Has full suspension design really progressed?

Well I was thinking last night that its about time I bought a new frame to motivate me to get out on the trails more.
So looking at the options & reading a few reviews, it occured to me that bikes from specialized, ellsworth & a few others still use a horst link, it seems only those that have lost the patent have moved to VPP, or faux bar.

So the question is, have things really not progressed since the classic Turner Burner of the 90’s, or has there been real innovation in suspension design?
Obviously shocks have evolved, so those aside, what do you think?

Cheers.

You’re forgetting single pivots, which include faux bars. There is also DW links and other virtual pivots.
And you can’t put aside advances in shocks, platform damping has probably improved fsr bikes as well as single pivots.

Gradual evolution. More travel, lighter weight, tweaked axle paths. Stuff changes bit by bit as the technology becomes available and as the designers get smarter. But there’s only so many ways of suspending a rear wheel, and like you say shocks have changed massively and that’s where the real gains have been. Just try comparing a Fox RP3 from about 2-3 years ago with an RP23 – The difference in ride/feel is very obvious even though they look pretty much the same

I’d say that suspension hasn’t really evolved, though the marketing has. Like you say shocks have evolved, But also the frame engineering has improved as manufacturers have built up a wealth of experience as to what makes a frame stiff and light.

not if you ride a orange or a santa crux.

if it works don’t change it.

You can say exactly the same about car and motorbike suspension too, except that’s been pretty much the same for even longer……

Peter – Member
You can say exactly the same about car and motorbike suspension too, except that’s been pretty much the same for even longer……

Not really, top end cars have air suspension that changes at the touch of a button, ‘magnetic’ shocks that don’t compress under cornering loads to keep a car flatter in the corners, anti roll bar mounts that rotate under cornering to stiffen things up, granted its only really on expensive cars, but we are comparing against expensive frames right?

I didn’t want to put aside shocks, just pointing out that they have progressed whilst the basic suspension designs have remained quite stagnant.

I could ask the question in a different way…

Is there a better suspension design than the Horst link
😳

I still think the original B17 by Marin was as good an any single-pivot Orange of nowadays. Shocks have made a massive difference, but the basic suspension systems (single pivot and Horst Link) are still brill.

Is there a better suspension design than the Horst link

Yes, a single pivot 🙂

I am vaguely thinking about buying a full susser.

What’s a horst link and which current bikes have them? Why are they so good?

top end cars have air suspension that changes at the touch of a button, ‘magnetic’ shocks that don’t compress under cornering loads to keep a car flatter in the corners

WHich is pretty much the equivilent of a fancy platform shock on an MTB, yes? The basic design of the bits of metal that keep the wheels connected to the vehicle hasn’t changed, just evolved. OK, live axles have pretty much died out, but how long has yer basic wishbone or McPherson strut been around, eh? (Since 1949, apparently!)

I’ll say it again, it’s all just gradual development. Nothing really new for a loooooooong time
🙂

Evolution has taken place………… the urt had gone think to fishers and orange of yore………….klein mantra……….some have systems have survived Horst link, look at the specialized pitch and the old turner rfx very similiar, ellsworth moment fantastic bike………….VPP is great and improved suspension design…………..single pivot lower postions now lower compare the bullits and work better for new shocks……….faux bars were a cheap patent way around horst link the latter two work better for new clever shocks so for me biggest improvements have been

clever shocks and forks….though the old fox vanilla rear shock coil and air with RC is a great shock

better frame geomtry

light materials…..I think my first bike in the 1980s weighed 40lbs in the early 90s 30lbs and in 00s a 6 and 6 travel 31lbs
so progression

Simon, a Horst link has a pivot on the chainstay, just in front of the dropout, rather than on the seatstay. The blurb says they remain more active under pedalling and braking…… Which IME is true, but not really that big a deal
🙂

For me horst link with a walking rocker, like turner not the old intense tracer fsr is the best design ever followed by VPP like trance, single pivot not a fan but simple faux bars evil

Better than a horst link?
DW link.
No need for a fancy shock, Float R is all it needs.
I own one, so I’m as biased as an FSR owner.

Is there suspension on bikes now?

My god, next thing they’ll figure a way to have gears on them. 😆

I would say Suspension has taken a major step forward in recent years,Commencal,Orange st4,Cannondale etc are all using designs to work the shock in a much more efficient way, while retaining the simplicity of a single pivot design.

If you havent tried any of these bikes i would recomend that you do and compare it with the more complex multi pivot designs,before you decide to buy.

The comments about car suspensions hold good for our bike world. Wishbones, McPherson struts et have been around for ever, but handling and grip have improved massively by fine tuning and using better components. And most really high performance cars like Porsche, Ferrari etc do not use stuff like air suspension

What it probably means is that we have got rid of the weird and wonderful stuff that were dead ends, and have ended up with about 3 basic designs that really work and can be evolved.

Just like on a car though, it is pretty much irrelevant what a bike’s suspension design is. It is how well it meets the needs of the rider that’s important. Everyone’s different, so no particular design is right or wrong

The comments about car suspensions hold good for our bike world. Wishbones, McPherson struts et have been around for ever, but handling and grip have improved massively by fine tuning and using better components. And most really high performance cars like Porsche, Ferrari etc do not use stuff like air suspension

Too true, to an extent, but now for the technical bit on Porsche suspension…

As before, front suspension consists of a spring strut axle with separate arrangement of the longitudinal and transverse control arms, simply because this concept guarantees precise wheel guidance combined with superior roll comfort. The front axle subframe, in turn, has been redeveloped for the Boxster, lighter but nevertheless stiffer aluminium swivel mounts ensuring far greater stiffness in the interest of enhanced steering precision and maximum lateral acceleration.

The McPherson rear axle concept of the Boxster has been further upgraded for the most recent model series. The objective in redesigning the components of the rear axle was to enhance lateral stiffness while at the same time reducing axle weight through consistent lightweight engineering. Furthermore, the individual components of the axle have also been improved in terms of stiffness.

Now Boxsters are also available with active suspension as an option. PASM Porsche Active Suspension Management lowers the entire car by 10 millimetres. In the 2.7-litre Boxster PASM also comes as part of a sports package comprising Porsche’s six-speed manual gearbox.

PASM – Porsche’s Active Suspension Management is available as an option and changes the damper control map at the touch of a button: The Normal mode offers a more comfortable damper setting automatically switching over to an increasingly sporting mode as soon as the driver starts to push his car faster and more dynamically. The Sports mode, on the other hand, activates a harder damper control map for a particularly agile and dynamic style of motoring. Incorporating a special unit referred to as the load change module, PASM serves to enhance active safety in both of these modes: When accelerating with full power, taking back the throttle and changing gears, the damper control maps are automatically adjusted individually on the front and rear axles. Under such conditions the dampers are briefly switched to a harder response in the Normal mode to prevent the car from diving excessively. In the Sports mode, by contrast, the system switches briefly to a softer damper curve whenever required in order to improve traction when accelerating, for example on bumpy surfaces.

Porsche Active Suspension Management incorporates adaptive dampers with infinitely adjustable damper force, two accelerometers determining vertical movement of the car’s body, as well as the PASM control unit. The purpose of this intelligent control system is to relate the signals emitted by the two accelerometers fitted on the damper domes front right and rear left to the car’s lateral acceleration, steering angle, road speed, brake pressure, and engine torque. Then, applying this data provided through the CAN-bus, the system determines the optimum damper control map and adjusts damper response accordingly on each individual wheel.

You wouldn’t say they are exactly standing still when it comes to suspension development would you?

Oh, & how about the Cayenne air suspension?

Motorbikes have been doing suspension for 100 years. They look like mountainbike shocks.

Don’t expect anything more thank tinkering. Wheels will also remain round…

Just taken 28 lines to say what I said. Take a proven design and keep developing it and/or use better components to make it better

Oh, and I am a Porsche fan, but the Cayenne is an abomination on absolutely all counts

Oh, and I am a Porsche fan, but the Cayenne is an abomination on absolutely all counts

Except off road, oh & they do a diesel now 😉

I went back to a hardtail – no inconvenient bushes to replace and more fun on the rocky downhills :o) Admittedly, I’m a downhill wimp, but I’ve noticed climbing is easier without energy sapping suspension

I think full sus MTB design is less of “which is better/more efficient” now than it is a “horses for courses” excercise. Much as people run Crank Bros/Shimano/Time/Flat pedals as their personal choice, or SRAM/Shimano gearing, I think full sus design has become more about how well it translates to the individual rider rather than everyone.

I’ve ridden lots of different suspension bikes over the years, and have had lots of praise for certain designs and criticisms of others. But I will say the single biggest important factor in suspension design (putting the shock out of the argument) is the main pivot placement. Too low and it will bob constantly (even with a Horst link), too high and you’ll get ridiculous pedal feedback and chain growth, too far forward and the wheelbase extends too much, too far back and the rear wheel arcs too much making it inefficient at absorbing bumps.

Now I’ve owned Horst Link, Single Pivot, Linkage Driven single pivot (or Faux Bar as people like to call it), URT and hybrids of URT (like the Maverick) in the past, and have ridden a few VPP bikes too.

What’s my personal preference? Like I said, it’s more about the main pivot placement than anything else from my experience.

One thing I will say though is if URT is so crap, how come Maverick’s ride so amazingly!

I’m with simon_f_barnes. I’m too cowardly to get any advantage from downhill speed increase due to suspension.

Suspension is just a honey trap for moneyed-up magazine readers.

(PS for the irony challenged, that last line is a joke)

Matters lees about the suspension design, and technology, and more about the end users ability to understand it, and how to set it up properly, which given how lots of folk jabber on about on this web site still hasn’t improved much over the years

nickc – Member

Matters lees about the suspension design, and technology, and more about the end users ability to understand it, and how to set it up properly, which given how lots of folk jabber on about on this web site still hasn’t improved much over the years

Good point well made.

My comments were assuming everything was setup correctly. Though of course this is rarely true.

It’s all too often I’ll see somebody on an expensive bike with 5 or 6 inches of travel, but they’re only ever getting half of their travel cos they’ve set it up too firm cos they don’t want it to bob too much under pedalling (buy a shorter travel bike then!). The classic one though is rebound damping set WAY too strong, so it takes almost a full second for the shock to extend fully from being compressed.

Maverick is not a URT design………………….apparently

Though of course this is rarely true

in which case the answer is self-correcting setup 🙂
In the past I’ve tried fiddling with the settings but not been able to tell the difference, or if it was better or worse 🙁

Its funny to see single pivots coming up as the best design. try this: find and ride a maverick ML8 on a proper mountain route and then ride the same route on yer single pivot with similar travel.drainage bars and the diffrent terrain will put an end to all yer idea

t

d expect.

you just need to get out on these mountains and ride all sorts of natural and manmade(the drainage bars)stuff you can throw at it to show how each copes.

I

b

ll sooner or later bump into something that does it for you.theres designs out there that wont cost an arm and a leg when it comes to keeping them running smooth and staying nice and tight either.maverick – very rare to replace the only shock reducers up top (none at the bottom)and the 6001 bearings are a no brainer too.

full sus bikes i`d like to try after quick spins: lapierre zesty – mmm,feels right and so it should with vouilloz in on it all.also the ellsworth epiphany.they feel right as soon as you put the first pedal stroke down along with the first turn.

how awful. my first and last post on the new forum. hmmm.

The mechanics of a good handling frame have improved. Geometry is sorted, shocks behave and the frames are light, stiff and strong. Most people get too obsessed with rear suspension when tyres and forks matter so much more.

solamanda – Member
The mechanics of a good handling frame have improved. Geometry is sorted, shocks behave and the frames are light, stiff and strong. Most people get too obsessed with rear suspension when tyres and forks matter so much more.

Does that apply to Volvo’s too? 😉

martinxyz, don’t give up, you post sounded interesting, it would have sounded even better if it made sense 😉

LOL at Martinxyz 😆

mboy –
I think full sus MTB design is less of “which is better/more efficient” now than it is a “horses for courses” excercise.

Agreed. Even though I’ve only ridden 4 full bouncers, I’d say matching the bike to what you do/ride is more important than what design it is.
🙂

I think that the basic ideas behind each suspension design have stayed the same. But the understanding of how suspension works and how it reacts to different situations and pivot placements has moved on massively.
So given that the understanding has improved then the suspension design has changed and improved too.
The rest of the frame and the shock itself really has nothing to do with the original Q because the suspension is really just the pivot and tube location.
So answering the OP simply then yes suspension design has progressed.

Most people get too obsessed with rear suspension when tyres and forks matter so much more

actually I think the whole bike is almost irrelevant. What matters to me is terrain, views and company :o)

and lady bums 😳

and lady bums [:oops:]

well, obviously, but that comes under “company”, though sadly the last few rides have been almost totty-free zones 🙁