Cannondale's Prototype Split-Shock DH Bike (Sort of) Explained 5

sspomer
6/7/2019 8:19pm

Cannondale is on the 3rd race for their prototype downhill bike. The bike has a variety of unique suspension configurations that it can run. Some configurations use single shock set up, some use split-shock set up. Fort William was brutal, rough and unforgiving, yet the only used a "normal" damper. Leogang is fast and pumpy with a bit of rough thrown in and now they have the split shock configuration. It seems like the opposite should happen; split shocks for the gnar, normal shock for the park. Sven Martin gets some answer from Tom Duncan of Cannondale.

Leogang set up.

Fort William set up.

Maribor set up.

The teaser vid from the end of April.

Related:
Leogang, Austria
PIT BITS
Downhill
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup
Cannondale
5 comments

View replies to: Cannondale's Prototype Split-Shock DH Bike (Sort of) Explained

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Fred_Oellers
4 years ago
The Cannondale guys must have been on acid. They cut off a damper where is needed (lefty), and add another where there is no need off. Come on guys, keep on the simple things, the wheel is round, some things don't need to change.
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jeff.brines
4 years ago
Cannondale doing Cannondale things again. I love the fact we are in a sport where the rules are wide open enough to allow for whatever an engineer wants to try and I love Cannondale's willingness to always do weird shit. They are like the weird kid in high school who showed up with a diorama when nobody assigned them to even build one. Like, just for fun they cut apart a shoe box, broke out the hot glue gun and made a scene from some prehistoric times to drag around class to class...nobody knows why.

Like that kid, I think they are chasing unicorns with this idea.

While I understand the concept, in that you are decoupling the spring and damper, and being able to tune the damper on a "position sensitivity" basis (eg, keep the damper linear, shock progressive), I am not convinced this offers much in the way of material benefit.

My proof is in my own experience (gnarcissm). I've ridden very linear frames, that should in theory keep the damper shaft speed constant across the bike's travel. Yes, it was a bit more challenging to tune the spring to keep from bottoming, but I didn't notice some awesome damper performance as a result of this.

Mountain bikes aren't trophy trucks, or even dirt bikes. Damper sophistication is good enough that we should be able to achieve most of what a rider wants using a frame that is ~15-20% progressive. Yeah, I get it, shaft speeds are higher early in the stroke and slower later in the stroke, kind of the inverse of what you want from a damper perspective, but this is a solution for a problem that only exists on an engineers notebook.

The real proof would be to go ask Fox. Is Jordi psyched about the system or does he see it as a tuning nightmare. I'd bet the latter.

Here is my advice for C-Dale: You are onto something cool. Go with a modestly progressive kinematics tune, so it'll work well with coil or air. Maybe offer a little adjustment for the rider (12%-20%). Keep the high pivot. Dial in the rest of the bike so its easy to work on, doesn't break, has excellent geometry and is priced accordingly. Eventually take this technology and apply it to your EWS race bikes. (170mm high pivot bike please!)

Boom. Done.
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stringbean
4 years ago
I hope this is all for finding the right balance, I just had conversation in my head riding bikepark on this whip and it went like this.
Dude: canondale multishockie bicycle
Bro: any other DH bike/trail bike slayer

Bro: what are you keen to ride?
Dude: well the whip is setup for A-Line Bro
Bro: think the boys are keen for some tech gnar dude
Dude: Oh sweet Bro just gimmie 30 mins to whip my other suspension setup out and re-install it all....
Bro: yeah probly wont wait up dude cya

Again, I have to assume this bike is all for testing and wont go into production
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Roots_rider
4 years ago
Unless there is something in the upper unit to control and dissipate energy being stored/returned by the spring, it’s still not a damper(or a second shock). Purely a spring, haven’t really gotten an answer stating otherwise. The video CFR posted a few weeks ago, Tom refers to it as a split system, same as here.
Now, if there’s a trick hydraulic or pneumatic bottom out in there, it could be argued as a position sensitive damper.
This bike broke the other website....it’s really not that complicated. You have a spring on one side of a conventional fork, and a damper on the other to control oscillation. This bike still has a spring on one side of a rocker and a damper on the other side to also control oscillation. It can just be broken into two separate parts or left as one when desired, depending on what the situation calls for.
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Duane_White
4 years ago
It does not use two dampers. One will be a damper and one is just an empty shock body to mount the spring to when you see two bodies.
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