I’ve never been completely happy with my Fox shock. I got it pushed which significantly improved it, but I’m afraid it’s a bit of a case of putting lipstick on a pig. It’s still blowing through travel too quickly and at the bottom of the suspension stroke just seems to have nothing, like the spring rate drops off, at a point I want to feel it pushing back. So with a few people on here extoling the virtues of coil shocks I’ve been toying with the idea of trying one, and Cane Creek seems to have brought out a coil shock aimed at the Trail/AM market so is a lot lighter than a normal coil shock and not a huge amount heavier than an air shock towards the heavier end of the market. Also I’m hankering after a cheeky upgrade.

What can I expect from a coil shock? are they a lot ‘better’ or just different?

Depends on the leverage curve of the bike, whether its designed for a coil.
I used this site to help me make up my mind.
My bike was a progressive / regressive linkage design which is designed to work with the ramp up of an air spring, rather than a linear coil. So at the end of travel is would be easier to compress a coil spring compared to the air spring, which is the exact opposite of what is desirable.
Ive never liked fox kit, unless its an x2. I kept my cc dba.

Thanks Talent. Not got my specific bike on there – Transition Covert 29, but i’ll have a closer study around the other Covert models – i’m sure the characteristics will be the same or similar.

Unless you’ve got a straight size requirement, you can pick up Fox Vanilla R and RC shocks on eBay dirt cheap. You could buy one, experiment and easily sell it on if it doesn’t work out or you want something posher (although those shocks are very handy for custum tuning)

Good suggestion Legend. I’ll have a browse on the usual places.

http://linkagedesign.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/transition-covert-29-2013.html

The Covert 29 linkage is heavily regressive – you’ll need a small volume air shock with a custom tune if you want it to perform well – I’d have thought a Push tube would have helped a lot. An X2 or DBair with plenty of volume spacers could do the job because you can leave the LSC soft and have the HSC hard.

http://singletrackworld.com/reviews/tested-fox-dhx2-rockshox-kage-rc-fox-float-x2/
Worth a read, we could well be coming out at the point where anything coil can do air can do lighter…

By design a coil is more linear than air so if your blowing through travel you will need something with more LSC to compensate normally and some HSC in there. Air being progressive will ramp up and things like volume reducers will make that happen faster. If the bike is blowing through on air then you will need some good damping to make the coil work better.

Well i maxed out on volume spacers which had little effect, the push tune made a huge difference, especially for the more traily and pedally stuff, and if I was just using the bike for that it would be fine, but I like to do some jumpy stuff and it still feels like i’m pushing into thin air as i’m pumping into a jump, or just pumping through undulations – I think I would like to feel a bit more progressive spring rate in that last 30mm or so of travel. Is this what they call pop? In an attempt to get a bit more pop I’ve got my rebound damping wound down alot which took some getting used to in managing the buckaroo effect. Maybe I just need to give a different more tunable air shock a go if the Covert kinematics suit an air shock better.

This is probably one of those conversations that needs to be had with a suspension tuner 🙂 and then buy the shock from them (their advice ain’t free!!)

As you have lots of spacers are you running a low air pressure?

Can’t you just up the pressure a bit?

You’re a bit stuck really – short of machining a new linkage (if it’ll fit) the best you’ll get is a regressive-linear-progressive curve with an air shock full of spacers, whilst if you want it to push back when you load jumps you need it to be linear-progressive or preferably fully progressive.

With this frame you have to choose between small bump sensitivity for trails and support for pumping/jumping, so either run more sag and less LSC for trail riding or less sag and more LSC for jumping. Are there any tuners who can add position sensitive compression and rebound shims to your shock? I’m guessing not because that would require very different innards, but that would help tons – low LSC in the first half of travel, high LSC in the second half, etc.

You don’t mention which fox shock you currently have.

from memory, isn’t this what the fox boost valve helps with? I’m fairly certain that when I was discussing a Push tune with TF they said the boost valve pressure can be changed to help with bottom out control. It might be worth another conversation with TF to discuss your issues before spending money on a new shock. I wasn’t happy with my Push tune and the tune was changed FOC to get it how I wanted it.