I’ve just fitted a Vorsprung Corset air sleeve to my bike and thought it might be useful to share my feedback to the STW massive. I’ve no connection to Vorsprung or any bike/equipment distributor.

Background – I ride a Canyon Spectral AL, weigh about 13 – 13.5 stone in my riding gear and guess I’m a intermediate level rider. When I got the Spectral it was fitted with Fox 32mm Forks, which were subsequently replaced with a set of 150mm Pikes. As you might expect the Pikes completely transformed the way the bike handled rough terrain and it’s safe to say it was a very confidence inspiring upgrade. I always wondered if a rear shock upgrade from the stock Fox Float Perfromance CTD BV rear shock would also have such a massive impact as well and when i saw the Vorsprung Corset, I thought I’d give it a try.

Vorsprung’s website is Here and gives product and a tech explanation of what the Corset claims to do.

Fitting the Corset is a easy 15 minute job and basically just involves swapping your existing Fox air sleeve for the Corset. I had been running 150psi with the stock air sleeve and had to increase that to 200psi when the corset was fitted to give the Vorsprung recommended sag.

I’ve now been out for a couple of rides using the Corset and can vouch that it makes a significant improvement to my stock rear Shock, for me, on my bike. The best way I can describe it is – when I swapped from the original Fox 32mm forks to the Pikes, the difference in real-world performance was massive. I found that the forks actually felt that they were damping correctly and whether it was small bump sensitivity of clattering over rocks at speed, the Pikes really delivered the goods. I get the same feeling from using the Corset and now feel that the rear shock matches the performance of the forks.

As a rough and very unscientific test I did a few Strava segments round Hebden Bridge, to see out of interest if it really did improve things. Climbing a mile or so up a rocky bridleway and doing two popular descents saw my PR times improve by well over 10%. Climbing was a bit smoother and I was able to carry speed over rougher sections on the descents, which would have had me reaching for the brakes before.

I’ve still got a volume spacer fitted, from when I was using the old sleeve, to stop the shock bottoming out. I don’t know if this will still be needed as the ramp-up of the corset is very different to the old sleeve. I need to play with this as well as experiment a bit with the air pressure.

Different bikes with differing suspension linkage designs will get different results to me, but hopefully this may help anyone wanting to get more out of a Fox rear shock.

Thanks for the review, surprised its not been mentioned on here, good thread about it over on rotoburn, Steves popped up and gone into some detail as to how this works with various frame designs, its an interesting read.

@Skydragon I was thinking of giving this a go on my (slighty reggresive) 😉 Orange Five, did you purchase direct and if so what was the total bill including handling etc, I worked it out to around £84.00 without import and handling charges?

Ta.

@dirtydog, going by Steve’s website and info, I think you’d see even more of a performance increase on a Five (with it’s more linear suspension than my spectral).

Yes, I bought direct and using PayPal it cost me £93.61 I didn’t have to pay any customs charges etc when the postman delivered it.

Interestgly it seems that Fox are prototyping a new shock at the moment which has an air can that looks similar to the Corset. Who know’s whether this will ever become a product, but perhaps they too are trying to emulate the Rockshox Debonair air can ?

I think J-Tech are bringing these into the UK.

Very tempted by these. I’ve never been convinced with my Float X. It seems to make the rear end a little “dead” and small bump compliance I’m sure isnt as good as it could be. I have the largest reducer in it, which doesnt help the small bump stuff, but stops it getting through the travel so quick.
Hmm, shall I wait for JTech?

How long did it take to get it after you ordered it ?

We will be stocking these cans from the end of march / beginning of April , we will be taking pre-orders on the website from monday 16th or give us a ring on 01373 826800.
Cost will be £79 + postage .
We cant wait to get our hands on our first batch to get testing .

TFTuned

Ordered! Thanks TF 🙂

There’s temptation that I didn’t need!

Nice one. I’ve got a Spectral with a 150 Pike which is loads loads loads better than the 32 TALAS and have recently swapped the air shaft to make it 160 which surprisingly is better again as didn’t really think I’d notice it. I’m about to get the volume kit for the shock but after reading this may just get the air can as it’s cheaper than Monarch+ I’d been considering as a proper upgrade.

Post up after you’ve had a play with the volume spacers.

Post up after you’ve had a play with the volume spacers.

A nice ride out in the Peak District today, confirmed that reducing my volume spacer from the mid sized one, to the smallest (ie. 2 sizes smaller) now results in the correct ramp up and full travel usage for me.

I thought this was going to be about surgical trusses for fat vw driving mountain bikers

@ Edric 64. – no that’s the 650b gastric band….the ‘must have’ enduroesque accessory for summer 2015, available in neon yellow or dayglo blue 😉

A nice ride out in the Peak District today, confirmed that reducing my volume spacer from the mid sized one, to the smallest (ie. 2 sizes smaller) now results in the correct ramp up and full travel usage for me.

Nice one, thanks for posting up.

My shock came fitted with a fairly small volume spacer as standard, has your’s now got a smaller spacer than the stock one?