We brought you news of UK company Nitro Shox back in 2015 and the small company has been busy in the meantime. Using something called oleo strut technology, it skips the mountain bike world’s basis on motorbike suspension and looks instead to military – tank and landing gear – suspension. Where shocks need to be absorbed reliably over and over.
Instead of the distinctively home made looking shock we first saw, there’s a far more professional looking, and expanded unit.
The shock is completely different in design and construction to other shocks on the market. Rather than having an air spring and oil damping, the shock is air filled, but then charged with a specific pressure of nitrogen according to the rider’s weight.
The designers of the Nitro Shox come from military work, where they’ve consulted on things like airplane landing gear suspension and, interestingly, tank suspension – where you need the wheel suspension to be pretty good so you can still fire a shell while charging over rough ground…
As the shock works differently to other units, there are fewer adjustments available (though there are four different shocks planned – with more and more levels of adjustment (whether you need them or not…)
What’s next for Nitro Shox? A bit more testing and then getting sample shocks to test riders and magazine folks and then full production by next year – even a downhill specific shock. Stay tuned…
