[Closed] Kashima is sooo last year

Believe it or not that's actually a USD fork, so nothing to do with fork coatings. What looks to be a brace is actually a carbon stanchion protector that is bolted to the lowers, it apparently improves stiffness by 50 percent.

They're going to offer one in black as well.

Don't you just hate it when you start, what you think is going to be a good thread, and someone answers it so concisely in the first reply 😉

[url= http://www.bikerumor.com/2012/11/16/first-look-dvo-suspensions-new-inverted-fork/ ]http://www.bikerumor.com/2012/11/16/first-look-dvo-suspensions-new-inverted-fork/[/url]

[img] [/img]

This is news is it?

You know what? That'd work really well on a 29er downhill bike

(runs)

Nice troll 😛 but I'll bite....

Well along with replaceable rear drops outs, it could at least mean you could swap between 650b and 26 without screwing the bike up as converting to 650b on the emerald is just a matter of swapping out the crown.

Then you could tailor one bike to different course types....something much more appropriate than having to buy two bikes because I reckon a 29er would be far far to heavy and unwieldy for most courses.

I note that Intense, Scott and KHS are all going down the 650b downhill route instead of 29.

All in all I'm hoping this turns out to be a decent fork because I'll throw it on the pulse I intend to get and then if 650Bs prove themselves after a few seasons then I will get a 650b capable frame (if I can't manufacture a new set of dropouts that would lower the bb on the Pulse)

it apparently improves stiffness by 50 percent.

must be pretty flexy then!

</armchair engineer>

must be pretty flexy then!

Torsional (twisting) stiffness has always been a problem with USD forks.

To counter it you either have to up the weight by having a huge bolt through (eg 36mm) or you have to do a little engineering trick like this.

Front/Back stiffness is actually improved with USD forks.

I know that, I'm an actual engineer as well as an armchair one. But that brace doesn't look particularly stiff (no triangles, no tubes, nadda), so my inference from that was that if it's 50% better the originals must be pretty flexible.

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/dvo-emerald-first-look-2012.html

Looking at it I'm not sure the replacable crown will let you change the wheels without altering geometry anyway. The fork will be taller when converted to 650b!

Just what you want when your trying to get grip on the front, a taller front end.

No joy for me here.

[img] [/img]

Funnily enough they did do something similar in Motocross years back, in the end they had to go to much larger diameter stanchions.

Something MXers still argue about to this day due to stiction etc.

That picture posted by bruneep - is that a brace between the very bottom of the green tubes? In which case, surely the tyre will rip it off as soon as the fork compresses?

Edit: I see now - the arch doesn't connect the green tubes, it's just a reflection making it look like it does.

The brace is connected to the two stanchions via the fenders.

So the brace moves with the lower legs? That'll get the uppers scuffed to buggery when its muddy then.

Since we rely heavily on piston and shim stacks to handle our damping, we have designed our pistons to be easily accessed so individual shim stack tuning can happen. Once the rider becomes comfortable with working on the suspension, it is very interesting to test different settings tailored to specific riding areas and skill level. We are committed to teaching riders all about suspension and we will provide a lot of information on how to tune our products so you can become your own suspension tuning guru!

I can foresee quite a few 'interesting' warranty claims 😉