Cane Creek Double Barrel Air or Fox RP23 Kashima?

I’m looking to upgrade my rear shock on my Foxy RR from its current Fox RP23 to either a Kashima unit or a Cane Creek shock.

Anyone had any experience of the two, and if so, is the CC worth the extra wedge?

Cheers

Been pondering over this myself
Mojo do a Kashima upgrade for the rp23 which could save a few quid over buying a new shock
Or really push the boat out and go for a cc dbair or a Bos vip’r ?

I can vouch for the BOS Vipr; it’s really very good indeed. I don’t think it’s quite as good as you can get the CCDB to be, but then you’re looking at an extra pound in weight for that and a lot more fiddling and experimenting with the adjusters.

The Vipr only needs rebound and spring rate to be set. After that it’s excellent. One thing to add though is that it’s at its best when it’s being hammered at speed and/or over rough ground. That’s when you really notice how well controlled it is.

Is the Kashima upgrade really much of a performance improvement?

Ill throw something else into the mix..Fox DHX5 Air?

Ill throw something else into the mix..Fox DHX5 Air?

Didn’t the OP say upgrade?

Didn’t the OP say upgrade?

😀

Each to their own but I never liked the DHX Air either. It wasn’t a bad unit, I just don’t think it was any better than the RP but it weighed more and cost more.

Is the Kashima upgrade really much of a performance improvement?

Probably not by itself, but a friend of mine went from the 2011 RP to the 2012 RP and says that the damping on the newer one is also different and much better.

I wouldn’t suggest DHXair, i thought it was good until i moved onto something better, (monarch plus RC3, seriously good, to me better than a RP23 easy, but dont think it’s in the same league as Bos or DBair).

you wont notice much if any difference in having just a kashima shaft. The dhx air is utter poop and mojo don’t rate them at all. Infact when damage is terminal or no cost effective to repair they will suggest getting an rp23 over the dhx.
getting the shock properly tuned for the bike and rider will transform the shock

2012 RP23 is the best air shock ever, fact.

i thought it was good until i moved onto something better, (monarch plus RC3,

Its funny when I spoke to a guy at TF Tuned he said to stay away from the Monarch as it was pants..

Horses for courses?

He also didnt think a lot of the CCDB air either..

skywalker – Member

2012 RP23 is the best air shock ever, fact.

and it’s still poop compared to the coil CCDB.

I had the 2012 Kashima RP23 on my five, there really isn’t a lot of adjustment on it and mine never felt right. Rebound, Air pressure / Sag, then propedal. It was a great shock, but not as great as the CCDB. If you can afford it, then get one.

Lets face it, if your thinking CCDB then weight probably isnt your biggest concern. My bike also climbs better with the CCDB over the RP23… there’s no pedal bob and I never lose traction like I did with the RP23.

Not sure what the CCDB air is like, not seen many reviews yet.

The Vip’r has been high on the list due to its dh abilities , the only downside is the cost 🙁
Still very tempted as there main office is not far from me
And trying to get fox products serviced in this neck of the woods is a nightmare

Geetee how do you find the Bos forks ?

I thought the only difference between the 2011 and 2012 RP23 was the kashima coating and the new seals on the 2012 model?…

Geetee how do you find the Bos forks ?

I think they’re brilliant but when used in combination with the Vipr they’re even better. The bike is supremely well balanced this way.

The reports you read say that the Devile forks don’t use their travel to readily and this is true; you’ve got great support when relying on the front end in steep tight turns. I’ve found myself being able to carry a lot more speed than I used to through some very steep turns simply because you can trust the front end not to tuck or wash.

They are also very supple; don’t think that because they are not quick to use their travel they aren’t super plush because they are.

I’m waxing lyrical a little I know and please don’t get me wrong; brilliant as the BOS units are, they don’t ‘reinvent’ suspension. But in a world where marginal improvements are harder and harder to come by, the combination of BOS front and rear is an easy choice to make, all other things being equal.

Whats the consensus on Pushed RP23 ? The VIPR appears to be in short supply at the moment.

When comparing shocks you need to be able to distninguish marketing bling from engineering. While Kashima coating looks great I would be shocked if anyone in the real world can feel the difference.

For a real difference you need an engineering solution that is different. I dont know how the CCDB Air works, but the Oil one is very different inside to the Fox RP23.

If you take some time to understand how it works you can figure out which is likely to be better. But the CCDB needs to be set up well for the adjustability to allow you to make it suit you. Also dont forget an air spring will still feel different to a metal one – whoever makes them.

I bought a second hand CCDB off here from a nice chap called Simon. Came fresh from a service at TF and fortunately for me Simon is of a similar weight/build – hope you don’t mind me saying that Simon! Consequently I didn’t have to touch anything bar a couple of clicks to slow the high speed rebound down.

Anyway, the CCDB replaced the UTTER toss that was the RP23. I’ve had two of them now, both brand new units and both were utter utter rubbish. I spoke to TF who said it was a waste of time having one on my Yeti ASR-7 and even Conroy at Yeti admitted the bike should have been spec’d with a coil shock rather than air. The issue was around having to run it at maximum pressure to stop it bottoming out, at which point there was no small/medium bump sensitivity. At all. This was the same on my Five that I replaced the Yeti with. Sticking a CCDB on it was a proper eye opener, it climbs MUCH better than is used to with the RP and descending is awesome. I’m running a set of coil Lyriks on the front and these with the coil shock are pretty much perfect.

Harping on a bit, but if you’re going to spend a decent amount of money on a shock, have a proper go on a coil first. I know Loco on here does those coils shocks (DSP?DST? can’t remember the name) but they get good reviews and will be MUCH better than an air shock.

Oh, and apparently the Kashima coating is what Rockshox have had on their forks for years, but just slightly darker in colour…

So following on from this 2 things spring to mind..

1. How well does the CCDB Coil climb? I know you can tune it pretty much every which way from Sunday but in a do-it-all setup how well does it work?

2. Is there any advantage to be had by getting a ti spring for one? Whats the weight difference?

Edit: Found this ti spring stuff.

Funnily enough it actually answered a lot of my questions, most odd… 😕

My five with CCDB climbs better with the coil than it ever did with the RP23 Air.

Traction whilst climbing, particularly over rock etc is amazing. Mine came from TFTuned, I’ve not touched it from when TFTuned set it up for my weight and riding style. Perfect from the box.

the issue was around having to run it at maximum pressure to stop it bottoming out, at which point there was no small/medium bump sensitivity.

should have gone for the low volume rp23 or a volume tuning kit

A lot depends on how you want your shocks to feel. If you search back I did a forum thread on a Bos vs Fox air shock ride off and what I thought at the time. Summary; the Bos forks are much more controlled but give up their travel when they need to wheras Fox tend to feel supple and give up the travel a little too easily, and this leads to a (IMHO) tendency to “choke on their oil” and get uncontrolled and spikey when the going gets gnar (even with a Pushed rear shock which is otherwise very good).

I’m now running Marzocchi RC3 Ti forks and a coil CCDB which like the fox gives up it’s travel easily but never gets spikey like the Fox – I really like this set up as it keeps the bottom bracket low on my Helius and is a hell of a lot of fun in the way it rewards hard riding. I’d like to try this back to back with a Bos set up as I think they will be different but similarly great fun. I just don’t get what Fox are up too with the way they tune their shocks and forks… I suspect they are tuned for the shop floor and general riding as in my experience when you ride them hard the damping fails to keep up with the terrain. A custom tune is required (if it works), but even then I’ve found other options feel better… all in my humble experience and unqualified opinion of course.

My five with CCDB climbs better with the coil than it ever did with the RP23 Air.

+1000000

The issue was around having to run it at maximum pressure to stop it bottoming out, at which point there was no small/medium bump sensitivity.

I think the real issue is you eating all the pies, don’t go blaming a perfectly good shock.

Some bloke said it’s betterer on t’interweb

Don’t believe the hype 😉

gsp1984 and Flange – out of interest, what settings are you running the CCDB at on your five?

My five with CCDB climbs better with the coil than it ever did with the RP23 Air.

I’m sure it does. Some of us ride post-industrial revolution bikes though, where it’s not necessary to have a perfect shock to compensate for the frame’s very basic characteristics charming Northern industrial roots. For some people that might mean they don’t need or want a coil shock on their full sus – the benefit ratio isn’t the same. I’ve never found my bike (ASR-5) to be lacking in terms of grip going up, and whilst I agree that a coil shock would make it marginally better for hammering down rocky bridleways, In my experience of dull feeling coil shocks I’d rather save the weight. The OP’s Mondy is a bit more advanced than either of our bikes!

Feeling pretty wounded now since Ive been told that the CCDBA won’t fit my complex frame design (air can will foul).. Looks like I’ll just be getting my RP23 Kashima coated 🙁

Thirding CCDB on a five, transformed the bike. I did a mini review a while ago HERE

Since then I have ditched my DH and XC bikes and just use the 5 all the time, it’s brilliant.

mojo5pro. Not a clue mate, I’ll have a look on the TF report sheet thingy when I get home.

I’ve never found my bike (ASR-5) to be lacking in terms of grip going up

My 5 climbs better than my ASR Yeti ever did, with both the RP and the CCDB(unless its in the granny ring, then the feedback is horrendous). But the jump between the RP and CCDB on the 5 is massive. It’s different strokes for different folks at the end of the day, but I’ve never ridden a bike with an air shock that I’ve liked. To me they feel dull and unresponsive to the point where I was going to go back to a hardtail until my brother gave me his prophet with a push’d DHX-4 to try.

Looks like I’ll just be getting my RP23 Kashima coated

no neeeeeeeeed!

get the thing tuned for your weight and bike

though you’re just after the bling factor arn’t you

mojo5pro – Member

gsp1984 and Flange – out of interest, what settings are you running the CCDB at on your five?

13st rider… 500×2.0 spring

HS Rebound 3 3/4 turns in from minimum
LS Rebound 10 clicks out from maximum
HS Compression 2 turns in from minimum
LS Compression 15 clicks out from maximum

Running 30% sag

Superficial – Member

I’m sure it does. Some of us ride post-industrial revolution bikes though, where it’s not necessary to have a perfect shock to compensate for the frame’s very basic characteristics charming Northern industrial roots. For some people that might mean they don’t need or want a coil shock on their full sus – the benefit ratio isn’t the same. I’ve never found my bike (ASR-5) to be lacking in terms of grip going up, and whilst I agree that a coil shock would make it marginally better for hammering down rocky bridleways, In my experience of dull feeling coil shocks I’d rather save the weight. The OP’s Mondy is a bit more advanced than either of our bikes!

Same old trolling rolling 🙄 if only these hitech post indutrial revolution bikes were reliable and better than the pre war filing cabinets… I tried LOTS of bikes of the years… none of them were for where I ride.

CCDB on my five, weight with nukeproof 450lb ti spring without any mounting hardware was 716g. Ti spring saved 140g iirc.

atlaz – Member

Is the Kashima upgrade really much of a performance improvement?

It’s subtly better, is how I’d describe it, just that wee bit quicker responding and smoother. Not a massive change (and probably not worth the price of upgrade if I’m honest!) but it’s nice to have. Feels that little bit more coiley.

I went from a stock RP23 to a PUSH’d one to a stock 2011 Kashima’d one in a fairly short time and the PUSH and Kashima ones are pretty close in performance- PUSH a bit better controlled, Kashima a little more responsive. (PUSH is probably more tunable too but I’ve not bothered with that)

(btw I see Flange slagging the RP23 but really it seems like he should be slagging his bike since it’s the frame design that requires the high pressure which is limiting the shock’s performance?)

GSP1984 – That’s pretty much identical to my settings. I found the five needs a lot of rebound damping to make it feel controlled but surprisingly not that much LSC is needed to control pedal bob.
I also used a stock Van RC and the difference going from RP23 to van RC is much more noticable than from Van RC to CCDB.

My recycled filing cabinet climbs far far better and descends as well as the more sophisticated higher maintenance VPP Nomad it replaced. With a ccdb it is sublime, and hopefully the RC3tis will match it in performance more than the air lyriks (which were great).

Had most sus designs and many different shocks, and a coil is worth the weight penalty.

Ive currently got a RP23 on my Transition Covert – Im just waiting for my Ti spring to turn up so I can fit my CCDB (Loco – have the springs turned up yet)

I have to put so much air in my RP23 it has no proper rebound and just dosent work properly (240 psi). If I was just riding trails XC style it would be fine, but throw in a jump, step, drop etc and a few big landings it fails to work properly.

I reckon on a XC bike for XC riding they are fine, anything more agressive they struggle.

Trimix, that seems like the same issue though, it’s the frame design that dictates the spring rate/air pressure, not the shock, and the higher pressure an air shock is the less well it works. And then the designed specs the shock tune on top of that so if yours lacks rebound, it’s because someone’s screwed up not because the shock’s poor, no?

There’s plenty of people doing a lot more than “XC on XC bikes” with RPs after all.

Trimix, that seems like the same issue though, it’s the frame design that dictates the spring rate/air pressure, not the shock, and the higher pressure an air shock is the less well it works. And then the designed specs the shock tune on top of that so if yours lacks rebound, it’s because someone’s screwed up not because the shock’s poor, no?

There’s plenty of people doing a lot more than “XC on XC bikes” with RPs after all.

I rang TFtuned when I was having problems with the RP on my Yeti. He said it basically boiled down to using an XC shock for a non XC application. Now I know he’s in the business of selling shocks and I’m not daft enough to think that he only has my best interests at heart but numerous people I spoke to said bin the RP23 and get a coil. I even had my RP tuned in an effort to make it work better and it was still useless.

For the record I didn’t have to run the one on the Orange at really high pressures, it just never felt that great. The Yeti on the other hand was running 300psi all day long and felt sh1t…

I’m glad you’re happy with yours and that it works for you. It didn’t work for me regardless of how hard I tried to fettle it. So I bought a coil which is much much better for me

I’m sure it does. Some of us ride post-industrial revolution bikes though, where it’s not necessary to have a perfect shock to compensate for the frame’s very basic characteristics charming Northern industrial roots.

I’ve never found my bike (ASR-5)

What an idiot 😆

Too many fat bar stewards blaming their shocks when they should be laying off the pies.

My 2012 RP23 works extremely well.