For a medium Spesh Pitch?
14st bloke aggressive xc style and starting to enjoy going uphill..
Lengh, stroke, spring weight,etc

Cane Creek Double Barrel with a Ti spring.
Nothing else to even consider

Well, as a CCDB user as well, I completely agree that it’s brilliant, but I still think that there are other very worthwhile choices out there.

A carefully tuned/dedicated set up Fox Van R would work really well and be about half the price of the Cane Creek.

If you wanted to have performance of a coil without the weight penalty, then consider the Rockshox Vivid Air.

Also consider the new BOS air can as while no one yet has reported/ridden on one, their reputation for excellence is enough to at least think about it.

It’s really less about the nature of the spring and more about how well the unit is set up for you and your bike. A poorly set up coil unit won’t be any better than a poorly set up air unit.

If you did want to go down the Cane Creek route, can I suggest Dave Garland at Stendec as a fantastic guy to get it from. He’s been servicing them since they first came out and is also the team mechanic for the CRC race team, all of which use the CCDB so he has more set up experience of them than anyone else in the UK.

and if you want the standard setup tuning for the ccdb just email me ;p

I’ve just done something funny with my two shocks on Nicolai Helius AM. I had a Float R and a DHX4 coil which I picked up cheap last year. I ran them both for a year and prefered the coil as the air blew through it’s travel and was generally a bit poor if the sag was set at 20-30%. I did a modification to reduce the air can volume and that improved it, but it still only worked well if a ran less than ideal sag.

After getting the Float R custom tuned and Pushed at TFT the Float R almost out performed the stock DHX for much of my riding, only when the going gets really daft does the Float lose it’s composure now – a huge improvement. The stock DHX loses it’s composure a little later and I’ve never been 100% happy with it, especially when I run the correct 30+% sag. After a chat with TFT I decided to ditch the DHX and get a CCDB. I could have had the DHX tuned to my requirements but it took a couple of goes to get the Float right and TFT were not hugely confident that what I was asking for would be easy… I’ve got the Float for XC/AM stuff so I wanted the coil for much bigger stuff; softly sprung but ramp up for big hits etc… hence the CCDB which gives me the chance to play with all the settings myself. I’ve started to enjoy tinkering with my shocks… slippery slope to nerdness I fear. Early days with the CCDB but so far none of the bad habits I disliked from the DHX, the CCDB is a very smooth and composed performer.

So… before going down the coil route I would strongly suggest getting your air shock tuned as it may be possible to get one to work well enough for 90+% of the time. If you do go down the coil route speak to a suspension tuner and buy it from them to get one set up for the bike and your style of riding. Off the shelf shocks are best left on the shelf .

I saved cash buying second hand and very cheap which I needed to at the time. I’ve learned loads through tinkering with these shocks and it’s been a lot fun… but it would almost certainly have been better to get shocks set for my bike, weight and style at the start… it may have saved me the eventual cost of the CCDB and improved my riding over the last year as I got frustrated with shocks I was not happy with 😆

I’d go with messiahs penultimate para first off and get youo air shock sorted – they are notoriously setup for the average 12st rider as supplied.

On the coil front I bought a coil for a Tracer (well documented are the issues with Tracers and air shocks). After talking to TfT I went with a Pushed Van R. In thier view the only thing better was a pushed Van RC (minimal difference as the Push sorts the compression anyway, so they advised against it) or CCDB – choose your price point and take your pick.

If you’re worried about weight (which you shouldnt be at 14st) go for a Ti spring – although a few less pies (no offense meant) would be a cheaper way of losing 200g – ish.

Anyone got a dueler?

http://locotuning.co.uk/dsp-dueler.html