Mountain Cog
Hosted by an enthusiast and a mountain bike industry expert featuring laughter and passionate guests.
Mountain Cog
081 – Behind the curtain: DVO Suspension (Ronnie Dillon, DVO Suspension)
In this episode Josh & Dane chat with DVO Suspension’s Master Tuner Ronnie Dillon. Ronnie has been working on the design, test, manufacture, and tuning of mountain bike suspension products for over 25 years.
DVO is a high-end suspension brand offering innovative trail, enduro, and downhill mountain bike shocks and forks. Their products are known for plushness and small bump compliance.
This episode features the following topics about Ronnie and DVO…
- history and Marzocchi roots
- Taiwan operations
- prioritizing customer relations and engagement
- historical product features like Off The Top (OTT)
- new products like Jade X Prime & Topaz Prime
- overcoming past challenges like sticky bushings and setup complexity
- partnering with WP for the new GasGas eBike suspension
- driving innovation by hiring engineering talent outside of the bike industry
- some hints at things to come (new products in development)
Links
DVO Suspension
https://dvosuspension.com/
DVO Taiwanese Factory Tour – Mo and Hannah
https://youtu.be/AJWA9C_X0-I?si=crMUD3Jfvp0ueVgZ
GasGas eBikes (featuring a custom DVO suspension design)
https://www.gasgas.com/bicycles/en-us/bikes.html
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Email
mountaincog@gmail.com
okay, what's forrest gump's password? Jenny, no, that's a good guess, like if you're hacking. I just felt like running. No, that's a good guess, like if you're hacking.
Josh:I just felt like running.
Dane:No, it's a one forest one. Oh gosh, that's nice. Wait, I got one more. Oh my God.
Josh:We're going for a twofer tonight. Twofer, yeah, just because.
Dane:I just looked them up and I don't want to waste that time. Okay, perfect, wait, you're not writing these no. I that time.
Josh:Okay, perfect, perfect. Uh, wait, you're not writing these. No, I thought you wrote all these we made up, one did we make. Oh well, yeah, I mean justin made up one, just like carlos in the bathroom.
Dane:Yeah, shout out to carlos. What is? What is a funny mountain called a funny mountain?
Josh:yeah, I don't know, ronnie, you know what a funny mountain is I, I was gonna say whistler, but oh. That's actually not bad Going there yeah that's not bad.
Dane:It's called Hilarious.
Josh:Hill.
Dane:Aries, oh nice, it's all on the delivery there. That's enough torture.
Josh:All right, so it's Wednesday night here on the MCP man, it's been a long week already. I am just wiped, I'm ready for the weekend, I'm ready to ride my bike and drink some whiskey.
Dane:I'm really ready because we tried to go to Sunrise, which is a bike park.
Josh:Yeah, in Northern Arizona, in Northern Arizona and it got rained out.
Dane:We hung out camping and roasting marshmallows, but it was raining the whole time, and so now-.
Josh:But you didn't tell the whole story. Blue bike balls. We woke up at 3.30 to leave at 4 to drive five hours to Sunrise, to sit in the parking lot for eight hours to turn around and drive five hours home?
Dane:Yes, exactly.
Josh:So that felt like two days. It was awful.
Dane:I actually had a good time.
Josh:No, we did too. It was fun.
Dane:I just didn't get to ride my bike, yeah that happens, man it.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, that happens, man, it's, it's. It's kind of like going to some races where it gets, uh, rained out, but they still race anyway. But you know, I'm, I'm the guy stuck at the trailer yeah, you're always yeah, but what do you complain? Yours is enclosed, you know like you're not getting sloppy, you know oh, but every now and then you get that sloppy bike and you're like dude, this is the one, this is the one guy who really I've been really in a race like so do they.
Dane:So they usually pull the stuff off outside the trailer and bring it in. From what I've seen like at bootleg it depends man.
Ronnie Dillon:Um, if, uh, if you ever go into the, into the trailer, you'll notice I hide, uh, I hide, a bike rack in there and you got the one in the back for driving, right?
Dane:Oh, you mean a workstand, so I have a workstand in the in the trailer.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, um, dude, I'll just I stand that thing back as far back as I can and I work so that nobody knows every now and then somebody will hear me drop the tool. I drop a lot of tools, but uh, and they'll look in and they're like, oh, you are working, like yeah, yeah, I'm working. What do you want, man?
Dane:I, I haven't been able to hang out with you in the trailer I'm usually I used to see rob, you know, yeah, and then uh, during the series I'd go hang out with him and we would just bs, I'd be dropping something off or picking something up and right and uh, go in and hang out with him. But I haven't seen you at the trailer in a long time.
Ronnie Dillon:So yeah, dude, there was a lot of uh, there was a lot of traveling, a lot of uh, um, basically preparing for, for the new stuff, man, yeah, so um, we should introduce.
Dane:I was gonna say like before we get too deep like who are we talking to?
Josh:so, like in, like, what the hell he taught? What trailers are you guys talking? Oh yeah, that well, let's let's start with.
Dane:Who are we talking to and what the hell he taught? What trailers are you guys talking about? Oh, yeah, well, yeah, let's start with who are we talking? To All right, so I'm going to let Ronnie it's Ronnie from DVO. I'm going to let you introduce yourself. Maybe tell us what your role is at DVO.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, so I'm Ronnie Dillon from DVO Suspension. I've worked with those guys. I've worked Worked at DVO for about, I want to say, 11, maybe 12 years.
Josh:Is that since the beginning?
Dane:So yeah, I mean, what do you mean? Worked after. You helped start it Like it didn't exist without you.
Ronnie Dillon:You've been there since I always say worked at because, because you're humble, it's always a work in progress. I worked with those guys at Marzocchi. Before that, I worked with those guys at Marzocchi before that and at like 2011, when things kind of started getting funky. At the other place, which you can see, that bomber sign I stole that one I see it, that's pretty bitching, that's a good looking sign.
Dane:I'm not going to lie. I want that.
Ronnie Dillon:Hey dude, I've had some outlandish offers for that piece of media. I totally believe it gonna lie. I want that.
Dane:So hey dude I've had some outlandish offers for that piece of me. I totally believe it yeah, that was the one that used to sit at the um at the espresso bar at interbike yeah, where the girls would sign yeah the bomber girls would sign the posters, yeah, so make you one of those life-saving espressos so, yeah, we've known each other since I don't even remember what year, sea otter, you guys had a flat tire trying to think of that because, honestly, um, anytime I think of you, I just think of no breaks, yep. Yeah.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, that was like immediately, like I remember it had to be.
Dane:I don't even remember. I was like, oh two, yeah, that's probably right.
Josh:You guys have known each other that long, oh yeah.
Ronnie Dillon:I didn remember it was like oh two, yeah, that's probably right. Oh, you guys have known each other that long. Oh yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, 2001, 2002, yeah, um, was it had to be a sea otter? Yeah, and I remember getting like just getting my ass handed to me, man, because I did not expect that crowd.
Dane:Yeah, well, so we, we pulled, you guys were pulled over changing a tire.
Ronnie Dillon:Oh dude.
Josh:That's funny On the side side of the road and we stopped and helped.
Dane:You know the whole team. We have a big van and a big trailer full of bikes and we see the Marzocchi. I think you had a travel trailer and a truck, or maybe it was your, your box.
Ronnie Dillon:I think that was just the uh, the fun mover. Yeah, oh, dude. No, that was the big ass one.
Dane:Yeah, you're right, yeah, so, and we all stopped to help out, you know so that was like the first time we kind of connected. I think no breaks was still a, sponsored by Marzocchi, but that's the time when we shook hands and actually saw faces, you know, and it wasn't just pieces of paper.
Josh:It wasn't about Instagram social posts. Oh God, this is way before that, man.
Dane:I mean, I'm only 29, but I was like two when this happened, yeah, and.
Ronnie Dillon:I'm 26 next week. Yeah, exactly.
Josh:You guys, you guys in your age. I don't know why you're so ashamed of it.
Dane:Like cause, we're never going to grow up.
Josh:Just let it go. We're men that ride kids toys.
Ronnie Dillon:Exactly looking in the background that I'm seeing rc cars, so I know you guys, yeah, there's rc cars and guitars and yeah, it's uh horrible things I'm addicted to very true, very true.
Dane:We were just talking about that.
Josh:So yeah, it's awesome. So what's your? So I don't think you said you you've worked at dvo since it started. You helped him start it. What's your role today at dvo?
Ronnie Dillon:uh, so I still do a lot of the, the tech service. Um, there's a lot of rnd that, uh, that I take part of, and then there's uh like a whole like educating and training the staff. In taiwan, we have a we have a really small staff out there and, um, and everything is hand built. So, um, we, we try to get over there as much as we can, yeah, throughout the year, which usually ends up being somewhere around. Uh, we can throughout the year, which usually ends up being somewhere around uh, seven or eight long trips.
Ronnie Dillon:Sometimes it could be more, I don't know, I don't. I stopped counting. Um, the traveling doesn't, doesn't bother me, um, but uh, yeah, dude, you go over there and obviously there's a language barrier. I can understand, uh like a little bit of Mandarin now, but I'm dude, I'm super rookie. They talk so fast. You're not actually understanding it. You're just kind of figuring out little, just real small snippets and blips. Man, and kudos to the guys in the bike industry that I run into that can actually communicate perfectly, because I'm like I'm envious of that guy. I'd love to be able to do that. And then, when you really look at how the language works, it's, it's complicated.
Ronnie Dillon:And then there's the tones inside of the product is a whole other language, that they might not even know the names of those parts. If, if you knew the part, you'd like the name of the part, it probably wouldn't know what the part is.
Josh:So I always have a translator. Wow, it's one of the engineers that probably helps so so none of the crew over there speaks like english with you guys, or is it kind of like a mix of mandarin and english together.
Ronnie Dillon:A lot of them speak english now, so it's, it's pretty cool, but um, as of uh, I want to say 20 like 2016, we hired a kick-ass um employee named melody and dude she, she handles business. She can speak three different languages. Um, dude, she's cool. She's like every. Everything that needs to get done, she's doing. She's like an assassin dude, isn't technology great?
Dane:ronnie's like walking around his house, we're like recording this podcast and it sounds fine I'm stoked because I got to see your garage and we got to see your, your car, which and I got to see the bomber sign yes, the bomber sign.
Josh:And the video games video games, yeah so it's got a serious man cave.
Dane:So dude, I spend most of my time out there so, uh, so, um, while while you were explaining, uh, taiwan and the barriers of language, which josh is a, was a translator in the military, not mandarin, but yeah, how many?
Josh:just arabic and albanian yeah.
Dane:so he called me something the other day in another language and it's frustrating because I have no idea what it was. It could have been awesome. I have no idea so donkey kick, but yeah, so, like so, couple of questions I don't want to dive right into like the deep talk you know at some point.
Josh:I want to talk about the prime stuff today, since they just announced that last week, I think.
Dane:So there's so much I want to talk about, okay, so let's make sure that we talk about the new products as well, okay, so, first of all, just a little bit. Ronnie's like the magician quite literally, he does magic tricks.
Ronnie Dillon:so I'm sitting in front of a pile of a deck of cards right now can you do a trick for us, just to put you on the spot? No, that would be hilarious usually, yeah, I'm a rough I hear to grab the cards okay second, second, like whenever you see their tech videos it's usually him doing them, okay, so he's usually the one figuring out when shit goes wrong.
Dane:You know, um, he's teaching us. So, like when I went to santa clarita and got trained, he's there, you know, teaching us. And then you're teaching everybody in taiwan, right? Uh, like you're doing r and d. Do you even ride your bike seriously, do you?
Ronnie Dillon:ride dude? Hardly, man, it's. I'm embarrassed to say that and I'm trying to get better about it. Um, but uh, for a while, every, every, every city or you state or country we would go to. Yeah, we were spending a lot of time on the bikes.
Dane:Yeah.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah. And then it just turns into dude. I just want to go back to the room and and chill. Yep, yeah, You're like dude. I'm like I'm miserable because I want to go ride, but I'm so cooked right now.
Josh:You're trying to maximize the time while you're there, right? Because it's such a long way to get there. You want to get every minute you can in.
Ronnie Dillon:Do you bring a bike?
Josh:with you or do you have bikes over there? You guys can ride.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, we have bikes there. We used to travel with our bikes all the time. It's actually, I mean, it's kind of a pain in the ass, but it's worth it, dude, because there's nothing worse than a rental bike.
Dane:Yeah.
Ronnie Dillon:Is there on a rental bike yeah, is there sweet trails over there near the factory.
Ronnie Dillon:You know what it's getting better? Yeah, because we actually, we actually live there. We have, we have our own place there. Man bryson bryson's pretty generous with how he, uh, he keeps us comfortable while we're out there. So we, we don't have to stay at a hotel. We have, um, we have an apartment and you can basically sink in while you're there. Yeah, that's you just, you can chill, dude. You can cook food at home, which we never do, but, um, a lot of ramen, a lot of a lot of like ramen at home. If we cook, but, um, and you can leave stuff there, imagine, so you don't have to.
Ronnie Dillon:we can leave tools, whatever we need to to live, and we, we alternate the staff. So, um, you know it's, it's Bryson, bryson jr, yeah, jp, um, myself, I mean, we've, we've worked together for dude, it's like 25 years. It's dude, it's like 25 years. Scary isn't it? It's a long time. I know it's. It's none of us, none of us have killed each other.
Josh:Yeah, that's cool that you guys are still together and you're still getting along and you guys are putting out some crazy man and um, dude.
Ronnie Dillon:I, honestly, when I when I I started working for marzocchi in 98 and I was before that, I was working at a window tent shop and my buddy Rick was working with me at the shop, at the window tent shop, and he's like dude, I can't do this anymore.
Dane:It's so stressful, like we break door panels inside like a oh, just trying to get into the windows and get.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, you had to remove the door panels because you didn't want to wet that. You know dude elephant skin. I don't know, dude like the crazy ass leather that yeah, you didn't want to wet it, so you pulled it off. And then you're pulling it off and you're breaking clips and yeah, dude those, those are they're technical.
Dane:Yeah, you're like you got little pry bars and certain some of them, you got to push a little button to get them to release and like just craziness yeah, they're little little, det little detents little, you know, like German mechanisms all over the lift here there like car, car car stereos, and it was the same thing to get the door panels off for putting in speakers.
Josh:Is it like a prerequisite for anyone in the bike industry to have worked on cars leading it?
Dane:I think it's a mechanically inclined thing. So you end up being like you know you nuts and bolts, you know what tools are. You kind of get an idea of torques, you know all that stuff. So yeah, if you were like weaving baskets, you probably didn't get into bikes.
Ronnie Dillon:So right now just just yeah, you're, you know you're, you're gonna, you're gonna be the one in the uh in the office getting picked on. If you were the basket, we were.
Josh:Yeah, exactly that would be me. I built guitars. Does that count?
Dane:yeah, I mean, if you use tools, mean I've seen your garage Like you definitely use tools, yeah.
Josh:Maybe not correctly though. And I don't have the correct tools.
Dane:I'll give you a personal experience. My daughter doesn't touch tools. Okay, doesn't go near the garage.
Josh:Are you comparing me to your 12 year old daughter? Not at all Not at all.
Dane:But but my son, you know, as as soon as he could touch a tool, he went after tools. He's in the garage, he's getting in my drawers. I'm yelling at him. You know, get out of my space, you know, and you stop that. You little bastard. You know stuff like that.
Josh:Um, but we're just kidding, turner, you're not a bastard but um, but you know what I mean. Like the two different people like, like he is going to be somebody who wants to turn stuff and I didn't do that. I didn't go in, push him into the garage, he did it himself. Yeah, naturally, is your son ronnie, is your son, uh, mechanic? I?
Ronnie Dillon:would love to say that he has never ended up with half of my tool collection in his bedroom. But, uh, yeah, dude, he, he is every bit of like the best and worst part of me, and just the way that his, his brain, thinks is is actually pretty cool man, it's frustrating. I love it, but it's it's. It's frustrating because I'll come home from from work and, like I'll be, I will get off the plane. It's a it's a 14 hour flight home from Taiwan and I drive home from LAX and it'll be like 10 o'clock at night and he's like Dad. Guess what I did?
Josh:You're like oh shit, here it comes.
Ronnie Dillon:I don't even want to know, man, how many parts were left over.
Dane:That's what I want to know, yeah.
Ronnie Dillon:He's bringing his latest project in, which is right now it's it's carburetors, because he's he's the one restoring the little honda I showed you out in the really. That's cool at 12 years old. Yeah, he's been doing that one since he was playing with that one since he was nine, wow wow, that's pretty cool yeah it, yes, it terrifies me, man, because that's the one thing, like it's the one thing in the garage that um can spit gas all over the floor and I've seen it.
Ronnie Dillon:I've seen him do it. I've I've been in the garage and I just hear screaming. What is up? I go over there. He didn't know how to turn the petcock off on the fuel tank yeah yeah, fuel line off and the, and it's just yeah, it was on go.
Ronnie Dillon:and he, he's screaming, he he's covered in gas. And I'm like, dude, this is why you're trying not to like laugh or yell at him, but you want to do both right? I'm like why I don't want you playing with anything that actually has fuel in it, because you're flammable right now.
Josh:Like if something happened.
Ronnie Dillon:you're toast Like literally you are toast.
Dane:He's still advanced man because the the other day we were roasting marshmallows and and my son caught his marshmallow on fire and decided to wave it to get the the flame off towards his face and it flung off and hit him in the eye.
Dane:The flaming marshmallow landed on his eye. He's screaming, my wife's screaming, everybody's screaming. Like I'm kind of laughing but I'm very concerned, like I don't want. I don't want anyone to think I didn't care. I did, I knew he'd be okay and but there was a little bit of me that was like kind of like you know, jesus man, like poking fun at them. But um, you know, the nice thing is is you know he's fine, there's nothing wrong.
Josh:But it was. I'm gonna call him marshmallow.
Dane:I'm gonna call him marshmallow for the rest of ronnie's ronnie's kid at nine is like rebuilding carburetors and mine at nine is getting burnt like s'mores.
Josh:It just cracks me up so you got a ton of questions for ronnie okay, yeah.
Dane:So, um, I got all. I'm gonna be like totally squirreled um. There's a bunch that were're. I'm trying to find them on our website.
Josh:Okay, can we just start with like for our listeners, can you just give us like a quick overview of like your offerings, like DVO offerings? Well yeah, what is it that you guys offer? Yeah, oh, man.
Ronnie Dillon:All the goods. So we really like to deal directly with our customers, and by customers I mean either you know the end user, which eventually anybody, I mean anybody who works in the in the bike industry. That's kind of one of the things you you hide from is is not that you hide, but you, you get to, you're on the backside right.
Josh:Yep.
Ronnie Dillon:You don't always get to deal with people, but I've I've always enjoyed that. I think even in the beginning, when I first started working at Marzocchi, the guys would get kind of frustrated because a customer would walk in and you have insurance policies in place that are like, hey, no customers in the workshop. But I'm like dude, you got to see how bad the inside of your fork was. It smelled like chow mein, it was miserable. You have to see what it looks like in here, because I need you to know that this has to be serviced all the time. Yeah right, I would always bring customers back. Um, so, like, customer relations are important for us. Um, like end user at the you know distribute distributors.
Ronnie Dillon:Um, the bike shops like bike shops are my favorite place to visit, especially nowadays, where it's it's mostly service centers yeah, right I have a whole other appreciation for the way the bike shops have shifted as far as being able to focus more on the the service side, and service for me I mean suspension and the guys that are specializing in like break, rebuilds and stuff like that. It's an art now. So dealing with those guys is actually becoming more of a critical thing in our office, because if you pay attention to how that part of the industry is shifting, it's actually it's separating. So those service centers there's almost as many service centers in an area now, um, as there are bike shops.
Josh:Is that because of the rise of, uh like, direct to consumer? Is that why you do? You think that's why it's shifted that way? Or is it just the complexity of the products that become so intense that we we just as as consumers which is what I am we need more help from the shops to keep our stuff running?
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. I mean the direct-to-consumer thing. I actually like it kind of helps the shops and service centers that have those heavy consumable items oil seals, the rebuild kits those consumable items are getting used by the shop. Some of them are getting used by the tinkerers at home, are getting used by by the, the tinkerers at home that have a service bench on their mother's kitchen counter. Um, dude, I, I see everything I do. I do a lot of FaceTime meetings with just random people struggling to get stuff built.
Josh:So I've seen, I've seen it full on, like someone working in a bathtub, just out of curiosity.
Ronnie Dillon:Have you ever seen?
Josh:someone working in a bathtub.
Ronnie Dillon:Just out of curiosity. Yeah, man, okay, we have a center in New Zealand and Jesse runs that place. Is that Patel? Yeah, awesome, he's a cool guy. He's awesome dude. That guy, he's a lot of fun and yeah, he'll send me photos of his setups and it's like a bathtub or like I don't know how. To look back at my phone, it was like a dry toilet or something man Oil properly. He's not flushing it as far as everybody is is worried about, but yeah man.
Ronnie Dillon:So I mean back to DVO and the stuff that we do we. We really enjoy the custom tuning side of everything. It's not. It's not as easy as just tuning something for somebody now.
Josh:Right.
Ronnie Dillon:Or just blindly tuning. There's a lot that goes into it. There's a lot of time that goes into it, especially and I'd love to say that we nail it 100% of the times but we don't, man. There's always that one customer who ends up unhappy. I don't know if it's because they're just overly critical of like they're analyzing it so much because you pay to get something done and you're like dude, I'm only fast on like six sections of this trail, not not eight yeah why aren't you making my kom like dude?
Ronnie Dillon:I want all eight of those ko you're like dude, it's like 90 technique.
Josh:So so I gotta, I gotta tell you.
Dane:so when I started guru, I talked to ronnie yeah, I talked to bobby, uh, who now work at the same place. At the time they were separate where. Where was Bobby before? Uh, manitou, okay, and I'm trying to think somebody else at RockShox? Uh, I don't think it was I don't think it was. Troy, but it was somebody at RockShox and.
Josh:I asked you guys for advice opening this service center. Cause guru started suspension.
Dane:Yeah, guru, suspension started in the 13. Started in the 13th. It's one of the last years it was in Vegas and I talked to you guys and and one of the last years that inner bike was in Vegas. Yeah, and uh, the advice that you all gave me separately is don't tune. Like, if you can do it, don't tune. And what they what? What all of them collectively said was no matter how good a job you do, somebody it's going to be pissed off, is not gonna. They're there it's.
Dane:It's hard for people to articulate what they want and then for you to translate that do it and um. And so I took that, you know, to heart and I don't tune very much. I tune for friends and I tune for people. I know, you know I'll do a little bit, yeah, um, but I always warn people and and I don't know about you guys, but with me I always tell people you're not paying, uh, me to for the result, you're paying for the labor to do it, because if you need it done again, you're gonna have to pay again.
Dane:And and I warn them because, you know, sometimes people get they read an article, they watch youtube, whatever, yeah, and they get it in their heads that they have to have a custom tune, when a lot of this stuff is very adjustable, right, and then they ask for it and then it, like ronnie said, sometimes they're not happy and then they want it redone and I'm like that's ours, you know, and um, I always I actually use ronnie as a example I go, ronnie is paid, you know, by dvo, the same amount if he does four tunes or three tunes or 10 tunes, it doesn't matter if he's in the race trailer and he's doing tunes for pro riders and they're coming down saying what they want. He gets the same amount of money every single time. But for me, it costs me money every single one and so it's a little different so but okay, so we missed this.
Josh:I just want to make sure, because we have a a spectrum audience that has like you know, from beginners all the way to advanced riders. But DVO is a company that offers, like, some of the best suspension products for mountain bikes, both forks and shocks for everything from like cross country all the way up to downhill. So do I have that right?
Ronnie Dillon:close. We don't. We don't really I don't want to say we don't do cross-country, because we do have. Well, we had at one point a 32 millimeter fork, the sapphire, yep, um, and then, uh, we stepped up to a 34 millimeter just to kind of keep up with everything. But um.
Josh:So is it kind of trail like started trail, like light trail, and go up light light trail.
Dane:They're not trying to focus on the lightweight. What's the lowest travel?
Josh:that you got.
Dane:Right now One one, well, no one. I mean yeah, yeah.
Ronnie Dillon:I forgot about everything last year. Man, I'm focused on the future. Now We'll get to the new stuff, because I want to ask you about that.
Dane:I think what Josh is trying to do is who is DVO? Where do you come from Stuff like that? Just a quick synopsis, if I can do it Marzocchi guys worked at Marzocchi, a lot of them.
Dane:Marzocchi was a historic one of the bad ass, the bomber was infamous back in the 90s late 90s or early 2000s yeah, bomber meant that, it, it it lasted it was durable, they were supple, they were like plush like, but they never focused on weight, they were never the lightweight option. Okay, and then, uh, and then something changed. I think ownership changed and the mentality of ownership. I could be wrong on this, but I'm always….
Dane:You're pretty accurate. They focused more on dollars. They changed manufacturing. There became problems where the product wasn't consistent, because it used to be Italy, it was pretty basic but it worked. And then, when they started to change production, it started to get looser tolerances, less quality, lower quality standards and and people were getting upset. These guys, you know, who are the U S distributor for this company, don't have complete control over what's happening. They really just have to deal with what's given to them. They get frustrated. They see things that could be changing, they see innovations that could be made and the ownership of Marzocchi wasn't really into it and that frustration led to pretty much a mass exodus of employees.
Josh:So multiple of the suspension subject matter experts, yourself included, left Marzocchi, us, under this new ownership. I think it was an Asian ownership at that point.
Dane:Is it?
Josh:that Tenneco.
Ronnie Dillon:Tenneco. As far as I know, they were an American company based out of Chicago, but they owned a lot of small or really large automotive brands like Walker, exhaust systems, thrust Is it Thrush or Thrust? Exhaust Okay, yeah, I, or is it thrush or thrust?
Dane:exhaust. Okay yeah, I've seen that on trucks Monroe. Oh yeah, wow Okay.
Josh:And they were just focused on dollars and cents and bottom line.
Dane:I don't think they really knew the business and they really kind of let go of some of the the things that made bomber wasn't just the name of one of the shocks, it was or forks.
Dane:It was kind of an attitude like these things would take a beating, they would last, they would smooth, they would. You know, that was that, that mentality that this is if you wanted a product to last, you got it was bomber, you know, and that was kind of what marzocchi was, and they took it out of that and made it way less, way less reliable. Thank you, yeah, that was it. That was just so sorry, you guys left, you started dvo.
Josh:And just just to complete the story for our listeners, like if you were to buy a marzocchi today, you're actually buying a fox product, because fox yeah, yeah eventually essentially bought the name.
Dane:It's kind of like the low-end version of fox, yeah it's, it's honestly, I think it's a way for them to have lower end product and not affect their brand.
Ronnie Dillon:Okay, you know so and, honestly, the Marzocchi is not bad.
Dane:I I'll tell you some of the Marzocchi stuff's pretty good I've done. The grip damper came in Marzocchi first. So, if I remember correctly, so yeah, okay, so, um, okay. So that catches us up to so what's so?
Josh:just like, what's different about DVO products versus the other products that are on the market today? Why am I stoked that I'm going to try an Onyx? What's going to be awesome about that Onyx compared to like?
Dane:And keep in mind, this is the OTT, onyx 36.
Ronnie Dillon:Oh, the OTT Good stuff, man. So I mean, just with that right there, the OTT, that was a feature that was engineered by, or thought of and engineered by, tom Rogers. So my introduction to the OTT was my very first day at DVO, so I started there about 20. 2012 and, um, I had still I, I was still working at morizoki, but I I was, I was on my out. So, uh, they took me upstairs and you know, they all had these crazy smiles on their face and tom was like dude, check this out, like what's up? He's like I have an adjustable like negative spring.
Ronnie Dillon:I'm like, okay, whatever he's like no, no, dude it's externally adjustable, and I was like shut the front door yeah this is actually really cool because if you're a really light rider like you don't run any ott and you still have this awesome amount of sensitivity off the top. Because the OTT spring is basically like it's an eight inch long spring that when the fork is under pressure it's it's compressed. So it's compressed down to about, let's say, 90 millimeters and when the fork is at full extension, that spring is compressed. But when the fork is compressing, the spring is extending, so it's kind of assisting, or not, kind of it is it's assisting that fork into the stroke. So there's that, that initial travel and sensitivity that you get out of that system.
Ronnie Dillon:That is is beautiful and that was that was mind blowing to me. And then to see that come to life and the Emerald the Emerald was our first fork. I I think I still have the photo of me holding I was hugging that thing. It was like we all looked at each other. It's cool, it's kind of like an emotional thing. You're, you're stoked on and you're like dude, holy shit, we. We just made a downhill fork. You know an inverted fork that we wanted to do somewhere else, but it actually benefited us when the way that it happened then. So it was the ott. That was the first innovation top loader, uh yeah. And then we had um. It was actually a bottom loader on the same fork that the, the emerald um and that was what's the bottom loader, it's the uh, it was, it's.
Ronnie Dillon:It's the ability to quickly remove a like a compression feature from the fork and and I'm not going to say retune it on the fly, but the ability to retune that thing quickly or just drop another one in. I mean, you would have to have the bike upside down so you're not dumping you know 315 cc's of oil on the on the ground. But right, yeah, you could pop that loader out and just change everything about the way that that fork handled, yeah, you could.
Dane:So most forks you got to pull the whole guts out like pretty much take the whole thing apart to to get to some of the compression settings and rebound settings and what have you and this top loader.
Dane:You could flip the bike over. I had a emerald on one of my first one of my, one of my downhill bikes. You could flip the bike over. I had a Emerald on one of my first one of my, one of my downhill bikes and you could flip it over, you could pull it out and, like Ronnie said, if you had different valving set up, you could just pop another one in right, just screw it down, flip the bike over and go hit the runs again. And it was that quick, you know, and there was. I mean, it was easy, like as a mechanic, and then if you're at a shop level and somebody wanted to tune it, you could again pull it out, tune it, put it back in and you weren't disassembling the entire fork, which was awesome, like a time saver, it was just really cool, really cool.
Josh:So Right on.
Dane:And it was innovative, you know, and that, and the OTT set them apart. You know the carbon crown, you know.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, the carbon CTA.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah you know, yeah, the the carbon cta, yeah, um, that that was uh, that was probably one of the hardest things to uh to make and to to maintain during, um, that manufacturing process it was. It was one of the hardest things, I guess. I mean you would actually have to ask bryson about it. I didn't get to see that in person, I just got to hear about the struggles of, of keeping that consistent, yeah, and so, unlike a frame, it's not like just the uh, every part is handmade on on that cta, just like the frames. Yeah, the mold is really difficult to keep. Wow, that's what. That fork does not exist anymore no, no, that fork.
Dane:So what was that? 2500 when it came out yeah, it was 2500 bucks, yeah, and it had.
Dane:It was inverted, which means the stanchions were on the bottom at the axle and then in order to make that interface, which is notoriously kind of wandering, like your wheel will wander and flex quite a bit, uh, so they made this carbon fiber arch that would bolt to the lower, uh dropouts and and was so stiff that it would control that flex and it would kind of arch up over the tire. So you still got the ability to have a light. Um, so inverted forks allow the wheel to have all a lot less weight and so they just float over stuff better, right and so, like, unlike a boxer or a fox 40 where the mass of the parts and the oil and and the lowers themselves are at the bottom, every time that wheel has to hit a bump it has to lift all that weight.
Josh:So like a lot of motorcycles are set up that way, the old track maverick setup was that way and the new push, yeah, the dorados there's pushes doing it, and it's always a how do you make it stiff enough to where the wheel's not wandering right?
Dane:and so their their idea, and I remember a couple people would run theirs without that arch you know they would take it off, man, I uh.
Ronnie Dillon:So cta stands for a carbon torsion arch. Yeah, yeah and um I I started to get these images from people of them cutting them, cutting it off, and I'm like dude it's there for a reason.
Ronnie Dillon:I'm like you, you, you can, but it it really benefits you man, yeah, they. Nah, it's way better without that. You're like, ah, dude, okay, I'm not going to argue with you, but I'd like to see that thing put back together. And then, yeah, I mean that thing, it was, it was great. I keep one stuffed under my desk that belonged to a writer of mine, and then I have a. I have one of the very few 29-inch emeralds, so there were two or three of those made and two of them are completely vanished. I wish I could say, hey, I know this guy has it, but they do not exist anymore.
Dane:Yeah, I'm starting a vintage wall at the shop and I wish I had my emerald back. I sold it a long time ago and I know the guy who has it, so I could maybe maybe get it back at some point, but he loves that thing.
Ronnie Dillon:So he doesn't want to give it up.
Dane:So okay, so we went through uh, dvo, kind of the two biggest things that they did. For the most part, the ott's set them apart, right um their damping systems.
Ronnie Dillon:There's the bladder too. Yeah, that's later the newer forks which the bladder is. Uh, it's, it's like a reverse bladder. Yeah, so there's some pretty heavy patents on um the oil-filled bladders like some of our competitors and where they got that technology, which was actually some of the early marzocchi moto stuff. Oh really, oh, that's interesting.
Josh:I didn't know that. So like a fit four has got a bladder right.
Dane:Yep, the original fit fours had bladders. Then there's a some of the chargers had bladders, yep, and a lot, almost everything, is starting to move away from the bladders. Yep, uh is reverse. So all of those have oil filled cartridges with oil in the bladder and then, as the plunger is, is uh pushed into the cartridge, it displaces oil and then the bladder can expand and that's how that works and it allows it to be running with no air, so you don't create this cavitation and air bubbles which create inconsistency and probably heat buildup and all kinds of bad stuff build up, and it it actually.
Ronnie Dillon:It ends up being a lot more sensitive when you're not trying to, like, force a bladder or force that material out. That rubber has to expand under compression. Yeah, to where? Under compression, our bladder is actually compressed, so it just sinks into itself and then, as the fork extends, the bladder is is filling back up yeah, yeah, so so like as a suspension, neophyte ronnie and dane here like what I keep hearing about.
Josh:Dvo is like small bump compliance, small bump compliance well.
Dane:So that's a. That's because you're reading into a lot of that. I've already told you in this podcast. We haven't even talked about the, the small bump, compliance at the ott. We we just said that really, what DVO is is very different, very different from everybody else. Like when I pull apart a Fox or a RockShox, they look the same inside. Like I swear to God, they're swapping engineers and they're using the same stuff.
Dane:I'm not kidding Like I'm not kidding, like I see it. I see the stuff how it works in it. You know DVOs are so different on the inside and, yes, small bump compliance is the biggest, I guess, side effect to the OTT. And that's what I hear from like riders.
Josh:Yes, cause Dane's got like this whole. Like if you I don't know if you know this, ronnie, but if you ride in Tucson you see a green fork. Yeah. You you see a green fork, yeah, you drive, you go up. You're like Dane has been around here and they're like yes, we know, dane, like he is, like your biggest advocate, so like, so much. Like I think there's a higher percentage of DBO suspension on bikes in Tucson than anywhere else I've seen in the country.
Dane:Honestly Well, because of bootleg.
Josh:I see a lot in california, so I'm sure there's a lot in you guys area but, here in tucson, because of your influence, there's a huge percentage of people that are riding it and they all tell me the same thing like you'll never have better small bump compliance yeah, that's the dvo, that's the kind of the separator.
Dane:You know that you can talk about cartridges and dampers and compression and rebound. You can talk about weight, you can talk about stiffness of chassis, but honestly, that's the differentiators, is the suppleness are we reading that right, ronnie?
Josh:is that you guys agree with this? Yeah?
Ronnie Dillon:exactly. And it's funny that you guys said different. Because when I I get confronted and I do mean confronted by customers and they're like why should I buy this? What makes this? What makes dbo so much better? And I'm like, what if I told you it was just different? And then they look at you and they're like, oh, well, tell me more, I'm like it is.
Ronnie Dillon:It's actually just, it's it's different. Suspension, and yeah, I, I mean, when it really comes down to it, I'm going to tell you that it is better, but I usually, you know, break the ice with it. It's, it's different. So what are you actually looking for, like? What kind of adjustment? Adjustability, what? What are you lacking? Right now? I notice you're a 225 to 35 pound man who rides mountain bikes and I think I know where you're suffering, and it's probably at that air pressure you have to run in your fork and the lack of ability to adjust into that small bump yep, and what about 250 to 260?
Ronnie Dillon:right like that's me I mean, for a while I was getting some some pretty heavy riders that were, I mean they would tell me what their setups were and I like I was kind of chuckling to myself and I'm like dude, but this guy loves it. So you take notes and you, you just start paying attention to how everything is actually coming back, all your feedback, and you find ways to start manipulating the shim stack, oil volumes, the material of that bladder. We do a lot of things quietly. Something we're actually trying to get better at in the company is we've made some really, really cool changes to a lot of our, our dampers, um and and and our chassis period, and we did it quietly and it kind of bit us in the ass maybe not the best marketing strategy.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, we have a guy working with us right now and, um, I mean, he's worked with us for a while. Yeah, um, it's uh, his name is kevin dana and he's been in the bike industry for a long time. I like him already, dude. He's he's cool as hell. And he was like why do you? Like I was telling him all the changes? And he's like, why haven't we advertised this? Yeah, I'm like I don't know, because in my mind, this is just us.
Josh:It's intellectual property too right, you don't want to tell the world what you're doing.
Ronnie Dillon:Kind of yes and no. You want to tell them what you're doing. You don't want them to know that you're possibly trying to fix a mistake or just make something better.
Dane:Yeah.
Ronnie Dillon:In that process of making it better, it starts to kind of slip your mind, and the way that I always look at it and think is oh, we're just going to do this, they're not going to see it, but they're going to feel it. We're going to change the design of this piston slightly, and they're going to feel it, but they're not going to be able to see it. So Kevin's trying to push us in a different direction where we actually start utilizing all of the changes that we make for marketing and I mean it's cool. It makes you look at things a little bit differently. He has an outside view of of what that should look like to where me and maybe one or two or three or four of the other guys that work at dvo just kind of making things, because I'm not an engineer, dude, I'm a butcher like I. I just get done.
Josh:I'm calling bullshit on that I totally relate to him. You say the same thing. You guys are both engineers, you get into it.
Dane:You understand how it works, which makes you think that we have engineering, but it's really we just understand how the stuff works and then you manipulate it. It's like a garage engineer.
Josh:What the hell do you think an engineer does?
Dane:I totally get that. I work with 30 000 engineers. The problem is ronnie, you guys are. You guys are engineers you might be in the wrong industry if you want to make money, yeah, yeah but you guys are definitely engineers.
Josh:Sorry, I just gotta throw that out there and that's true, though.
Dane:You know like we, you know I, I know ronnie, so I learned a lot from ronnie, like the years from Marzocchi, from DVO. He kind of sets the standard, not to put you on a pedestal or anything, but some of the attitudes that he has which are I'm working on a Marzocchi and I'm doing something and I'm like, yeah, what do I do with this? And he's like, ah, you don't need that, just throw it out. I'm thinking something.
Ronnie Dillon:And I'm like, yeah, what do I do with this? And he's like, ah, you don't need that, just throw it out. It's like, oh my God, I'm thinking better than you.
Dane:And it's that kind of attitude that it's like he's like look, that doesn't really do anything, you know, get rid of it, you don't need it, you know? And what are those little wavy washers in the dampers? Little wavy washers in the damper? Oh man, the kink shims. Yeah, the kink shims, and they break. And he's like just get rid of that, you don't need it. And it's, it's because it was engineered actually to be in there for a reason, but functionality, it's not really doing anything and it's causing more problems than it's that's the best kind of engineer, the ones that takes like practical application and like applies it in reality to the design and says hey, that kink shit you guys did.
Josh:That was hard to manufacture and more expensive and added more weight yep, we don't even need it.
Dane:Yep yeah take it out yeah, and so, uh, the little. I love that the kits are coming with the little one millimeter.
Ronnie Dillon:Uh, o-ring oh yeah, all of the kits are a lot more detailed now, yep yeah, and so what kind of kits you guys get?
Josh:you guys are suspension experts, yeah, so remember, our listeners are not that?
Dane:Yeah, we're geeking out. What kits are you talking about? These are just the service kits service kits for.
Dane:DVO suspension products. So I'm doing another brand's a shock. Right now. It's on the bench and I go to the service manual and there's zero pictures and it's just text. It looks like like somebody in high school just wrote a paper on on how to take it apart and put it back together. And I'm okay with that. Right, you know, I, I can identify the parts, I can identify what's going on, I can fuddle through it, but, man, you know, the average consumer can never do that. And so pictures help. The pictures help like big time and real pictures not not like Ikea pictures. Ikea pictures suck, but uh, but like you know, uh, tutorials, even at our level, like we're training somebody, and when they go through some of the videos they still have questions.
Dane:I have to call. I called him on one one day. I was, I think it was the Jade height, and it was just weird. I called him on one one day. I was, I think it was the Jade height and it was just weird setting the depth on a Jade, and I'm like this is just weird, you know, and he's like, yeah, don't worry about it.
Dane:So you know, and Jade, jade's a coil over it's, it's the yeah, it's the grandfather to your Jade X and it's the downhill version. High speed, low speed, compression adjustment low speed compression Really nice. The one version high speed low speed compression adjustment high speed, low speed compression really nice. The one thing that I did. Yeah, I like the bladder capture on that I.
Ronnie Dillon:I think that's smart you know, that that thing is cool that it is I mean you realize that thing is 10 years old, I know, and it's still.
Dane:I'll put it on a bike, by the way. Okay. So we've talked about dvo. We talked about how they're different um, their philosophies, youies. You know, I I have a couple of questions. Um, cause, guys on the, I put this out on our Facebook page to to ask you know. So, one of the um, one of the things, uh, okay, so, justin, you surveyed? Our listeners and said what do you?
Josh:want to know about DVO.
Dane:So Justin brought this up and I would say it's an issue that we have and this falls squarely on ronnie's shoulder. It's all his fault. So, uh, the setting I. I would say the number one problem that I see with dvo is people have a hard time setting them up. Just complex it's it's barely complicated one extra dial with ott.
Dane:It's not even that, it's, it's an order thing. What order you do it in? It's uh. There's one part of the ott that bugs the shit out of me what I wish they'd fix, uh which is you have to let the air out in most cases to adjust it, which is just drives me insane.
Dane:My old one, my, my, my best diamond ever I just sold uh, it was on my enduro race bike and I could adjust that at full pressure, uh, adjust the ott, and I was like it was, it was the best, and since then I've haven't found one that I can really do at full pressure, even though I try. Um, we can get into that later when r explains himself. But uh, but really what? The biggest complaint that I have is that people have a hard time setting them up correctly, and that's something we do at the shop and you know understanding the OTT and what's going on, and it's really confusing. I think there's a couple different manuals when you Google this stuff and they pop up and then sometimes they have the wrong air starting air. There's different versions of diamonds, there's different versions of of stuff.
Ronnie Dillon:You know that causes problems and so I'd say that's the number one thing that people were asking about yeah, that's, that's one of the things we we are actually trying to get a lot better at, because if you, uh, if you look at some of the old manuals there's there's the original diamond, yeah, and like non-boost diamond and not like a non-boost diamond, right, and that, that fork, you can have 3000 psi in it and you were still able to adjust your ott. Yep, yeah, yeah. And next version of the diamond you were still able to adjust the ott under pressure. Yep, yeah, um what changed?
Dane:what? Because, because that's what old blue was and my and this, you know this, um onyx and I it it doesn't do it. What did you guys change? The uh?
Ronnie Dillon:the actual pressure on the ott mechanism changes when you uh, when we, when we grew in in stanchion tube diameter. Okay, so the mechanism is actually identical and it it was a.
Dane:It was slightly mind-boggling to us on how the system was binding, so so, like an onyx, which is no longer in that air tube, is the same mechanism as a um as a diamond yes, the only the only one of the forks that had um, I mean, obviously it was, it was inverted was was the emerald.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, it had an inverted ott system. Yeah, yeah, so that one adjusted from the top of the left leg, not not the bottom of the left leg, like like it is now. So there, there were a couple of small things and I wish I could. I wish I could fix all of those. Uh, some of them worked great with, uh, with the pressure in there. But there, to save people a lot of time, yep and money on a repair, yeah, actually just decided to tell everybody to just start letting the air pressure out of the system to adjust it.
Dane:It was a lot easier, yeah, that's, that's what I tell people, actually, yeah I mean, this is 30 seconds worth of work.
Josh:I can imagine why it's so painful what?
Dane:no, no, no, no, so so I, I, I it's what it is is, every time you want to adjust the ott, you have to depress the shock, then adjust it and then air it back up, so 60 seconds it's not so much that it's just a, it's like a, it's not a, it's not a smooth process, first world problems.
Josh:Yeah, they have okay. So if so, I just have.
Dane:I have a suggestion you're gonna get to do this later tonight by the I will.
Josh:I won't do it because we're putting the Sonics on my power play.
Ronnie Dillon:So, I have a suggestion though.
Josh:So we've got. We've got a podcast scheduled with Norco coming up, and I've been doing some research on Norco and listen and kind of kind of researching, and I did a bunch of research on you guys as well, Ronnie. But they said, hey, they got sick and tired of giving their bikes to testers who would set them up all wrong and then bitch about how they performed.
Ronnie Dillon:And then when?
Josh:they dig into the details, it'd be like you bastards set that thing up like way wrong, yeah, and so they came out with they've got on their website I can't remember what it's called. It's called like ride play or something like that, or live ride or something like that. But they have this really simple configurator that, even like I can understand yep, right, yeah, and you put in your weight, put in the type of riding, you do that kind of stuff and it gives you like a step-by-step. This is how to set it up and they've had amazing success with their reviews ride a line ride a line, there you go.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, well, let me.
Josh:Let me get this dog before oh hey, no worries, yeah, he's got, he's got a dog running around going crazy, so the the ride line is is pretty amazing.
Dane:Uh, I don't remember if it does. It makes you pick a bike, though, doesn't it? Yeah, you pick a bike, but it's a norco.
Josh:It's a norco but I'm just saying like it's an idea.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, if, if, if setup is the problem.
Dane:Yes, then create a simple app, that that that walks us through how to set it up, yeah, and that, and so I I'm on the forums all the time and I'm helping DVO people all the time, and the biggest thing that I would say is just that order of operations. Yeah, like you know. So we're talking about how to set these things up.
Josh:Well. I'm suggesting if, if, if, you guys are good.
Dane:DV. I'm suggesting, if you guys are good, dvo needs an app.
Josh:I'm suggesting like the ride-align just made it as a consumer, made a ton of sense to me on a process that was a little beyond my understanding.
Ronnie Dillon:It made it simple.
Josh:Yeah, so if we got this amazing product and people aren't setting it up, right?
Dane:I think that's probably the biggest complaints that I see are usually that.
Josh:All right. So I'm suggesting you guys steal Narco's Ride-A-Line concept for setup of your products.
Dane:I don't know how they did it. That's the key.
Josh:It's not hard to do.
Ronnie Dillon:It's not hard to do but there's a lot of variables. What they commented on of sending something to a test rider.
Dane:You going to talk about Pinkbike bike you guys love pink bike right?
Josh:those guys are awesome and you know what uh those?
Ronnie Dillon:guys they're I. I just go in there with to read the comments. I, I, I don't have any problems with any of them, but it's, it's just a. It's a frustrating place to not pink bike, but just the way the way things happen, and then comment section with pink bike. Well, it's not crazy.
Dane:It's not just pink bike Cause, so I I have been diving in. So, on this podcast, Ronnie, I've kind of expressed my dismay with YouTube and the fact that everybody gets all their knowledge off YouTube and they kind of you know and I'm I'm. My kids are getting into bikes and I'm trying to figure out ways to get them motivated and actually watching videos on YouTube has been working and we're watching some beginner stuff to get them ideas and every time we do this they want to go ride, which is great. Um, but it's the hype up up. I've noticed that a lot of the advice on youtube, some of it's really solid and some of it's just garbage awful, yeah, like podcasts pretty much, and somebody's saying that right now about whatever I've said yeah, you know, and for sure that guy doesn't know what the hell he's talking about um, so like when I read the pink bike thing, I'm pretty sure it was pink bike that just had a scathing review on.
Dane:Was it the onyx?
Ronnie Dillon:uh, and that sucked dude. Yeah, they did. They threw us so far under, yeah under the bus, dude. So they, they did that. They I forget the the guy's name mike like he was reviewing a three-year-old. No, it wasn't casimir um dude, he reviewed a three-year-old fork.
Dane:Oh really, yeah, we released the 38 yeah, and he's releasing and he's reviewing the old one he's reviewing something that like, yeah, we haven't built in a year and a half.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, we sent it to him and then we saw the review come out and I'm like what, what is this? Yeah, yeah it's I. I understand that, you know, a review is still relevant because the product is still for sale, brand new, in a shop somewhere. But it's like, wow, that was horrible timing and just just an unfortunate thing for us to have to deal with. And then uh, okay, so.
Dane:So we talked about the ott setting up. That's one of the barriers I have as a dealer.
Josh:All right well let me just so, before you go there, let me just I want to make sure that we get this I want your opinion right like okay, so it might be a little tougher to set up, it's fucking worth it figure like figure it out, dude, it's on the side of I tell people just figure it out.
Dane:It's on my van. Like I wouldn't put dvo splattered across my van if I didn't like.
Josh:You're an adult human, yeah figure out how to set this fork up.
Dane:So that hard, okay, so so justin's comment was on ott and and that complexity, and so that's, that's one thing that he wants to see, because we asked you know, what should we ask ronnie about? The second thing that came up is and again, this is all Ronnie's fault.
Ronnie Dillon:I'm sorry man.
Josh:I didn't realize this was going to be an inquisition, totally. Dane didn't tell me this ahead of time.
Dane:I told him I had a bunch of shit. You said you had a bunch of questions. I think it was going to be these are the two hard ones. Okay, everything after this is all soft. So we're going to end all like positive. Oh yeah, perfect, seriously. Okay, bushing tight because because the the pink bike article. If you read it, it sounds like they had a tight bushing fork, like because I've had those and and for people that don't know what we're talking about, this is a this is an old problem, though, right. Well, okay.
Dane:It's not happening on your current products, right? Well, like Ronnie said, there are still older… there's still product that's not brand spanking new.
Dane:And also there's reputation that happens, and my issue is that this tight bushing…. Whenever I hear somebody has had a bad experience with a DVO, it's usually either they don't have it set up correctly or it's this tight bushing issue. Which the tight bushing issue? I'm not sure what causes it, like I didn't know if it was a quality control issue, I didn't know if it was a temperature issue. I don't know what's causing it. Yeah, what causes?
Josh:it, ronnie, quality control issue.
Dane:I didn't know if it was a temperature issue.
Ronnie Dillon:I don't know what's causing it. Yeah, what causes it, ronnie? Yeah, um, so I'll, I'll, I will get into that, okay, good, good, because it was, if it's too sensitive, we'll just back off that was. It was frustrating. Okay, all right for a lot of people yeah yeah, and I, I. I just want to say that we had to spend a lot of time doing research to end up where where we are right now. Okay, Right.
Ronnie Dillon:So which is which is total, like the other end of of um, how that, how that was for us, cause it was actually. We're like dude, one fork feels really good, yep, um, this fork is the same production batch. What is wrong? We had to change quite a few things internally, just in the company. And then, as you guys know, we build a lot of our stuff at SR Suntour. We do have a heavy horsepower engine that can help us get stuff done, but there's there's some things that we actually have to handle on our own when it comes up to the development. So some center can help us with production.
Dane:They've got big machines.
Ronnie Dillon:Dude, they are insane. Um, there's like there's a couple of people that have visited our factory. Uh, I think uh Mo and Hannah, they did a really good job, dude, and you know they almost didn't put that video out because, uh, they were worried that some tour would hurt. They thought it, they thought it was going to suck. Oh really, it'd be like really boring it. Dude, it looks so boring when you see it, but nobody really gets to see some of those, no.
Josh:Yeah, we to see some of those. No, yeah, we'll put a link, assuming it's still out there.
Dane:We'll put a link to that in the show notes here. Yeah, it's a good video. It basically showcases the manufacturing process. I mean Suntour makes forks for many brands.
Josh:So, just like Giant, that makes frames for a huge percentage of the industry.
Dane:Yeah, they have the machines. Really, honestly, you need certain specialty machines to make a lot of this stuff and but it's your design, they build it. It's not even that. Like, like ronnie said, they have people right there assembling it, so dvo has their own room right and yeah, and qc process and stuff like that. So what happened with it? And can you tell me what happened with the type bushing? Or did you guys figure out what was going on, or we had to.
Ronnie Dillon:We had to change a lot of the process, so I mean everything down to the way that the, the, the casting is sealed from the inside out. Okay, so there's a, there's a process that, for the magnesium that you actually like, you can't just have a magnesium casting.
Dane:They oxidize, yeah Well, it's going to. It's going to leak, yeah yeah, they have to have a special paint, if that's right.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, it has a coating on the inside and if that coating isn't perfect, then you're going to have weird issues. Yeah, leaking, mostly leaking oxidation, which the oxidation will start to eat the bushings, the stanchion tube. I mean, I think everybody's opened up a fox or a rock shock and it's just full of water and all kinds of shit and you see that white yep, the chalk, the chalk, and that's, that's the magnesium, basically eating, eating itself which just a psa is why you're supposed to be servicing your public service.
Dane:Suspension like around every hundred hours, depending on the.
Ronnie Dillon:The manufacturer like you buy into that 200 hours, ronnie sometimes, sometimes faster, depending on what you're doing dude you're, you're gonna spend a week or two weeks in whistler. Dude your, your suspension is junk.
Dane:Oh, wait until you see the pictures of the uh fork you're putting on your bike.
Josh:Oh yeah.
Dane:I took pictures of the inside. That's been on my altitude for years and at most of the Western, you know hemisphere bike parks and I opened it up and I was so disappointed in myself, You're like wait, I have a suspension company.
Josh:Why did I let this get this bad? It was like the oil was the blackest darkest in myself. You're like wait, I have a suspension company.
Dane:Why did I let this get this back? It was like the oil was the blackest, darkest, like I'm pretty sure you could see, like the devil in how black this oil was dude, you'll see him in there hanging out.
Ronnie Dillon:You're just kind of laughing.
Dane:He's like I got you, dude, I got you now granted, when I got done with it, it's like new. So, uh, but I was pretty disappointed and this is just goes to show you that people need to do fork service because of some of the things that that is going on that you can't see, and so we had.
Josh:We had a certain percentage of the the fork products from dvo that had this stiction problem yeah, it's related to the bushings, yeah you guys got that figured out now and are you seeing it in new products?
Dane:yeah, we so. Are you guys fixing it with the sizing tools?
Ronnie Dillon:that's what I'm doing, so uh, yeah, so you can, you, you can, and then some of them you actually just end up replacing the casting just to be on the safe side of that customer. Uh, only calling you back with positive yeah, salts man, there's, there's a lot of a lot of the guys out there that just don't. Some people they could have their fork could be locked and they never, they'll never, they'll never notice that it's like horrible and you're like, hey, this thing feels bad. Let me help you, dude, let me, let me make this right for you. Well, so I've had a suffering.
Dane:I've had a couple new ones come in and then the customer comes back with feedback like this does not feel like you said it would feel, and then I ride it around. I'm like this has got stuck bushings, and so then I'll pull the lowers off, I'll size them and put them back on and sizing the bushings, sizing the bushings?
Dane:yeah, in fact the guy that I got the tool from is ronnie's hookup. Like he hooked me up with the guy and I have certain degrees of larger. They go up small. What is it? Two-tenths of a millimeter or whatever.
Ronnie Dillon:It's just enough to push it out.
Dane:It just kind of deforms it in a uniform way to the right size, and then I'll put them back on and they'll come back and they're just like. It is amazing, like it's it's. The difference is like night and day. And so I'll read these forums. I'm on the forums all the time, like given my two cents when I can and when it's going to help, and, and I'll hear somebody have the same kind of symptoms like the fork. I can't get it adjusted right, it's always notchy, it's like super stiff, it's like, you know, I'll go off a curb and dive, but you know, I run through small bump and it like feels like rigid, you know, and it's usually usually tight bushings. And even most, most people that are on these forums are starting to realize you know, hey, send it to DVO or get it to a service center or something.
Dane:You know, a lot of these people are in new zealand, guys, you know, it's all over the world, so but, uh, it's been an issue that I've been trying to figure out because it's hurt their reputation, in my opinion you know right uh, because you get somebody, like when I'm getting somebody on a on dvo a lot of times because fox is such a force as far as marketing and oe product and RockShox is huge for OE and marketing DVO comes on and people kind of have like a side eye if they don't know like they're like what is that? You know? Like, is that? Like what are you trying to sell me? Like the copy fork you know like that is this like. You know what is this? Is this a Amazon?
Josh:fork. What is this? Is this an Amazon fork? But you guys are, I mean, like DVO is offering on Intense Norco Focus, fizari or Ari. Cube and Merida right now.
Ronnie Dillon:Yes, right On OEM bikes yes, that's a big stable of companies, there's a lot happening. Yes, it's still funny to me when I get somebody and and you know they, you're wearing the shirt and then they see your fork and they're like what is that? Yeah, it's an Onyx. They're like who makes that?
Dane:Yep, yeah, dvo, I just I can't laugh.
Ronnie Dillon:You're like, yeah, do we've been. We've been in business for a long time. They're like crazy, I've never heard of you, I've never heard of you guys.
Josh:And it's like it's okay, that's cool so like if I go buy a dvo for today, am I assured that it's not going to have this issue?
Dane:so I will tell you this I want ronnie to answer question okay all right go ahead, absolutely yeah absolutely yeah, they'll
Josh:tell why are we talking about old shit? Well, okay, so all right, so that's the that's.
Dane:That's it for the, that's the tight bushings. The ott, that's the old shit setup issue yeah, let's talk.
Josh:Sorry for all the old people, you got an old one. Talk to dane, talk to dvo, they'll fix it. Otherwise, let's talk about new shit all right.
Dane:So currently I'm running 36 SL, uh, diamond. So what's different? In that I have a, I don't have OTT.
Ronnie Dillon:You do not have OTT. You now you have the, uh, the SL system.
Dane:Yes, which, which I hate to say this and and no, no offense to DVO, but it's just like everybody else's, like it's, it's, uh, it's, it's very similar man there's.
Ronnie Dillon:There's some small changes with uh, with the stuff that we did, but, um, the idea was to make it familiar.
Dane:Yes, it's definitely that is it what I mean?
Ronnie Dillon:it's an sl2, so it's light like they're making the 38 with the ott and an sl version, so you can pick which one you can pick, you know, and I think that was 36 or 38 no, the 38 is uh sl or ott right um well, let's talk about 2024 let's talk about 2024, because I don't know what you guys are doing for 2025 we, uh, we will no longer offer many of the OTT forks so that the OTT system, because of the complications of setup, there's very few of them that were actually being produced.
Dane:Okay. So with this new 36 that I'm riding, the first thing I noticed because my fear is so my Pivot Shuttle SL came with Fox Factory on it. I rode it for two months, uh, and I gave it a good shot, like I'm like you know what this is, top of the line fox shit. Like everybody comes in wanting fox, fox, fox.
Dane:You know it's gold, it's got all the the stuff got the bells and whistles, I'm gonna ride this stuff and and I'm gonna ride it. And I've been on dvo since almost day one, like no joke. You know, I've been riding dvo forever and, um, I could not stand it. I could not stand the the fox stuff. I don't know how to explain how. It just felt harsh. It didn't feel like I call it carpet ride. You know, when I ride dvo, it feels like you're riding on carpet, like it just has this super smooth feel. I never bottom it out unless I'm really doing something stupid and uh, it's just. You know, I barely even use compression dampening and I'm, I'm, I'm over 200 pounds and I rarely even use compression damping and I'm racing downhill, I'm racing Enduro, like it. I'm not riding around fantasy island on on the bike path, you know just for the record, that's the first time you've come close to admitting how much you weigh.
Josh:Oh yeah, on the podcast.
Dane:Well it's, it's way more than I expect. So it's about like my age but so my biggest fear with this new system is that it would be like the fox, like it would have that. You know no longer carpet feel. It still feels good and it's confident. I'm people riding Foxes Aren't dumb, like they're good forks, but it just what didn't feel the same, like you get hooked on the feel.
Josh:So did it you know it did.
Dane:And in fact this, this 36 SL diamond, I put on my e-bike to make it lighter. You know um, it's the first time I've ever had to adjust the low speed compression on a damper because it dived a little bit. It was so supple so are you?
Ronnie Dillon:did you, did you change any of your your volume, space or no? I?
Dane:didn't do that because, honest and honestly, I've railed that bike um.
Josh:I haven't bottomed it out yet, so it still feels supple is what you're saying, it still felt supple, almost More supple, almost more, more supple than a Fox.
Dane:Oh, absolutely.
Josh:So how the hell did you all do that?
Dane:Yeah, so what is so? Here's my fear. Right, because the OTT allowed for everyone to enjoy that feel, from somebody who's a hundred pounds up to somebody who's two, 60, you know, or?
Josh:whatever.
Dane:And that was the beauty of is it let cause the old system that they used is what Fox used way back in the day, and the biggest problem was it fit the middle but it didn't fit the ends you know light or heavy middle of the weight spectrum?
Dane:Yeah, exactly, and so how? How is your? So you guys are using volume spacers, so we're back to tuning the end of the stroke instead of the beginning. Yep, is that right? And so? So when I'm setting that up, I'm familiar, like you said now, and I just set it up like like any other fork on the market, for the most part so, yeah, and and you and you should be able to that was the main goal.
Ronnie Dillon:I mean, I'll be very honest with you. We hired two really smart engineers and a lot changed yeah, a lot of stuff changed. And these guys were kind of not kind of. They were really green to mountain bikes and one of them I guarantee you he had never really even seen a mountain bike. Um, he was working for a really large company in in taiwan and he was brought on in like uh, like a critical time of development, and this kid killed it yeah, sometimes having someone that's not biased by all the the past you, that's how you generate new ideas and new concepts, right?
Ronnie Dillon:I mean, is that kind of what happened here Absolutely? Because it's an outside view of how that system works, and for him that outside view was math.
Dane:Yeah.
Josh:So, yeah, he was… he just brought in the math brought in his calculator and said you guys are fucking this up. Let me show you how to do this.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, he was mathing around, man Dude, he nailed it the very first version of that air system that we made. Hey, dude, stop eating my books.
Josh:What's your dog's name, man?
Ronnie Dillon:Dude, that Gasket, gasket, that gasket, that's funny nice is he? A puppy yeah, she's about four months old and she's eating everything.
Dane:Oh, yeah, yeah I, we both have that and uh puppies around here man. Oh yeah, I've lost a lot of socks, so okay so what's different on the the damper side? Uh, has he fiddled with that, or anybody fiddled with? I haven't pulled my sl apart to look at the inside oh man, you have to take a look, dude.
Ronnie Dillon:So the, the, the bladder that you are familiar with is, is changed. Um, I think it might be a little bit longer. The 36 actually has, uh, just a little bit of stuff that changed in that mid valve, uh-huh. So on the, on the rebound side of the of the damper, it changed yeah um, I think you would notice more changes to the bladder in the 38.
Dane:Okay, that's my next, next one, that's going on the next bike, so I haven't. I haven't figured out that bike yet. Maybe the altitude I'm testing, so I'm testing other suspension.
Ronnie Dillon:Sorry, I'm cheating on dvo oh, dude, I, I, I promote that. I tell people I'm like hey, dude, you know, I mean you can, you can look you can. You can look online, you can.
Dane:You can see our riders that have chosen to go with other brands and some of them are back now yeah, yeah that says something you know I I've told you guys I've been doing the youtube thing with my kids and who's the remy guy?
Josh:the remy oh man metallier, yeah you're asking, you're actually asking who remy metallier?
Dane:so you, guys gotta remember I'm not like I told you?
Josh:I don't know.
Dane:I'm assuming that's you are a very handsome man yeah that's what I said.
Dane:But uh, remy is one of my favorites and I was like I didn't even notice until like two videos in he's on dvo and like I'm trying to google what camera he's using because his angle is awesome and I'm like I want that kind of view, yeah. But uh, then I look down and I'm like, oh, he's on dvo and uh, and so he's one of my favorites. You know he's he's fun, you know to watch him, so I'm just learning youtube and and so I don't know all the celebrities, sorry about that.
Ronnie Dillon:so that guy, that guy's entire program is actually he's pretty pretty neat. Yeah, uh, easy to deal with. No, because he's pretty pretty neat, yeah, easy to deal with. No, because he's really precise, yeah, I don't have a hard time dealing with him. But when the first couple of times that you work with him you're like, oh dude, this dude's fucking tearing me up.
Dane:Like so it's friends dude. Is he like you know, hey man, this doesn't feel right and sending stuff back, or did? Does he come into DVO and get stuff done? Like like how, what level do you guys have with him? Do you just send them product and he plays with it? Or is he a sponsored writer?
Ronnie Dillon:I'm not even sure I will set a bass tune which is, um, pretty similar to factory. Yeah, I just I know that he's going to be a hell of a lot more aggressive dude, he's, I think he's five, nine, about a buck 45. And, um, dude, he's ballistic. Yeah, it's, it's incredible. Like those are some of the videos that you like.
Dane:You're like ah, dude, I gotta I gotta go from after this coffee. I need a good eight minute kill right now.
Ronnie Dillon:Oh yeah, some of the stuff that he does on on, I guess canada uh, he's not sure. He lives in um in squamish or near it so pretty incredible. Yeah, well, just hold that whole. You know the, you've been there yeah well, so I'm going there.
Dane:I haven't been to squamish, I've been to whistler and I'm gonna hit bellingham on the way up and I'm excited because it's a very different ride from what we're used to you know, um and man, I was watching one video I don't some kids doing it with, uh, skinnies and I don't know where they were. It was like a place, skinny send it, or something like that. It was the trail yeah I, my kids and I are all watching this on the couch and I'm like hell, no like never doing that oh no, I can't do them.
Dane:I can't, I can barely do fatties, uh, let alone stockies and skinnies are out, so so I want to be respectful to ronnie's time, okay, because? We've been going about hour 15 oh shit, I got like, see I told you, I got like two quick questions the first one's like my little.
Josh:At seattle I talked to gas gas, okay and they were telling me about, you know, I saw a devio fork on the front of their, their new you know, at least some of their new e-bike lines. They were talking about what you guys did with them in this cup and cone design. Were you involved in that all? Can you tell me anything about like what you guys did there?
Ronnie Dillon:yeah, man, I mean so you can. I was there the whole time with with bryson bryson jr jp. Uh did we had a, we had a blast, we got to go. We got to go to austria. Uh, work with the guys at at wp.
Josh:That's incredible wp is the is the company that owns gas gas husky marna.
Dane:No, I think they're a suspension company, aren't they?
Ronnie Dillon:yeah, wp is just the, just the suspension brand.
Josh:Yep, yeah.
Ronnie Dillon:Kate, ktm owns everything. Okay yeah. So that is one of the largest places I've ever like seen in my life. I like beautiful workbenches. Um, you know my makes. My workbench at my office looked like part of the bathroom scenery. Every tech has two massive dinos. Yeah, there was shit there we weren't supposed to take pictures of, that I already took pictures of and they're like don't take pictures of that. And I'm like, oh shit I won't.
Josh:I won't send to anyone, I promise I'm sorry um, you have really cool experience.
Ronnie Dillon:um, you can look at the fork. You went to the booth, you saw it. Um, if you take a quick glimpse at it, um, it everything about it says DVO, other than the big WP. Yeah, step on it. Um. And when you look inside, yeah, they called out for their own tune. They did a lot of testing. Um, we were there for a majority of the testing, uh, testing which is not exactly new to us, but it was we again one more time, we hid that part of it when we were advertising that because we're like you don't want anybody, you don't want anybody to know these dark little secrets, right? Yeah, then Fox releases their new stuff.
Josh:Pressure balance Pressure balance everything and you're like, damn right, yeah, then fox releases their new stuff pressure balance, pressure balanced everything, and you're like damn, yeah, yeah, oh, it's true like and we were working on that, that wp stuff, that's dude.
Ronnie Dillon:That wasn't like. That didn't happen in six weeks, dude, that was two years oh, oh wow. So, covid, that was, that was our project.
Dane:So is that just on the fork and the rear is just a prime?
Ronnie Dillon:No, it's actually. Or is it the opposite? It's a cone valve in each one.
Dane:It really I didn't know that, okay.
Ronnie Dillon:The difference between the moto cone valve and this cone valve is this one is actually externally adjustable to where, with their um cone valve set up for the dirt bikes, it is not externally adjustable to where. With their um cone valve setup for the dirt bikes, it is not externally adjustable. So this is actually it's a first. I think that's a. That's the confusion. And, man, I do read, I creep into a lot of the forums. Yeah, I'm not gonna say which one, but there's a. There's a certain uh tuner out there who loves to talk crap. He's like I can look at this and it looks like wp sent, uh, sent dvo a handful of pieces that they installed incorrectly. You have to laugh. You're like, come on, man, like dude it. You haven't even seen it and then they're taking these, these screenshots of the moto system and I'm like that's not even what's, it's not in there yeah, close, but it's.
Ronnie Dillon:It's completely different. Yeah, that is one of the more complicated projects that that we've been, that we've been part of it's. It's so cool but absolutely like the most time-consuming thing that that we've done will we see that stuff on other other bikes, or is it?
Josh:is it uniquely specific to gas gas?
Dane:oh, he put his he put his, like he put his eyebrows up. Just know that.
Ronnie Dillon:That look was kind of like I can't talk about this, can't talk about it. Yeah, sorry, man that stuff. That tune is specific to that bike, so you can probably get away with using the cone valve on your on your onyx, okay.
Ronnie Dillon:But, it's an entirely different system, so it is pressure balanced for that damper. So you would need the entire damper or at least the damper tune and a couple of other small things that they called out for. The shock that is based around that bike, least the damper tune and a couple of other small things that they called out for, uh, the shock that is based around that bike okay, I kind of feel like we need to buy one and tear it apart.
Dane:Well, yeah, that'll probably happen um okay last last questions, because we didn't get this one out was prime, so yeah, tell us about prime man, so jade x prime and topaz prime. Uh, one are you. Are you gonna have a upgrade?
Ronnie Dillon:uh, because that was talked about, where, oh, you mean like a, okay, so the, the retro, retrofittable uh component, yeah, a lot easier to do on the jade or the jade x, because you can actually just unbolt the entire reservoir, yeah, and then put a fresh reservoir bladder, okay, all the goods on and it's good to go. It's it's, it's, it's expensive but it, you know, if somebody wants it, they can do it. Okay, on the topaz, it gets a little deeper because you're actually replacing the entire housing. Okay, so, for you, you're, you're 100 capable. Yeah, yeah, yeah, somebody on their you know their grandmother's you know gas burning stove, it's going to be a little bit, a little bit harder, but in their bathtub, yeah, you can do it.
Ronnie Dillon:But at that point in time, um, I mean there's there's probably a lot of guys that are just going to end up sending stuff back to me, back to you, and you're going to be like, hey, dude, you're about 180 bucks away from just having a brand new shock. Okay, instead of paying me my labor and let's say they they have like a nibbled up shaft or a burned out shaft or just it can be, it can be costly, so you're better off just just buy the new shock or trade it in because I thought that I X, you know, that plug at the back.
Dane:I thought that was like something you'd pull out and then just pop in like a top loader was what I was envisioning, you know, and so that's not what it is. You have to pull off the reservoir. To do that.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, it's a sealed reservoir. So if you look at the Jade X, you have that lock, the three position lever for compression or lockout. Um yeah, that thing would just, it would bleed straight through.
Dane:Well, it's funny because it's like if you look at the two, it's like the space for the lever is still there, like they use the same casting, they just didn't drill.
Ronnie Dillon:It is and and we had, we had ideas of, of having that configuration, yeah, but because of another project that we started working on, which which is WP, it consumed a lot of our development time and we ended up in a, in a position where, um, we were like dude, we're going to make this thing even better later and we're we're in, we're in that position right now. So, like 25 and 26 development um is happening right now.
Josh:Oh yeah, so big things coming.
Ronnie Dillon:Well, I mean, it sounds like a long time right.
Josh:Like you'll blink your eyes and it'll be here, yeah.
Ronnie Dillon:It's you know, my kid's going to be wrecking one of my cars, driving it around.
Dane:It's like you never know. Spilling car is driving it around. It's like you never know spilling gas.
Ronnie Dillon:So, uh, did you kill the the? Big x2 can looking one is that, um, we still have the cans. Yeah, yeah, the big ones.
Dane:No, no, remember that there was a, a prototype that looked like an x2, like a fox. Uh, remember that thing and I have pictures of it. I'll send them to you. So I know, know it was there, but did that get killed? Cause I know the Opal is kind of on the back burner, uh, yeah, yeah, we we produced the Opal Um.
Ronnie Dillon:We we sold a few of them in the aftermarket. Yeah, We've got a rider.
Dane:We got a rider on one. Yeah, that's a bad-ass shock man. He loves it, loves it.
Ronnie Dillon:you know, I think he wants shock I think he'd like a lockout on it because it's just a rebound at this point.
Dane:Oh, he has the r. Yeah, yeah, so and uh, yeah, I mean, I I think there's a market for it because there are people that are just like hey, I like dvo, I just want to run dvo, I don't care that it's not the lightest, you know. Shock, you know. So did you keep bringing that up? Like it's not that much heavy? Uh, it's. It's a philosophy, you know, there's some.
Dane:Like we built a fork in 2010. I think it was. That was. Uh, we took the guts out of it. It only had air in one on one side and had a sticker over the top where the damper used to be on a sid, I think to make it stupid light on a mountain bike that we built for interbike. Uh, I say we. This is when I was at fairweel and it was. I forgot. I mean, it was a carbon fiber sticker, but it was just a sticker over the damper, it had no damping in it and just to make it lighter and it was stupid light but it didn't ride worth crap, you know yeah and so dvo and and coming from the marzocchi side and then into the dvo, their philosophy has never been like, hey, we're going to be the lightest.
Dane:They're always about how it feels, you know, and how it rides. It's not about how light it is. And so they don't really. They kind of didn't put any resources towards that side of the market, and so there's a lot of people that is that true, because he's speaking for you, right?
Ronnie Dillon:we're. We're always entertained with how light our competitors are able to get their product, and we, we, we reach for that, and then we start to figure out some other things that we can change in the chassis. So a lot of that weight will come from the chassis and the performance of that chassis will ultimately affect everything. So that thing's flexy, it's. It's going to bend a little too much, it's going to bind during the stroke, right, and there's a. There's a lot of stuff that went down with the development of the, of the 38 and for whatever reason, that the 36 is a ridiculous, ridiculously good feeling. Fork we, we, we thought the 38 was like mind blowing and then, um, you know, we changed some things on the 36 and people were like dude, okay, this is, this is what I wanted from you guys. Like, this was a plug and plate, fork, dude I. However, you guys had to set up out of the box, which is the funniest shit to hear slapped it on, I went and wrote it.
Ronnie Dillon:I'm like no man, dude, you know what. It might be right, because you get that guy. He comes by the booth and you're like, oh shit, it was like two clicks, two clicks away from perfect, right. But you don't, you don't really want to hear that, but at the same time it's, it's a compliment. You're're like, holy shit, he's happy, we're happy. Okay, cool, one less thing to work on at a race. One last thing to adjust. This is great. So that was the idea of the SL, and then a bunch of development on the casting, and then that was a five or six-year project.
Dane:Yeah, oh, wow, yeah, it was not wow, yeah, it's so.
Ronnie Dillon:it was not unrecognized. We, we heard all the cries and there was just it was a slow process, cause you can do one thing and then the other, and then the other, and then the other and next thing, you know, you go from like a you know your number one sample or your first sample, to your 10th sample, and a mold is a lot of money and if you want to modify a mold I mean you're looking at you know 400 grand to play and if you mess that up, you're starting from square one.
Josh:Yeah, that's a huge investment. It is a huge investment.
Ronnie Dillon:They don't last forever, they wear out.
Josh:So, ronnie, I want to thank you like so much for your time today yeah, you broke out time and spent time with us. It's been awesome. I'm super excited to to get on the onyx and I've been really enjoying the jade it yeah it is uh turned a bike that I was going to get rid of into a bike that I'm going to keep in the rocky mountain altitude.
Josh:I'm a heavy rider, I'm a tall rider and so, uh, I was struggling, I was struggling with and and swapping out the X two for, uh, for that Jade is like, changed that whole bike for me. So you've saved me like you know, I don't know $8,000 on a new bike, so thank you for that.
Ronnie Dillon:That's a nice chunk of cash to save.
Josh:It is. That's a huge chunk of cash to shave. Um, what final thoughts do you have for our listeners? Man, Floor is yours. Anything you want to say to our listeners?
Ronnie Dillon:Dude, just take your time. Take your time when you're out there getting ready to make these massive changes to your suspension. If you're thinking of tuning something yourself or having someone tune it for you, just check them out. Pay attention locally to their reputation. Um, I run in, I'm running into a lot of guys right now that call me and they're like hey, dude, I had I had this shop over here work on stuff. And um, I want to, I want to send you photos because something, something is wrong, like terribly wrong, and I know some of these guys that that do the work. And, dude, it breaks my heart to have to call them and I'm like hey, dude, you better call me If you ever see anything.
Ronnie Dillon:I've never received any. Any complaints comments. Yes, I had a guy that came by. Um, I was telling you guys earlier that, um, my brother and I own a bike shop and, um, I had a guy that came in there and he just mentioned South mountain, yeah yeah. And I'm like, oh, that's cool, dude, I have a couple of buddies out there that have uh bike shops. And he was like, yeah, I used to work or, uh, hang out with uh, I think it was fish from cactus.
Ronnie Dillon:I'm like crazy Did I? I used, I'm like crazy dude I I used to.
Josh:I love that guy.
Ronnie Dillon:He wore this horrible red marzocchi bomber shirt everywhere, yeah, every, every inner bike. And I'm like, dude, change that shirt, dude, please. It's all nibbled up. He's like, nope, I'll wear it until it falls off. And then, um, I mentioned, I mentioned you yeah, like I know him. I was like, oh, that's, that's bitch. And he was like, how do you know him? I'm like, dude, I don't know bikes. Dude, let's, let's, he ride bikes. He, he used to race, um, he had that team, no brakes. He was like, dude, that shit's crazy. He's like that's the weirdest shit to walk into a shop. He, I guess he just moved into the area. Yeah, he was kind of scoping we have a bunch of old, vintage mountain bikes and he's he's trying to leave with this old ass foes and I'm like, dude, you could take that thing, please take that out of the shop, man.
Josh:But yeah, dude, just take down and hang it up in guru, right, yeah?
Dane:seriously, send it my way, I'll take it.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, I've got some monsters did I got? I got one of the one of the very first fat chances.
Dane:Yeah, I've got a wicked light and got, I got one of the one of the very first fat chances. Yeah, I've got a wicked light, and then we, we just got a second wicked light. So, but I want to do, you got, you got any. Any forks you can throw my way, I don't care what the insides look like, I just want to put them on the wall.
Ronnie Dillon:What do I have anymore? Did I, dude? I have some ridiculous I mean other than the neon sign that I Funny-ass story, dude, about that sign. I was leaving my last day, dude. I was emotional. That was a cool-ass job, it was a big part of my life, man, and they knew I was quitting but they didn't know where I was going. And I got interrogated two days before I left by one of the big guys at Marzocchi and I remember I had my phone, I was recording the conversation because I was like I'm gonna use this shit in court other people to hear this. And um, it was.
Ronnie Dillon:It was one of the one of the main guys of marzocchi, andrea parentoni, and I I can tell that he was bothered by what he was doing, but he had to. He had to stick to his shit, right, yeah? And it was like Ronnie, how, what is this? A company that Bryson is a making? And I was like, dude, I'm just going to tell you right now if, if Bryson is making another company, another suspension company, it's to shut this company down. And the faces they were like you know something and I'm like I don't know anything. I'm just I'm being honest with you. That's how it's going to happen. And then two days later I was at the dvo office um and they were showing me the ott and I was like, oh, hell, yeah, this, this is a really good start, like yeah yeah, very cool we're doing cool shit oh man
Josh:yeah, ronnie, thank you so much for your time, brother, really yeah, man, thank you guys it's been awesome.
Ronnie Dillon:Yeah, thank you for your time yeah, my, my pleasure man and I'll send you guys some photos of my my horrible vintage bike collection, bmx mostly. That is awesome that's awesome brother but yeah, you guys have a good night. Thank you for considering me for this and um, I don't know, I don't know how you guys work as far as uh people you want to use, oh for sure.
