[Closed] Fox Live Valve

Didn't rockshox do something like this with lapierre a while back?

See the front page......

Didn’t rockshox do something like this with lapierre a while back?

Mate got one, the battery died and they had no spares - oh how he laughed 🙂

See also the Cannondale Simon

Rockshox were late to the party, though.

1998 K2 Smart Shock, anyone?

I always thought the Simon was an interesting idea- replace all the damping gubbins with one magically controlled valve. Effectively damping as software. The fox version is just a fancy lockout by comparison, not intrinsically part of the suspension, no?

I’m not sure - doesn’t it just drop you in and out of climb mode - doesn’t actually adjust any of the damping itself - seems like a lot of money for what it does...?

True, I'd be interested to have a go on a bike with it. Presumably they've tested all the more complicated variations and decided a simple (1000x a second) 'lockout' is all that they needed.

From reading the front page it seems quite clever and beneficial

I’m less sold on the design and those external wires,  I would fear damage and it looks like it would get in the way when using a cycle carrier

doesn’t it just drop you in and out of climb mode – doesn’t actually adjust any of the damping itself

According to the story on the front page, it's just an automatic lockout. Massively overpriced IMO. If it actually adjusted the damping for different conditions, I might be inclined to pay a bit for it, but not just for a lockout.

I want some winter ‘fashion’ from the 90’s and that k2 pro flex for the giggles.

Also I never realised there was a way to ride deep sand!!!😂

Its progress i suppose but I am not convinced we will all have it in 10 years or so , if bikes with it are going to be about 8k at a guess then i cant see there being that many around on the trails and it coming down to a price point where its on say an average priced trail bike (whatever that is these days)

Personally i would rather have di2 come down to mid range , deore/slx , although i appreciate that would have different benefits .

Add to the pile of other electronic equipment that most users see no benefit of or need, but manufacturers see as  the way forward. Soon they'll stop being bike companies and morph onto lifestyle or leisure businesses.

How long before an ebike that has powered assisted drive and  gears, suspension and dropper along with built in nav?

It does seem a hell of a lot of money for an automated lockout.  When i use lockouts/climb switches i inevitably end up leaving them on for descents but it’s not a £1000+ and loads of wiring problem.

How it rides will be the thing - they obviously think there are benefits.

I want some winter ‘fashion’ from the 90’s and that k2 pro flex for the giggles.

I like the bar end shifter.

Back on subject. Does seem a bit excessive for a lock out only. Unless its the first wave and the next lot will allow more flexibility.

This is where the blur between 'mountain bike' and 'motocross bike' starts.....

**Do I see a new sport developing?

Thinking about it if this were to be say £2-300 then maybe I’d be interested but 3k is just nuts.  Also I’m a bit mistrustful of anything requiring battery operation - I’ve never been interested in di2 for example.  It just seems a bit too much like a solution in search of a problem at this stage.  For that reason I’m out!

It’s funny listening to journalists who have spent the past few years telling us that “bike X climbs so well that they never needed to flick the switch” now telling us that what they really want is a bike that is locked out by default and only unlocks briefly when it hits a bump.

As above I thought that one of the big advances in suspension design was that you can now have a longer travel bike that isn't a squishy nightmare to pedal, so surely the lockout is only for long slogs anyway.  It's certainly not something I'm reaching for 1000 times a second (or even 10 times a ride).  One for the racers only?

This is where the blur between ‘mountain bike’ and ‘motocross bike’ starts…..

**Do I see a new sport developing

What, back in 1998?

I don't understand why it's so expensive. Ei did the same thing 10 years ago. The tech is not new so why the price just to do a lockout switch?

My question is... how much difference would that €1800 [i]really[/i] make to your riding?

I mean, my RM Instinct has a shock adjuster on the bars and I use it occasionally, but if it wasn't there and I had to reach down to the shock to adjust the "pro-pedal"/stiffness/lockout it wouldn't be a major deal. It certainly isn't worth that much to have something do it automajickally! A car park pose for the over salaried innit?

This is where the blur between ‘mountain bike’ and ‘motocross bike’ starts…..

**Do I see a new sport developing

Cheaper to buy a motocross bike!

As expected a load of people writing it off having not tried it because they don’t see the point.

yes it’s very expensive, however the few people to have tried it have had very positive experiences with it and it’s been in development for years, so the bleeding edge will have to pay for it if they want it.

so, it’s betterer, and will only come down in price, how quickly will depend on how good it really is, but I can see it being adopted by the elite racing teams at least....

As expected a load of people writing it off having not tried it because [s]they don’t see the point.[/s] it's stupid money.

ftfy

I can see it being adopted by the elite racing teams at least

Yes, the people who get free stuff from the manufacturer will quite likely use it. People who have to buy it, less likely.

I don’t understand why it’s so expensive. Ei did the same thing 10 years ago

This, while it was good, it wasn’t a deal breaker then, and since shocks have improved.

wasnt reliable either.

smacks to me as though it’s just taken Fox faaar too long to get it to market

Yes you can make a long travel frame pedal great, but there is always trade-offs (mainly large amounts of pedal kickback). While the current examples shown at launch aren't the best, I see the real advantage of this kind of system in allowing the engineers to design the suspension kinematics solely around absorbing bumps without having to compromise the design to build in pedalling efficiency.

As expected a load of people writing it off having not tried it because they don’t see the point.

That's a fair point, but nothing wrong with a bit of healthy scepticism. After all there is a whole industry that relies on getting us to part with our cash.

So far the only people saying it is great are those with a vested interest in getting us to buy new stuff. The next wave will be people who splashed out a load of cash, so they are hardly unbiased. It's going to take a while to get a fair view on whether it is really worth it. As I say, it does make me laugh that the people saying it's great are the same people who were telling me that pro pedal wasn't needed on modern bikes only a few months ago. Buy hey, maybe it is great.

Fox's paperclip. "You appear to be riding Downhill... let me bugger that up for you".

If the default is "locked" and a dry joint lets go when I'm at mach cheese biscuits, will I be able to sue bazillions from my hospital bed.

The problem with pro-pedal was it was either on or off for basically the whole time, hit a bump and the suspension couldn’t move over it essentially stalling you, or at least robbed energy.

or turn it off and your efforts go into moving the suspension, so it wasn’t so much better to put it on than leave if off, and then the suspension had to be designed to pedal well, and bump absorb well.

intheory at least as I understand this will mean the suspension will open the split second it’s needed, absorb the bump and the close allowing all the effort you put in to pushing you forward.

this will allow bike designers to focus more on the best traction and forgiving suspension designs, anti squat becomes less important etc etc.

so I at least get the point, in theory, I also get that it’s taken them years to get right, so they need to recoup that investment so it’s really expensive.

obviously I’ve not tried it, and the practice might not pan out with the theory, in which case it’ll fail.

its also way too expensive for me to afford/justify, but IF it does work as well as they say I’m prepared to embrace it when the cost drops over time.

It's not going to stay this expensive.  This is standard retail practice:  put the price sky high at first to hook the new golfers with tons of cash, then reduce it to get the really keen gadget freaks, then reduce to simply expensive.  Each phase lasts as long as it needs to until the revenue starts to fall, then proceed to next.

They do this with loads of things - games consoles, to think of one.

Re the device itself, seems liek it could be good - I'd quite like to be able to activate it on a descent by say bouncing the suspension before a known rocky bit (which I seem to do anyway for some reason, helps me get positioned or something).  From what I've read on how it works this may already work.

this will mean the suspension will open the split second it’s needed

A signal will be sent to the servo to open the shock the split second its needed, how long the servo then takes to open the lockout will be key. Haven't seen any claims on how quick it is either, which is a concern.

Id be concerned about how often the servo was activated per ride...sounds like a lot to me especially on a really rocky ride in the Peaks or Lakes. Could encounter battery / reliability issues. Also I don't care how fast the system reacts you're feeling that first bump for sure....which is undesirable. As is all of that wiring, faff, cost and failure points...

Also I prefer to be in charge of when my suspension is on....for example their is a steep rocky switchback on my local trails where I deliberately lock out the rear to give me more pedal clearance over the rocks...its the only way I can clean the corner...if I have the lockout off I stall.

Oh and I dislike the way this is marketed as somehow high tech. It took 3 years how!! For a few accelerometers, a servo, a very basic microprocessor and a few lines of code. Really!

I'm out

But then I am out of all things electronic on bikes except lights 🙂

Haven’t seen any claims on how quick it is either, which is a concern.

I think I read 3ms ..?

Id be concerned about how often the servo was activated per ride…sounds like a lot to me especially on a really rocky ride in the Peaks or Lakes. Could encounter battery / reliability issues. Also I don’t care how fast the system reacts you’re feeling that first bump for sure….which is undesirable. As is all of that wiring, faff, cost and failure points…

Oh and I dislike the way this is marketed as somehow high tech. It took 3 years how!! For a few accelerometers, a servo, a very basic microprocessor and a few lines of code. Really!

Maybe they were out riding it on rocky terrain, you know, to make sure it lasts and operates when they/you/we want it to. It is called development time.... 😉

If the default is “locked” and a dry joint lets go when I’m at mach cheese biscuits, will I be able to sue bazillions from my hospital bed.

As I understand it, it requires power to lock the damper. If the battery goes flat or a wire breaks, it should default to unlocked.

I guess I can see the logic, but it seems to rely on the idea that it can react to a bump before you feel it. I can't see how that works if the sensor is mounted in the fork crown (i.e. above the damper). Are they saying that the crown starts to move up but then they open the damper so quickly that it opens before you've finished that first bump and it still gets absorbed somehow?

Also, they keep saying that it reacts much faster than a human can. But that's missing the point. A human can anticipate what's coming up and adjust the suspension "before" they hit the first bump, not 2ms after.

The system can toggle the lock on and off much more frequently than any human would be bothered to do though, so maye that makes all the difference.

Won't a top end fox fork and shock cost the best part of 2000 dollars even without this witchcraft?

So the premium isn't that high on a rrp basis

But spendy for me though!

It does seem a hell of a lot of money for an automated lockout.  When i use lockouts/climb switches i inevitably end up leaving them on for descents but it’s not a £1000+ and loads of wiring problem.

How it rides will be the thing – they obviously think there are benefits.

So from what I understand it's aimed at trail riders.. and perhaps Enduro... and they are not marketing at XC.

As expected a load of people writing it off having not tried it because they don’t see the point.

yes it’s very expensive, however the few people to have tried it have had very positive experiences with it and it’s been in development for years, so the bleeding edge will have to pay for it if they want it.

Well yep, I don't see the point for trail riding and the reviews I've seen have been between luke warm and prefer it switched off.

Ultimately its not bleeding edge though... you have to take the lower specced fork for starters.  Faced with a choice between the better fork and the electronic one even at the same cost I'd be going for the better fork damping.

Then there is climb... or lock out or ... is it also going to play with HSR??  (ala CC)

But ultimately ... other than being ANOTHER thing to charge... etc. I wouldn't feel comfortable with the predictability.  How does it know when I want to compress for a jump etc??  or how do I know how much pump ...

If you compare this to a car ... something like traction control is different to an automatic.  I'm happy with traction control but not a fully automatic as it has no idea when I WANT to change down because I'm reading the road ahead... assuming this was on a race track... which should be WRX (to be fair) then none would use a fully automatic without paddles.

The bike is much more physical. and a huge part of the bike's control is by me shifting my weight.. so these run together.... where my weight is depends on the shock for example... .

So if it's not for XC I am struggling to see the point.... ?

Also, they keep saying that it reacts much faster than a human can. But that’s missing the point. A human can anticipate what’s coming up and adjust the suspension “before” they hit the first bump, not 2ms after.

That is definitely my skepticism.... though it's not so much adjusting the suspension as how/when you weight the bike and the suspension being predictable as to what its doing.

I guess I can see the logic, but it seems to rely on the idea that it can react to a bump before you feel it. I can’t see how that works if the sensor is mounted in the fork crown (i.e. above the damper).

It cant - and it wouldn't even matter if they mounted it on the lowers as the shock is transmitted virtually instantaneously. By the time the accelerometer has registered the acceleration it has been transmitted to your hands.

The fact they have included a sensitivity setting and a timer means they haven't somehow broken Physics.

They are relying on 2 things....

1, A lock out is not a genuine lockout - instead its just high compression damping and/or a blow off circuit to protect the fork internals from big impacts.

2, A lot of the time a large impact would be proceeded by smaller less noticeable impacts that would unlock the shock.

To work perfectly you would need forward looking camera's, flawless machine vision and a powerful computer to anticipate the upcoming rock garden. Fortunately such a system does in fact exist outside of Science fiction - the human head.

Not sure how the F1 active suspension worked in detail, but they seemed to have been able to sense bumps quickly enough to get it to work using 25 year old technology.

I don’t understand why it’s so expensive. Ei did the same thing 10 years ago. The tech is not new so why the price just to do a lockout switch?

But, it's not the same as Ei - Ei sensed an impact in the fork and opened the rear shock. Live valve senses a impact and opens the fork and the shock.

I've actually had a ride on a live valve bike...

would i spend my hard-earned on it? not at current prices in my current financial state. if i was loaded, and was already looking at finance on a £7k bike i might be tempted to spend an extra £50 a month, or whatever, to get it yeah.

was it genuinely impressive as to how it performs? yes. i've ridden the bike at a kerb, and there's almost no perceptible lag for the fork to open, and the shock is fully open by the time the wheel hits it. it not opening in time for you to noticeably suffer on descents isn't an issue. on descents it's basically just open - you can adjust the sensitivity of the system too to suit how or what you ride. if it runs out of battery it defaults to open, not locked as some of the stuff out there on it kinda suggests.

is it perfect? no. bunny hops on tarmac take a bit of getting used to, as how you load the bike is different. there's extra complexity, it's not listed on bikes i would actually want to ride right now.

did people say exactly the same thing about suspension forks and disc brakes 20 years ago? yep.