So a while ago I posted this:

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/extra-mm-of-travelhow-much-quicker-strava-content

I was interested (&bored at work!) as to how much difference suspension travel actually made to speed while descending.

To précis the thread, I was looking at strava times down one of our locally hotly contested strava descents and wondering really how much easier/ quicker the same rider would be on a full sus vs a hard tail. It’s not a particularly technical descent around half a mile long. There’s a video of someone riding it in the original thread

Since then I’ve ridden it quite a lot and cut my time down considerably on my hard tail (soul at 120) and more recently I’ve got a 140mm 650b full sus. Turns out the extra suspension is worth about 8% time wise as an immediate improvement in similar conditions so not mind blowing but I guess quite a bit on a short distance ( around 6 or 7 seconds) for reference the KOM is around 10 seconds quicker than my fastest time. Only time will tell if the extra travel will allow further confidence for going faster.

It’s probably also worth pointing out that more rocks would probably make the difference bigger.

What has been interesting is that the full sus (despite being slightly heavier) is quicker uphill on everything except fire road, I guess due to better traction.

All a bit rambling, maybe obvious but , maybe a bit interesting too!