Has anyone here ditched their CCDB (coil) and gone back to an air shock? A few months ago I picked up a Five with a CCDB and an RP23, up until yesterday I’d only ridden the CCDB. I’ve spent a lot of time playing with the setup, and have got it pretty good but it’s never blown my mind. Yesterday I shoved the RP23 on, spent 5 mins sorting it, went for a ride and got on with it really well! Admittedly, not the most testing of rides but good enough to get an idea.

Am I alone in my feelings here? Or am I just doing it wrong? TBH, I’m not into having a million adjustments these days, definitely more of a fit n forget person, but will probably give the CCDB one more go

I have bounced between Fox air and DHX5 (lots of knobs to fiddle with) and always ended up back with the DHX (just wishing it was lighter) then got an RP23 and havn’t swapped back. Does most things well enough to be good without adding about a kg

Any well setup shock will outperform any poorly setup shock.

I’d suggest if you’re finding the RP23 better then the CCDB needs some work and/or fettling to get the best out of it.

A few people prefer air shocks to coils, and especially the CCDB, as they think the CCDB feels “dead” where they like a “poppy” shock. This is another way of saying people have become used to, and begun to exploit, shocks with ineffective rebound damping.

Ive got a CCDB on an Alpine and it is genuinely the best frame/shock combination Ive owned, but if you dont feel any benefit from the CCDB its a chunk of extra weight, and potential extra cash, sat on your bike for no good reason. Used CCDBs go for around £350-could you better use this money on your bike (or anything else for that matter)?

My CCDB feels awesome, however it was set up by TF and i would hate to fettle it myself, how heavy are you? i have the settings on a printout somewhere, looking forward to fitting a TI spring to mine.

Worth bare in mind that I’m more used to a ‘dead’ feeling bike having ridden DH for years with shocks including an Avalanche that I still lust over…

My rebound setup is 1 click away from what TF recommend (have a print out here too), but a fair amount less compression. I weight around 10.5st kitted up. Spring weights have been a bit of a pain too, TF calculator says a 400lb/in but that needs a massive amount of preload to sort the sag. Running a 450lb/in requires no preload. So the bigger spring has seen me back off the compression settings. The shock doesn’t feel dead, it just doesn’t seem to be doing the job as well as I would expect (which I suppose leads back to setup…. or possibly just not enjoying the characteristics). Too little HSC maybe (even though I don’t have a bottoming issue)?

Fair enough. CC recommend larger than traditional sag. I’m 11 stone on a bad day, and CC recommended 400lb for me on my Alpine. Feels bang on.

I started with CC’s own recommended settings, and have bit by bit turned up LSC (to stop the blowing thru the travel trapdooring that single pivots seem to do on slow rolly stuff) and some extra rebound (cant recall whether LS, HS or both) to cure a wandery flat tyre feeling on fast switchback descents.

CC recommend normal 28-33% sag from the docs I have in front of me here. Admittedly, I had however forgotten the “expect it too feel very soft” comments that they also make.

hhmmm just found the “Field Tuning Guide” in particular this comment “If more than 6 turns preload are needed to achieve proper sag, you will need to change to a stiffer (higher rate) spring”. 6 turns is way more than usually recommended so it looks like I should drop back to the 400 again

I think the CCDB is fantastic but prefer the feel of an air shock on some frames.

My rebound setup is 1 click away from what TF recommend (have a print out here too), but a fair amount less compression. I weight around 10.5st kitted up. Spring weights have been a bit of a pain too, TF calculator says a 400lb/in but that needs a massive amount of preload to sort the sag. Running a 450lb/in requires no preload. So the bigger spring has seen me back off the compression settings. The shock doesn’t feel dead, it just doesn’t seem to be doing the job as well as I would expect (which I suppose leads back to setup…. or possibly just not enjoying the characteristics). Too little HSC maybe (even though I don’t have a bottoming issue)?

You have too much preload wound on – in my experience ccdb’s do sit further into their travel when measuring static sag but are more active throughout the whole range of travel. When i spoke to TF & Stendec anout this i was told this is just an indicator of basically the whole point of double barrel. Apparantly, the whole thing about them is that a decarbon shock such as Fox has a certain amount of oil pressure built in that ‘props’ the shock up a bit (fox essentially utilise this to make propedal work). To illustrate this, set your satic sag on the RP23 with propedal fully on, then flick it off and then check sag. You will see that with it off it sags more.

So, the CCDB doesn’t use any oil pressure as this just circulates, meaning that it sits a bit lower in its travel and is free to move more readily. I would suggest that by winding up the preload you’re trying to make it feel a bit more like the fox (which may be a clue to your personal preferences).

In my experience I’ve found the CCDB works best when you have between 33-40% sag. This is when you notice the incredible traction etc. that they’re famous for. However, if you like a ‘poppy’ or lively feel it doesn’t do this.

I’ve just been using a CCDB air on my Blood and it seemed to combine the best of both worlds.

I have a Covert and went rp23 > monarch plus > ccdb > monarch plus. The ccdb is flawless in performance but weighs the same as a small moon, monarch plus is 90% as gooc on the trails I ride and at least 200g lighter, which you can feel with proper ust tyres.

After reading the thread I’d say I prefer the ‘poppy’ feel of an air shock, this was one of the first things I noticed about my Covert, this feel was diminished with the ccdb, although the coil was better in other areas I don’t care about perfect performance and would rather have a fun feeling bike.

I don’t care about perfect performance and would rather have a fun feeling bike.

this ^ is a very good point. I’m not interested in having all the bells ‘n’ whistles these days, I just want something fun! If I get rid of the CCDB (and the change in weight was instantly noticeable) I may well get it custom shimmed or Pushed to make the most of it whilst keeping it active and poppy feeling. And if I have days where I just want to plough, then I’ve still go the DH bike

Thanks for all the input folks

Swapped out the rp2 on my spicy over to a dhx5 coil with Ti spring.
Shock was sent strait over to loco to be tuned for me and the frame curve.
The difference between the two is like chalk and cheese.
As has been said.If you set a coil shock up right…. 😀

Some very interesting comments here. I went from a Fox air to a CCDB on a Covert. I had its internals tweaked by Stendec to cope with the leverage ratio on the Covert. (Oil and stack, apparently) Perhaps you should think about doing the same for your bike.

I also found TF and Mojo and Cane’s guides on spring rates all quite different, some didnt even cater for single pivot/multi pivot bikes.

I ended up buying several springs and measuring the sag myself with a ruler.

Anyway, mine does seem to have a bit of ‘pop’, certainly does not feel dead as some have said it would. As for the weight, with a Ti spring on its not that much heavier, I honestly didnt notice the weight. But it certainly improved the ride.

I was finding the Air shock required so much air in it to work it had no rebound left and ramped up horribly.

I would suggest getting the shock set up to suit your bikes leverage ratio and your riding style. Get a Ti spring to shed weight, mine came from Loco and was half the weight of the Nukeproof steel one I tried and lighter than Nukeproof Ti one.

Im also running at about 15-20% sag, no more. Seems to work fine for me, way better than my Air shock ever did.

Perhaps if I just did normal trail riding on it Id have wasted my money, but for agressive trail riding, occasional DH action and general pissing about with a trip to the Alps now and again its been worth twice what I paid for it.