Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • Spring calculators:How can they be so vastly different?
  • Bagstard
    Free Member

    TFtuned and Cane Creek give me a spring weight of 500, but jtech and mojo have me at 620, that is over two sizes different and would give a massively different shock feel. I’m swaying more towards tf and CC, but why such a discrepancy?

    geetee1972
    Free Member

    It’s a great question. I’ve thought about it myself before and figured there are a variety of reasons.

    Different companies have a different take on what good looks like. Mojo for example always liked to sway people towards a firmer ‘race’ set up (something about the bike skimming over the tops of bumps at speed rather than falling into them), whereas TF were of the view that few of their customers were actually riding at the sorts of speeds where that becomes relevant and so were more inclined to go with comfort than speed.

    Different dampers have different ways of working internally; the Cane Creek has much more oil flow (apparently) and therefore more of the spring rate can be taken by the oil resulting in a lower coil rate being needed.

    There will be differences in the assumptions made about the leverage ratios in bike design. For instance, TF only differentiates between single pivot and multi-link but not all multi link bikes have the same mechanical leverage curves.

    Also assumptions about what type of riding the bike will be used for. Cane Creek for instance differentiate between trail/enduro and AM riding as well as DH and freeride, whereas TF only differentiate between trail, DH and freeride.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    It does seem to be, basically, cobblers. I reckon there’s just more factors than the calculators can manage- like, all 4-bar bikes with a shock X length are not the same, pivot locations, lever lengths etc will all mess things up. Really I reckon it falls to manufacturers to know their bikes- I got perfect advice from Last, while Orange just said “use the TF calculator” which turned out to be hopeless.

    benji
    Free Member

    At the end of the day the calculator gives you a starting point at best, then after that it’s a case of seeing how much travel you have used and if you are happy with how it feels/handles.

    Bagstard
    Free Member

    It does make me wonder where the info comes from for custom tuning?!

    Rik
    Free Member

    Be very mindful as well that different dampers will cope differently with the amount of sag.

    A ccdb for example is so controlled that it can quite happy cope with 35/40% sag without the damper constantly bottoming. I find the TF calculator seems about right for a ccdb on the dh sag scale.

    robhughes
    Free Member

    Hi Bagstard.Iv,e mailed you about that spring.
    Cheers bud….
    NW…What kind of advice do you get from last.Be very interested to know…Thanks…

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

The topic ‘Spring calculators:How can they be so vastly different?’ is closed to new replies.