride.
But it's kind of under thebrake so it doesn't interrupt
your braking.
It doesn't interrupt yourbraking, it doesn't interrupt
your brake setup, you don't haveto re-space anything, it just
goes on under the bolt like athink, like a flat washer with a

(52:23):
little like an l bracket andit's got a little sensor so and
uh.
So that sensor is down there atthe unsprung weight, uh, at the
wheel, at the axle you're gonnahave to explain unsprung weight
for our listeners.
So, uh, unsprung weight is orunsprung position is, is one
that's just moving at the sameundulation with the trail.

It's not impacted by the body weight.
Well, yeah, Cause sprung islike when I sit on my bike
everything that's gettingimpacted by my body weight is
sprung and everything that's notis unsprung.

Well , sprung weight is being
affected by the suspension.
Unsprung isn't, and so theunsprung weight is literally
taking every jar and everymovement.
The ground gives you Gotcha,whereas your handlebars aren't.
So you can't put the sensor onyour handlebars or on the front
of the bike or anything likethat.
It's gotta be on the uh, it'sgotta be on the ground.
So it's sensing the ground asmuch as possible.

(53:15):
Right so so one on the front,one on the back, um, that helps
it know.
You know what pitch you're at,Uh, and you know it's.
It's first indition isaftermarket, so they weren't
like a OE spec, but you can getit on a lot of OE bikes.
Uh, I know Pivot's offering iton a lot of their bikes.
It's 20-ish hours on the rearshock, battery life, battery

(53:41):
life and it's rechargeable.
And then there's coin batteriesin the sensors on the wheels in
there longer.
So, let's see, it does need anapp to work, which means to set
it up and to deal with it.
You need the app.
You can do some cool thingswith the app, like you can
change the, uh, the, I guess,the, the, the colors and the

(54:04):
leds that come on, uh, to turnthem on or off or dim them, so
that you don't use extra batterypower.
So if you're doing a longweekend or something like that,
you don't, you don't run out ofbattery, yep.
So, um, let's see, it'sdefinitely more trail orientated
and downhill and the default isclosed.
Uh, so it's not pedal power,god I, I feel like that's wrong,

(54:30):
but I think that's right.
Uh, so the default is closedand then it opens up when the
front fork hits something.

I mean that would make sense because
that's what their live valve wasright.
So continuing that kind of sameconcept.

The difference is that even on
their old live valve, the frontfork, even if it was locked out,
had enough give to where youcould.
You didn't feel like superrough Right, but the rear shock
was always open way before thebump got to the tire.
That's how fast the systemmoved, and so, in other words,
by the time the sensor in thefront has sensed the bump, the

(55:05):
rear shock will already be open,which is impacting the back of
the bike yep, exactly yeah andso um.
So the default is closed and butit knows pitch and impact.
So and then it's not pedal, uhbias.
So it doesn't know how muchpower you're putting down or how
much you're pedaling.
So again, trail and downhillmakes sense.

(55:25):
It's really not worried ifyou're coasting or if you're
soft pedaling or sprintingthrough a section, it's not
doing that, it's really sensingthe trail only.
So so a cool system.
I think you know, because I'm agravity guy, I like that one
better because it makes moresense for me.
However, I gotta tell you theflight attendant is really
surprising me on how versatileit's, making a big travel bike,

(55:48):
right, you know.
And and then we've got a couplecustomers out on the mach 4 sls
with Flight Attendant, andthese are power meter-equipped
bikes with the full transmissiondrivetrain and they're metric.
People they love numbers andthey're getting all of this data
?

So that was going to be my question
Like are these systemscollecting telemetry data as
well?

They are.
I'm not sure how much they get,but the app, how much the
system shows you, yeah, like howmuch it really kind of
translates to you.
Uh, I don't even know, honestly, all of the different
applications, but tram is keepsupdating them to where, how, how
often they can basicallyconnect more info to it.

(56:30):
You know, like I said, they'reworking on a new dropper that I
think is going to come out atsome point and I think they're
trying to make the dropper talkto the live valve system.
Sorry, flight attendant man,somebody's going to smack me.

We're confused.
We've confused the fuck out ofour listeners.
I think well, if they're notasleep by now after all this,
yeah they're, they're like soSRAM is flight attendant best
for cross country, unless youwant a bike with two
personalities.
Yeah, and this new NIO is like,if you're gravity oriented and
trail oriented and trailoriented.

And I think that the NIO would
really help.
I think there's going to be.
This happened when the brainkind of came out.
The specialized kind of gotreally lazy on pedal efficiency
and they relied on the brain tomake the bike, I mean.

the kinematics of the suspension
design sucked at that point too.

So they were, they were overcoming
the shitty frame design Theirsversus some other four bars was
definitely on the lazy side.
They were using the brain togive them the the uh pedaling
efficiency the pedalingefficiency and then letting the
bike be super active which whichis a selling, selling feature.
If you're a marketing company,right, you're like ours, are
super active, but the brainstops it so that you get really

(57:43):
efficient.
You know, but really theirsuspension design was bad and so
the brain had to be on the bikeyou know Otherwise it would
just feel like you're ridingthrough sand all the time.
I think this NEO system is goingto do the same thing.
It's going to allow maybe someof these high pivot bikes, you
know, or high pivot idler bikesthat really have this super

(58:05):
plush suspension design that canreally just gobble up the
terrain, but have been trying tofigure out how to make the
idler do all the work as far aspedal efficiency.
I think it's going to allowthose bikes to be even more
efficient you know, and it maydistract from some of the bikes
that have really good pedalefficiency.
Uh, designs, so like if youhave a DW link or a bike that's

(58:29):
been really been refined to be apedaling bike, something that
can you know.
Uh, again, we're a pivot dealerso I'll use those bikes.
But like a switchblade is superefficient peddler, but it's 160
mil and 145 or whatever it is,and it's.
it can gobble up some good trailand do some light Enduro and
and it's a you can even use itat the bike park.
That bike doesn't need Fox Neo.

(58:52):
So you know, could you have aless expensive design that that
performs just as well if you putNeo on it?

Josh "Magellan" And (58:59):
Interesting , so so late.
You can make up for for pastsins.
Yeah, Another part of thesystem.

So there's this thing that Fox did
a long time ago called propedal.
That was put on the rear shock.

You remember pro pedal, fuck yeah.

And man, we sold Santa Cruz at the
time and Santa Cruz their VPP,well known before that.
Uh, so like their old superlight that was?

that was like a.

It was a single, single, single
pivot high, high, orange, yeah,and if you had a super light and
you wanted it plush, you justhad to get ready for that thing
and inchworming down the traillike crazy Cause every time you
peddled, pedaled, it would kindof bob, yeah, and it was awful.
And so we would tell all thepeople on on super lights, just
just crank up that air pressure,make it as as stiff as possible

(59:42):
, and just it'll take the edgeoff.
But it's a race bike, you know,you don't, you don't want a lot
of suspension.
Pro pedal come out, came outand it basically calmed the
shock down and it was awesomeand it really kind of
compensated for a lot of baddesigns.
I wonder if the opposite isgoing to happen now, where bad
designs are going to come out ohno, because the suspension is
so good.
Yeah, oh man so I don't know,that's my, my theory, so um.

Josh "Magellan" Anderson (01:00:05):
So that's all of the electronics
all right, okay, so so is itworth the money?
I mean in general.
So so let's, let's talk aboutdifferent use cases.
So I'm a let's, let's, let'stalk about different use cases.
So I'm a let's, let's, let's gothrough like different types of
riders.
So, I'm like a once a yearcross country racer.

Dane "The Suspension Guru" H (01:00:22):
Is it worth?

it no, I'm a two times a month cross
country race.
Yes, absolutely.

If you're racing cross country and
you're serious and you know I'mI'm saying this with my
daughter, you know doing Nika.
So you know I got to say thatthere's going to be some, you
know, caveats to this.
But if you're trying to be thefastest racer out there and I
feel like flight attendant isthe way to go, is the way to go.

It really is.

Dane "The Suspension Guru" (01:00:49):
And you also said I'm the guy that
I want a big hit bike, but Ialso got to ride with my kids or
with my friend josh that likesto ride cross country trails
you're like like in our areawhere you have this big mountain
where you can go do really big,nasty stuff, or you're on
honeybee or the flattest, yeah,the vortex, yeah, the super
smooth trails, and you don'twant to buy two bikes and you

(01:01:10):
really want it to optimize onboth.

I would say that's cheaper than
two bikes, that's cheaper thantwo bikes, yeah, and then, uh,
okay, so let's go to the, let'sgo to the neo.
So you are a and and I can letme.
Let me make sure I got thisright with the neo, I can put it
on any bike yeah okay, so I'm aneo and it was interesting
because I was like, huh, I'msitting here thinking lacy's, my
wife's birthday's in may, she'sgot a switchblade but you just

(01:01:34):
said, a switchblade doesn't needit.

So so so the more efficient the
bike, the less.
I feel like neo will make thatbig a difference okay so if your
bike is is super saggy and justplush as hell and you love it
because you hit something bigand it just feels like a pillow
and you don't want to give thatup, but you want to race some
enduros and you don't want tosuffer every single time you

(01:01:58):
have to pedal that thing.

Yeah.

Fox Fox Neo is awesome.

You're going to love it, yeah, so,
specifically if you have a bikethat doesn't have the best
pedaling efficiency, this willhelp get you more pedaling
efficiency, but also give youthe squish, and that's where the
value comes in.

Dane "The Suspension Guru (01:02:12):
Could you put Fox Neo on the most
efficient bike like they seescomes in.
Could you put fox neo on themost efficient bike like they
sees and would it be kick-ass?
Absolutely it would, but themost efficient or the most value
you're going to get, the mostdifference it's going to make,
yeah, is if the bike so put iton an orange yes, like that
serious, yeah, yeah yeah, a bikethat's really kind of needs the
shock to do a lot of themanaging of the suspension right
okay and so yeah, so value.

(01:02:36):
So like I don't want people tobe like, oh, I don't need Fox
Neo on a pivot, they come onpivots.
You can get them on pivots Ifyou want the best suspension and
the most most efficiency youcan get.
And Lacey may still be acandidate because with her
racing, because every little bit, that that thing, every couple
seconds, helps Exactly.
But if you're just going to abike park a couple times a year,

(01:03:00):
I don't feel like it's a greatvalue.
If you got oodles of money andyou're driving the Porsche or
whatever and money's not reallythe blockade, then you're going
to enjoy it and you're going tolove it.
But if you have to pick betweenyour, you know, your bike,
getting something and feedingthe kids, that's a tough choice.

(01:03:22):
Don't, don't do it, you knowthey eat a lot, you know, maybe
it's not feed as much, so thatwas the wrong button All right
man Well hey so so now tell methis out of it.
So you know, we talked aboutbuttercups and we talked about
rock shock.
If you wanted to do more,vortex on your bigger bike now,

(01:03:58):
yeah, and it's a setup in thethe.

I have the gorilla gravity set up in a
smash configuration, so it's aone 50 front, one 45 back.
Yeah, um, fox factory, uh, airshock in the back and, um, I can
take that on cross countryrides and outside of the size of
the tires.
Yeah, it pedals fucking amazing.

What if it was better?
Do you think you'd ride yourSpecialized as much?
Yeah, you still would.

Yeah, because my Specialized weighs
like 25 pounds or something or26 pounds.
And that thing weighs like 34,35 pounds.

Now what if you could only have one
of those bikes?

If I had to get rid of all of my, if
I had to get rid of every bike,I would keep the Smash and I
would put the Neo on it.
I think, based on what you justsaid.

Dane "The Suspension Gur (01:04:40):
That's kind of how I feel Like if a
lot of our customers that comein here can't have multiple
bikes, you know, I mean it'scrazy to me.

Josh "Magellan" Anderso (01:04:47):
Whether it's money or space, right.

Yeah , money, space or commitment to
the sport.
You know, sometimes they'rejust new and like just getting
one of these bikes is enough.

Well, yeah, because it's super
expensive.

But yeah, I feel like for me.
I bought one of the flightattendant systems because I
really liked the one that I gotfrom.

Tram, and you're the suspension guru,
so you pretty much have to.

And I found a use for it.
So I'm kind of stoked to use itin that use and maybe get rid
of one of my bikes.
I may be taking two of thebikes that I normally have yeah,
I know bullshit, I know it'strue you'll just put this on
more bikes, yeah I'll just get adifferent type of bike pretty
soon you'll see me on a fixiegear blowing up my knees more so

(01:05:30):
but uh, well, that's awesomeman.

I've heard a lot about flight
attendant.
I've heard a lot about the fox,the fox live valve, and I've
heard recently about the neo.
I really didn't know what wasgoing on.
I have a really goodunderstanding of it now and
whether there's a use case forme.
The the pricing scares me, butyeah, we have established that
I'm cheap ass, so that's part ofit and but um I can definitely
see you know where this wouldbenefit a good portion of the

(01:05:54):
riding community yeah, it's,it's.

It's tough to sometimes spend the
money, but uh, you know I Ithink when you get really into
something it's not that hard youknow, and I think you know, if
you're really into guitars,you're going to spend way more
than I would.

I know .

And if you're really into cameras,
you're going to sell some ofthose guitars and buy more bikes
.
You don't need to get rid ofhobbies.
I'm the only one that did that.

I got too many hobbies, man, that's
for sure.
Well, hey, man, I reallyappreciate you taking through
the research here.
The suspension guru, you guys,if you really have questions,
you can hit us up and we can.
I'm sure Dane would be happy toanswer any questions that you
have.
Yeah, man, you got any finalthoughts for our listeners?

Dane "The Suspension Guru" Hi (01:06:34):
I think that's it.
Man, Just have fun out there.

Okay, nate, we love you guys.
Take care, all right, thank you.

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093 - Fox vs SRAM RockShox: Electronic Mountain Bike Suspension Systems Compared

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}093 - Fox vs SRAM RockShox: Electronic Mountain Bike Suspension Systems Compared