Mountain Cog
Mountain bike podcast that will make you laugh and learn. Featuring a wide range of passionate guests.
Mountain Cog
093 - Fox vs SRAM RockShox: Electronic Mountain Bike Suspension Systems Compared
This episode delivers an expert comparison of leading electronic suspension systems, featuring Mountain Cog host and suspension specialist Dane Higgins' detailed analysis of SRAM Rockshox Flight Attendant, Fox Live Valve, and Fox Live Valve Neo. The discussion examines how each system approaches terrain detection and suspension adjustment, with Flight Attendant's cross-country focus contrasting with Neo's gravity-oriented design. Installation requirements, compatibility considerations, and real-world performance characteristics are thoroughly explored.
Pricing and value propositions also take center stage, with systems ranging from $1,400 to $3,500 depending on configuration. The hosts provide valuable insights into how these systems benefit different riding styles and skill levels, from competitive racing to casual trail riding. Key technological features are explained, including wireless versus wired configurations, battery life expectations, and integration capabilities with other bike components. The episode concludes with practical recommendations for various rider profiles, helping listeners make informed decisions about electronic suspension upgrades
SRAM Rockshox Flight Attendant https://www.sram.com/en/rockshox/collections/flight-attendant
Fox Live Valve Neo
https://ridefox.com/pages/neo-technology
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this guy went to the doctor, okay, okay. And he told the doctor Doc, help me, I'm shrinking.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I feel like that sometimes, mainly when it's cold out. You know what the doc said, what?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:He said settle down, settle down, man.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:You just have to learn to be a little patient, oh my God, and I'm drinking a schmirnoff ice crisp citrus original I feel like you know this is gonna offend people, but that's kind of a girly drink, like I'm okay with my manhood, yeah, yeah, well, I have a diet pepsi, so I don't know what the heck I'm talking about yeah.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:No, it's not like a diet pepsi with lime oh yeah if it was that well, I, straight out of the can is more manly I could. I'm drinking straight out of the can is more manly.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I'm drinking straight out of the can too. Although it's a, it's a powder blue, baby blue. Can I do like that it has?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:citrus in it. I have some theories that if you drink a lot of citrus you'll be healthier is that true? I don't know. I went four years without having a cold punk rock. It's a lot of vitamin c yeah, that's what I think it was. Uh, latelyately, though, the cold has been on the rampage.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Jesus man, I got one right now, do you? Yeah, don't get too close. We hugged on Sunday, you might get it.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I hope not. There's a picture of us hugging. My whole family's been sick.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I know that's hilarious. Did you notice that our bellies pushed us apart?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yes, so true. It's like Weebles wobbling and they can't hug.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Oh, Jesus Christ. Did you like the music I picked? I didn't hear it. It was the Toy Story, you know. Like you got a friend in me. Anyways, all right, I shouldn't be singing, that's okay, all right. So this is a follow-on to episode 88, where we talked about whether or not the cost of electronic components was worth it. Yes, and we set off and we had a whole list of things to talk about. Got halfway done.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:We got halfway done. We could talk for many episodes about this, but just a brief recap. We went over shifting systems Recap. We went over shifting systems. So SRAM, di2, the old access, the new transmission. We weren't really talking about like Garmin's or anything like that. We're just kind of talking about the pros and cons of the shifting systems.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I think we talked about saddles as well, or?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:seat posts as well, droppers?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yep, yeah, we pontificated whether or not there was going to be electronicppers Yep, yeah. Uh, I pontificated if whether, whether or not there was going to be a electronic breaking.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yes, yeah, and I think we can both agreed. And then we got on big tangents about torques and I forgot what else. I was listening to to it and I was thinking this is. I actually enjoyed it because, uh, the torque conversations come up when we're training the guys all the time. Yeah, you know, because there's a lot of ideas about that that get misconceptions. I'd like to do a whole episode on misconceptions like oh yeah, we can do that.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:People think, yeah, let us know if you think that'd be an interesting topic. Yeah, so like uh, putting your weight back when you're riding your bike no, I'm trying to think of one. Oh man, like taking air out of your shock will make it totally plusher.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Well, oh, so close. Like low pressure tires have better traction, is that not true? That's not necessarily true.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Oh la uqba hudda kalam, I do not believe your words.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, so I believe that low traction or less air has better traction it has to do with as you're going around corners and the tire squirm.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So you have to have enough to have be supportive.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yep, yeah, right, so there's a balance between yeah, people ask me all the time about that and it's frustrating because I can't come up with the right answer because everybody's so different, and then how you ride is different and how much you weigh. Yeah, I was slapping a berm and I didn't have enough. It was, I was at the pump, the pump track, so it's a concrete berm, yeah, and I just went around it really hard and burped the tire and it was cause I had didn't have enough pressure and so that could have hurt my rim.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Luckily I had enough to not hurt my rim, but it you know, it almost blew the tire out.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:All right, so we probably need to just take a minute and explain. When I said burp the tire, what does that mean? What happens when that happens?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:That's when the usually on a tubeless, uh, the tire kind of D beads it, it gets pushed off of its bead seat and a little bit of air and sealant can kind of come out the side, Uh, and so, and sometimes the air pressure itself will pop it back on, and so you'll still be able to ride out, but you're not at a lower pressure.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So I burped a tire about a week ago in front of my house.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I burp after this Diet Pepsi every time I drink it so one thing we didn't get into was electronic suspension. Yes, and so I wrote up notes, that's how excited. I sat and did research. I got like numbers and things that I usually don't have and just kind of. You know, I use generalization. This one is a little bit more accurate well researched.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Disclaimer. Some of these uh, you know, facts may have changed because they've changed some of these systems. So, like, uh, we're going to talk about fox live valve. Is that fox neo? Is that the same? That's what what I was going to say is. So the older system is called just fox live valve, and that was around, still around. We have a bike in the shop right now with one, uh, really cool system, and then we'll talk about flight attendant and then we'll talk about fox neo which is the flight attendant is shrams, shram systems, yeah, and so I have them first on my notes, so we'll go through those.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:One thing I found out about flight attendant um, so flight attendant is basically a electronic brain that controls your suspension. So what does?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:that mean controls your suspension. It's got little servos on it.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Okay, so is it just opening and closing the valves. Yeah, In most cases it's a low-speed compression adjustment and it's opening and closing it, or sometimes putting it in a middle position, so like climb, trail, descend which SRram will be mad because that's a fox term, but I feel like we should probably back out a little bit before we dive into this and just give some context for our listeners.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I also want to establish that I think that these systems are garbage and that they're we don't need them, do you what? So? So, electronic suspension? I, because I'm in, what would we say? I'm like, I'm cheap, uh uh, home. I'm a neophyte, whatever.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Luddite, luddite, there you go A whole bunch of reasons why.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So I am not sold at all. So you're going to sell me today. But before we start talking about low speed, high speed, compression, rebound stuff let's go over what those things mean. So first of all, what is compression? Compression is usually some sort of oil management, as the oil is moving through the damper. Before you describe it in the shock, describe what does it mean to the rider You're pushing down.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So compression is when the fork is going down it's compressing so when you adjust compression, you're adjusting what it feels like and how fast it goes down. And then what's?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:rebound. Same thing, except opposite. It's how fast it comes back up. So the air spring is going to bring it up. If you don't have rebound, it's going to pop up really quick. If you have a lot of rebound, it's going to come up real slow, just like the door you know, your screen door, the little thing that shuts it. So it doesn't slam shut.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So compression is when the fork is going down.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Rebound is when the fork is coming back out or coming up, and then I hear high speed, low speed. So what's the difference between high speed and low speed, compression and rebound? Uh, this, this is a whole episode on itself. It's crazy. We can give them a okay 30 second. So the biggest thing that I tell people is compression. When people talk about high speed and low speed, it's really important to understand that it's the shaft of the compression damper, right how fast it's moving, not the rider's speed. So high speed doesn't mean you're doing 30 miles an hour and low speed doesn't mean you're doing one mile an hour. It's the suspension compression speed.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So I think of high speed as big drops and low speed as kind of small bump.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yes, that's perfect, and that's both on rebound and compression On some forks or suspension.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I'm saying that's perfect, yeah, and that's both on rebound and compression uh, on some forks uh, or suspension.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I'm saying the concepts are the same. Yeah, that, so they, they. You can separate if, if the manufacturer has separated those two adjustments, right, uh, so you can have a compression adjustment, uh, which means that you can change how fast it compresses and how slow it compresses, right. And then you can separate that and have it using valving and just ports and moving oil through the shock at different ways. You can separate it to where it is activated, at different speeds, and that's high-speed and low-speed separation. And so higher-end dampers will have a high-speed and low-speed separation and usually they're just, you know, you're compressing the fork and it is trying to adjust low speed in most cases, and then it's pushing past that and hitting high speed. If it's really fast, it's. Companies will do it different ways, but it's basically the gist, right.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So compression, pushing down, rebound coming back and high speed is is for small bump, I'm sorry. High, high speeds for big drops.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:It's high speed, shaft movement. And the reason that's important is because if you go into a rock garden fast actually, and you hit those square edge bumps fast, it'll move fast, it'll have a lot. It could activate the high speed circuit Got, circuit Got it. And then so like I like, low speed. For me is, you know, when you're in the bike shop and you're pushing down on the fork, that's what you're feeling.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:You're feeling low speed.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And if you were to crank the high speed, it usually is harder to detect.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Until you go, take a five-foot drop or something or hit a rock garden at 30 miles an hour.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And this is also why you know, lower end forks tend to just have a low speed compression adjustment and not separate them and because they don't feel that rider is ready yet to try and differentiate.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Right, like I have a grip two and I still don't know that I'm taking advantage of all of the features that that has, and I'm super happy with my grip damper.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:The amount of people that will buy a new damper from me and get a grip too and I don't think they actually know how to use it is pretty common. But you know, I don't discount the fact that somebody just wants the ability to learn and if you don't have the separation you can't figure it out Like that 3.1, you just put my Zeb.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I don't know what I'm doing with it, all right, so my zeb, yep, I don't know what I'm doing with it, all right, so I just wanted to set that baseline. First that I'm I'm a skeptic of this, so you can convince me that I'm wrong. And then also I just wanted to make sure our listeners kind of understand, because you're going to talk about low speed, high speed stuff, so they kind of know what it is you're talking about.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Well, a good baseline is that almost everything that we're going to talk about electronics is adjusting. Adjusting the compression, okay, and so the electronics are kind of taking over the job of you turning the knobs. Okay, and their job is to do it, but not.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:We've had electronic lockouts and remote lockouts for a long time where you can do it from the handlebar, um, but this is a new level where they put a brain somewhere on the bike, whether it's attached to the suspension or a separate on the bike, and then there's sensors that actually are sensing the ground as you ride it and this is different than like specialized had their brain system like a long time ago and that was a mechanical system yeah, that's a great I I didn't even think about that, but that's great something to touch on. So the specialized brain concept was actually developed by fox, believe it or not?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:okay, uh, for what's called a terologic fork, way back and I remember those yeah, I have a bunch of the cartridges still, so if you ever want to make a terologic?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I don't call uh, but uh, but they're, um, they use a weighted system and basically this brass weight was covering a hole where the oil could go through and it was on a spring and if the suspension moved a certain way, that brass uh weight would move away and unblock the port and allow the fork to move and then the spring would return it and then they would start tuning the spring on how fast it would come back so you could change how long it stayed open. It was a really cool concept. It really uh, uh. Honestly, it was really awesome, but it had some limitations and even specializes kind of going away from that, because I don't think.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I don't think even any of their 2024 bikes had the brain in it.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, I can't remember, I think, some of their race epics and stuff in the fork still cause I've de-brained them. So we take the brains out. No, you lobotomize them. Yeah, um, no joke, we call it that, uh, but we? Um, it was a cool concept, it's. It's got some limitations and the probably the biggest one is that because it's mechanical, it's not really thinking, so it's kind of dumb and you can fool it and usually it is hitting a bump before it reacts and it doesn't react as fast as the electronic system. So you would have kind of a harsher ride.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Okay, so that was the Fred Flintstone error, yep, the brain. And now we're in the Jetson error of electronics. So talk us through, like what these different things are, how much it costs all that stuff.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So a flight attendant is. The SRAM version came out.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I didn't know this but it's been in development for nine years. I had no idea. Uh, it's a long time. I thought you're telling me that shram like turned stuff over every 12. That's why I was.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:That was serious.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:That's why I was surprising so I do remember when it first came out it was really uh specific to the bike, uh, so like there was only like four or five brands that had it. Um, you couldn't get it on anything and but when flight attendant came out it was wireless and that's uh, you know we're skipping ahead cause that's first on my sheet. Uh, Fox live kind of came out a little sooner than flight attendant than flight attendant, but flight attendant, like SRAM, already had the wireless protocol so they could already make it wireless, which was a great.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So we'll fight a attendant work on, you know a typical like Lyric or Zeb, so yeah, yeah.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So when it first came out, they were really touchy about what it went on. It was on specific bikes, it was bikes. They tested it, it did, okay, but it didn't really take off because it wasn't really an aftermarket option, right. And then they changed it. They figured out they could add other sensors that are already on the bike and they could get them to talk to it and get more out of it and make it predictive, which is really nice, okay. And so they started integrating it in with their power meters, which now tells the flight attendant you know. So I should. I should tell you about what sensors it uses.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So these optical sensors like they're they looking at the trail ahead of you.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:No, God, that would be cool.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:That's the next gen.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, that would be awesome. It looked like those self-driving cars, or you have that big nodule on your head like on your helmet or something where all the rocks are and tune the air pressure and that's coming.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:We should probably be quiet and we should take this and patent this?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, for sure, but um so, no, they use. Usually they'll use accelerometers, uh, and position sensors, uh. I think the accelerometers are just basically their bump sensors, you know, and basically it will hit a bump and within fractions of a millisecond 14 milliseconds, I think, is what they were saying.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Jesus Christ.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, like really, really quick. It will send signals to the brain which will analyze what is coming in at and then it will change the suspense and settings. But they've also put the sensors on the front and the back of the bike and in the power meter on flight attendant, and that allows them to actually know pitch of the bike. So the power meter, like in the pedals, like power power meter, yeah, so you can get a couple different types of power meter on your bikes nowadays from SRAM. And when you hook the power meter to the bike and you hook up your flight attendant with your transmission drivetrain, which is wireless, you can link all of them and sync all of them together.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And now your suspension not only knows when it's hitting a bump, but it knows what angle you're at. It knows how much power you're putting and whether or not you're hard pedaling, is soft pedaling or coasting. It knows, uh, whether or not your um weight bias is different, uh power. There's one other one uh angle. So when I calibrate, when I calibrate my bike, I have to tilt it to tell it which side it's tilting, right, uh, so if it's going around a corner or what have you, and that way you know basically what, what's right and what's left.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Oh, interesting.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So they're crazy. It knows all this stuff and then you link it to your drive train and now knows what gear you're in. So so it knows what gear you're in From what I hear, this hasn't happened yet, but I believe they're trying to develop it so it actually knows what's going on with your dropper too. So then you'll know, it'll know if your seats up or down. And so now your your brain, they they call it adaptive, I believe, is the term and the adaptive system can now use all that info to adjust your suspension and kind of predict and learn how you ride and adjust the suspension accordingly.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Does it learn over time?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yes, and it remembers that stuff. Yeah, yeah.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Okay, and do you give it feedback like thumbs up and thumbs down?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:That I haven't seen yet. Okay, you can fine tune it. So it has a really nice app, right, and you can go into the app and you can fine tune it. You can change it through LEDs on the brain, which is usually the fork portion, and the brain will talk to the rear shock. But you can adjust it through LEDs and change compression settings so you can fine tune it. You can kind of make it biased to be more open or biased to be more closed.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So this is really just adjusting low and high speed compression yes, yeah, for the most part low speed.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Okay, um, I haven't. It's not really doing much on the uh high speed side it's really kind of one adjustment.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Um, so that would. I would say that's the biggest drawback. So, like I went through my pros and cons, so on flight attendant for instance, uh, I was trying to get costs for this stuff and it's kind of hard. Um, yeah, what is the cost? Cost is it's variable on how many things you add to it, but just the suspension, uh, with a power meter, is around two to three thousand depending on which suspension you're paying five hundred to a thousand,000 just for the power.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So yeah, $200 to $300 for some of them. Okay or a pedal sensor, not necessarily a power meter. So that's the other thing is with flight attendant, you can back it off to whatever level you want.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Right.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:The basics are you need the fork, the shock and a cadence sensor, which is usually put into the crank, to know that it's spinning sensor, which is usually put into the crank, to know that it's spinning. And interesting note, you know when I got mine. So SRAM got me a set to test out and I've been testing this. I had my carbon cranks on my altitude.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Which bike do you have this on? On my altitude, your altitude, okay, yeah.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So it's got a Zeb with flight attendant and a super deluxe ultimate on the rear. Okay, so, um, and one of the reasons I wanted you to get the buttercups is because the zeb has the buttercups and they are amazing.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:it's so awesome yeah, I love that um, and if you don't know what buttercups are, well, let's tell uh. Well, they are like, uh, engine mounts for your fork. I don't know how to explain it, but basically they're isolators that that are little rubber suspension that's built into the end of the damper rods, uh, that attach to your lowers so that your fork is kind of riding on engine mounts, so you get this little bit of suspension separate from the air spring.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:And what I would say, like in practice, like what I feel when I'm riding, is it kind of takes the edge off the small bumps.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And I think the perfect example.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I was doing a ride last week and I came out on a dirt road that was like washboard and I was hauling ass on this washboard road and usually it's like rattling my brain and it really took, I don't know, 50% or 75% of the fucking rattle out of it.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:They were just real small. Washboards yeah, vibration, it just gets rid of that. It was great. Washboards yeah, vibration, it just gets rid of that. It was great.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:That, that feedback, that road feedback.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:But these buttercups.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:These are. These are mechanical. This has nothing to do with electronic, but we're just talking about those in the in the RockShox fork.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So anyway the cost. So then I, I'm putting it on my altitude and I got the cadence sensor which goes in the crank. And I didn't buy new cranks. I have my Truvado descendant carbon cranks that I've had for five years, that I love on my bike, and I stuck them right in there, went and rode and I couldn't get it to work and the thing wouldn't work and I'm like playing with it. I'm, I'm doing, I'm pulling out the app, I'm doing everything and it just is not telling me. Dane's always playing with it. I'll tell you what usually I get results when I play with it. At this point I had to call in a friend to help me play with it, you started.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I did, I did Fair enough, fair enough.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So I did call a buddy and he's like, yeah, I don't know what's going on. He actually goes hey, I'll be in there next week. This is your friend from SRAM, from SR. Yeah and uh, we'll, we'll figure it out. And so he couldn't figure it out and we're trying to figure it out. He's trying to call tech support. We go on a ride. Um, what we figured out was my old cranks had the big hole that you stick the skating sensor in on one side, and the new dub cranks that it was designed for have the big hole on the other. And this thing's so sensitive it knows if you're going backwards or forwards. So I had it in backwards, oh funny. So we cranked the cranks backwards and the system came on and knew what was going on, and so we figured it out.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Uh, so did you put new cranks on yep, I actually switched out to some newer uh transmission cranks, so and that took care of it and this worked pretty much flawless, since, other than if I forget to charge a battery.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:How long does it last?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Uh, I, you know. They say, um, probably 24 hours nonstop. Uh, it's hard for me, because I'll let it sit in the garage for a week and I'll ride it once or twice, um, and then I'll forget how many times I've charged it. I can get four or five rides without even thinking about it. The cool thing is is when I forget to do it, it just stays open. So it's just a regular just like your regular fork, exactly.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:It's not like it. It doesn't stay locked where it like is unrideable, and so there's very low penalty. I don't get the automatic suspension. That's it, you know. And so, yep, um, so it's been pretty cool. Uh, I did put this. So we're talking to 38 millimeter zeb fork at 170 mils, travel right, and I'm super deluxe at 230 millimeter, eye to eye with I forgot 65, I think is my stroke. It's long, yeah. So 165 millimeter rear and 170 mil front enduro bike Right, and I go ride that system with my daughter on cross country trails and I can hear the suspension changing and you hear the little motors going. Uh, they make the little. They sound like the derailleurs. You know a little a little servos and um and it's just constantly adjusting.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:It'll go from open to trail to closed, uh, constantly. And it is really cool as I'm going up a hill, it knows I'm going up and it'll adjust for that, and then when I'm going down it'll open wide up and it's pretty noticeable and it's it's gotten to where I really kind of appreciate the sound, you know, of the motors yeah I've heard some people complain that there's a noise.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Um, for me it's like, oh my stuff, that I spent a lot of money on works, so I don't have a problem with that you get that validation that it's actually working but it's not loud and annoying, it's just no, no, you just hear it. You know working. You know I have a buddy who's got a silent hub and he absolutely loves a silent hub and he may not like this, you know and there's people that come in and they hear a little creak two or three times on their ride and it drives them insane.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:They may not like it you know I need my, my bike, to make noises so I can like drowned out the sound of me wheezing, yeah, trying to get up the hill.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:It's true, yeah, whether or not you hear it depends on your lung capacity, right?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:but uh, so it's two to three grand. Yeah, this does not include the cost of the fork.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:No, no, this is the fork and the rear shock and the cadence sensor.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Okay.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And then the reason it's two to three is because I don't think that includes the power meter.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Okay, so just for a comparative, if it's two to three grand, what would it be with? What would it be for a suspension system without this?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So if you buy a Zeb, ultimate it's around 1100 bucks and a Zeb super deluxe ultimate is around 600 bucks, right? So you're talking 1700, and then you can get this stuff from two to three grand.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So it's not it's not, it's not crazy, you, you know, it's not significantly more. Yeah, now that it's also two to three grand, because it may depend on which model you get. So I have another system that's going to go on one of my bikes. That's a lyric, you know, it's a different fork, and then lyrics of 36, 36, 35 millimeter, 35, yeah, long travel, and um, that one we're going to do a custom build on. So they, they make a Vivid Ultimate.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:That's the rear air shock. Yeah, Vivid Coil. Oh, it's a coil.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Well, they do make it, but they weren't available, and so I talked to SRAM and we're going to do a custom Super Deluxe Coil. So we're going to make this shock, so I'm going to use their flight attendant unit and install it on a standard super deluxe ultimate, and so we'll see how that goes.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Uh okay but it was fun because I got to call colorado springs and talk to double d it's ram and he's a super cool guy um, and kind of work through the details and kind of make sure before I buy all this stuff that it'll it'll bolt up, and so it's an experiment.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:We'll see how it goes weight wise. What am I adding to my bike when I add this electronic system?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Ah, that is a great one. So around 300 grams I think quarters of a pound. Yeah, Three quarters, and that would be again. The info was hard to determine what exactly that was, but that should be the pedal sensor and both brains and batteries on them. Cause they each, each thing has a battery. So that is one thing to know about flight attendant. You have a battery on the fork, and now you have a battery on the rear shock, and you have a battery in the cadence sensor. Jesus.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:That's a lot of batteries.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, so lots. And then of course you have batteries if you have your transmission, so you get batteries all over. If you've a a full, you're like five pounds of batteries on it, pretty much. Yeah, so, um. So a little bit more weight than I expected, but it's not not crazy. So, um, so the big other.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:The other thing is that since this stuff's wireless, it's it's aftermarket compatible, which means you can put it on. So I basically uh told tram I go here's theto-eye on the stroke that I need, and I was able to get a shock. And then I told them what type of fork and I was able to get that you can get a SID with this stuff on it and a short travel rear shock. You can get a lot of different versions available. Not everything is available, but for the most part you can fit it.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:It is not a bad idea to maybe just get some help from somebody who knows what they're doing, just because the brain system does stick out a little bit and you want to make sure it's going to clear, like on the rear, that it's not going to hit something. And on the fork it hangs off the back and it's aluminum, so it's pretty durable. But I've seen some bikes where they actually have bumpers. You know so, if that fork comes around, it hits. So you want to be careful that you're not just throwing it on something and ruining it so like for this system in particular.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:One of the things I've heard is that it's like more I guess more applicable for xe use than it is for trail or enduro downhill. Do you feel the same way?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:so, uh, two, two things that I noticed about it is because it only is affecting the low speed compression. I don't get to get the advantage of setting up two different scenarios for when I'm riding. So when I'm uh racing downhill bikes and I hit a rock garden at speed, I'm really looking at the high speed. Or if I'm doing a drop or a big jump where I may take a big fast impact on the fork, yeah I kind of want to set up for that, but my low speed is the chunder and keeping me stuck to the ground, and so, uh, low speed also can help me with brake jack. Or you know, if you put the brakes on um and the fork dives, your low speed can help you with that, and so I I like the ability to have those two separations, and it's kind of important to have that ability on at a race level.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And so the bigger hit bikes it's harder to justify. I know SRAM will probably get mad at me for saying that because it's top of the line stuff, but I think like on a downhill bike or an enduro race bike I would be. I don't know if I would be the juice is worth the squeeze.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, I don't know if it would be that worth it. Now, on the cross country race bikes, I think is 100% worth it. Yeah, flight attendant, on cross country, where that thing is controlling your suspension, you don't have to think about it while you're trying to put out 110 to to make it around as fast as possible. You're not trying to hit a lockout or forgetting to hit a lockout to unlock it. Um, it's basically keeping your bike as efficient as possible with the minimal to zero effort from the rider. I think that is by far a a cross-country application for it. The other application that I found out with my altitude that I was really impressed with is it gave my altitude two distinct personalities. I can go ride it on a cross-country trail with my daughter and it was super efficient, easy to ride. It made a big pillowy bike that I do huge, huge jumps on and it made it cross-country rideable and then I can either leave it wide open or I can set the bias to be open more often and I can go hit big trails.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So if I only owned one bike and I really had that really different type of ride, that two different opposing types of rides, right, it would be a good compromise and it would be cheaper than two bikes and if you had it on there and you want to go, do you know, enduro race or something like that, it still works great, you could just not run it. Yeah, you want it to turn it off.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:You can turn it off, but it still works great, um, and what it's going to do is just make you more efficient between on the uphill yeah, on the uphills in in your transfers, so, um so.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So you still set, you still set your rebound and your air pressure. Yep, the same way you would set your sag and all that stuff. Yeah, it's really just dorking with the low speed compression it's.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:It's really just a little monkey on there turning on and off for you and it's got us. It's a smart monkey, you know. It knows what it's doing okay, right now right on. So that's Flight Attendant. So here's my pros. You want to hear what I wrote.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, go for it Makes worse.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:pedaling bikes do better Offers. An automatic lockout for racing Can be used to make long travel bikes more versatile for XC applications or XC bikes faster.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So does it make a difference if the bike geometry is more linear or progressive in their suspension?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:kinematics you it? It uses the same uh shim stack, from what I understand as the standard stuff, so you can custom tune it if you need to. Okay, and which is cool. Uh, so then you can kind of address that. Now, if you have a bike, that's really just better with coil. You want to try and get the coil version right um, but air.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:you know they have air already. And then the can. The air can is still the same can, so you can put in volume spacers and tune it that way too, so it still has so much versatility of the standard ultimate.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:It doesn't take anything away from the suspension products Not really. It just adds a new feature.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, I would say just a little bit of the high speed, low speed, separation. That's about it. Can you still manually adjust your compression? If you wanted to? Um, you can press buttons, okay, and do it through the brain okay, but there's no, but there's no like tactile no, yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to, I'm trying to make sure that I'm correct on that. Yeah, because on fox live valve there still still is a manual adjustment.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Well, that's a good transition. Let's talk about Fox. Okay, oh, hang on. You didn't finish your pros and cons.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:My cons Still has a harsher. Feel Much better with buttercups. Cost is high. Charging batteries Not all configurations for all bikes and only integrates with SRAM e-bike. That's kind of a weird one because that's really more the transmission and stuff. I'm not 100% sure how flight attendant integrates with the SRAM. Oh yeah, I am Sorry. So I got one of these systems. That Lyric system I was talking about was for one of my e-bikes and then we found out after the fact that it does not talk to Bosch, which is what the e-bike I have.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Okay.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And so what Does it matter?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Well, because I wanted to use the power, so Instead of putting a power meter on the pedals, you wanted to get the power rating from the actual Bosch e-motor, from the Bosch e-motor and so it did not talk to it and because it's a Bosch motor, there's no space for that cadence sensor.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So there's no space for that cadence sensor. So I don't know if they have a way to fix that, but it basically killed that suspension for that bike and that that suspension is getting moved to a non e-bike. Now I know that they, that my rep didn't realize that when he told me about it and so he was surprised and they're still figuring that out and I think it's something they're working on, but again, that's tram trying to write software that then works with Bosch and then Bosch cooperating.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:That takes a lot more time than if you just had a SRAM e-bike motor. They wrote everything so they can make it work Right. So all right. So Fox live valve. So we're going to talk about the, the old Fox live valve. So this old fox live valve. So this is the. I I hate to say old, but there was two old versions there was a non-bluetooth and a bluetooth version. Okay, and then?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:um, was the non-bluetooth a wired version?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:well, they're both wired, oh yeah, so these are the old again. We're not going to talk about neo yet, which is the newest stuff. Um, this stuff came out, uh, because we're a pivot dealer. We saw it on pivot and I tested on pivot. God, lots of years ago.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I mean, it's been out for a while, like five years ago, or 10 years ago, or what do you think?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:at least probably five yeah okay, I remember it was on a 5.7, no, 5.5 pivot. I took it to north star and I wrote it and I tried to fool it, uh, so so the premise on this is it has a sensor on the fork. It has a solenoid, just like the flight attendant on the fork compression damper, and then the rear shock has a solenoid, and then it has a sensor on the rear wheel and then it has a sensor in the brain, which is usually mounted somewhere in the middle of the bike, and so it's got these sensors that allow that, allow for it again to know pitch, um, so it knows if you're going uphill or downhill and it's, it's more, um, it is more sensitive to the uphill and the downhill than I think flight attendant is. Uh, and we'll do a lot more depending on that. It'll change the settings of the front and the rear and it doesn't always do the same setting on both.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:And again, this is just a compression, just compression.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, yeah, you still set your sag up, you still have rebound adjustments. Fox live is a little different because they do have compression adjustable so you can manually adjust your compression or fine tune. It is what they say. Okay, so it's like fine tuning. Now here's the big difference. Um, so, flight attendant and I don't know if I mentioned this or made it clear, but flight attendant, when you're riding, it is defaulting open, uh, which means that it is squishy until it decides to shut. So as you point uphill and start pedaling hard, it goes. Oh, it's smooth enough, and they're going uphill and working at it, we're going to lock out, uh. So they learned their lesson from the old brain, from the old brain. Fox Live is the opposite.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:It's default closed.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Default closed, and when you hit an obstacle, the front sensor picks it up and within milliseconds changes the fork and the rear shock settings and then has a certain time that it allows for that to stay open before it shuts again.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:As long as it's not feeling any additional bumps. So if you're going through a rock art that clock is constantly resetting.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, and on the brains of these you can adjust the sensitivity. Usually they have about five different levels. And the newer Fox Live Wire, you can do Bluetooth and they have an app. So I think you can do even more fine tuning with that okay the bikes that we sold at pivot. They didn't have the bluetooth brains on them, so we didn't get to play with that too much didn't play with the app too much um, but the um.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:We already established that you like to play with it I do like to play with it.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Sometimes I need help, so, but uh, so the, uh, the, the uh fox live system is wired, and that's probably, I would say, the number one drawback to it are they still selling the fox live system?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:why not? Really they, okay. So I I will tell you that I've talked to fox live about this stuff and they they consider this like a, their baby, their pride and joy, and they still support it and they still feel like it is the best thing in the world and anybody who has this. They want to take care of them like gold. So that's the attitude I get from Fox Anytime I have a question on live valve.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So they've made that really clear. So if you do have a Fox live valve wired, you're not getting left out in the cold. So this system was around $2,000 upgrade on bikes for pivots and if you bought it, around $3,000 to $3,500, depending Again, depending on what level of suspension how much it costs.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:And does it work? Did it work or will it work on a Fox 36, fox Float Rear? I mean?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:is there a specific, so you would usually put it on, it would usually come it on, it would usually come with the fork, okay, uh, so, and again, not really an aftermarket so that three thousand to thirty five hundred dollars includes the fork and the shock itself. It's not just the yeah, the electronics I wanted to put prices that kind of had the forks to the full thing. Okay, yeah, gotcha um, now, like the upcharge uh that pivot was doing, you were already getting Fox factory, so it was $2,000 extra.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So we're talking about? We said it was $2,000 to $3,000 for the live valve.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I'm sorry for the flight attendant.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, and that was compared to like $1,700 for like an all-acoustic.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:What's the?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:comparable. What's the non-electronic cost for a fox factory setup?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:so it would be around 1500 to 1700, so roughly the same price. Yeah, yeah, but but more expensive?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:yep, the fox product more expensive than flight attendant?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:yeah, it is uh, and it had more to it. It had a brain. So here's the big thing isant, even though it came out originally just with a few brands I think there was four they are now figured out that it will adapt and it can go on most bikes. There's a caveat that not every bike, but it can go on most bikes Fox Live. You need internal routing and special mounts to have that. So you need to have a certain mount in the back of the bike where you can run wires, uh, to the back for the rear sensor, and then you need a place to put the brain, a mount for that, and different companies do that in different ways and then you need wiring ports so that the wires can get from the brain out to the suspension. So you can't really do it after market unless the bike is already piped for it okay, and so that is a big drawback and I think fox knew that. But I saw fox live on a lot more bikes than I saw.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Flight attendant okay, so um, now, that could, because we sold pivot and they, they did them and rocky mountain did them. But, um, you know, giant uh did flight attendant and I, I think I've seen like three in the wild. Right you know All right. So Fox live adjustments, external adjustments, shop serviceable, serviceable which is important to me, and flight attendant shop serviceable or no?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yes, for the most part. So when I say serviceable, that means we can usually rebuild the dampers, air systems, all the normal stuff. If your motor isn't working correctly, um, then that's a warranty product, that's a warranty or a new part or something. So um the uh interesting. It said that fox live valve only added around 150 grams okay to a traditional double cable lockout system, which means a remote cable system. Ah, so so maybe probably the same.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, it's probably close, because that's about 150 grams between all the cables, housing and the lever.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So, yeah, so about the same weight yeah, they were comparing it on a scott bike which has got that big old honking mess yeah.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So, um, there's no pedal sensor, so that it did not use data from your cranks or power or anything like that. Um, and you do have to calibrate both of these systems, which means they have to know which way is up. So with fox, you cut, you calibrated by putting it on a level ground and letting it know what level is, and with rock shock, you tilt it. Uh, level ground and tilt it so that it knows which way uh drives. I think it's drive side, I can't remember. So, um, let's see. So low speed adjustments.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So same same there yep, um, and then I would say the fox live was a little quicker. Uh, so the suspension was, the reaction was quicker, reaction was a little faster. So it's difficult because you have two generations of flight attendant the initial generation, which really didn't take off right, and the engineers, I think, had to go through and kind of reprogram and kind of fine-tune right, and then you have the fox live generation, which was pretty much it, and the only thing that changed for the most part was bluetooth to allow you to use an app. And is that neo? No, no, that's, we're still talking about wired. Okay, so, um, so, but the general consensus from our customers and people I've talked to and myself, is that the fox live system was a little faster to react. Okay, so, and it was pretty instantaneous, you know, even though it is using a sensor on the fork and feeling the the wheel move up before it unlocks.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:It was so fast that it was just could you hear it as well, the same way you could hear it makes a little clicking noise not as noticeable as the flight attendant while you're riding, but uh, but it does make a clicking noise.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:there's a cool video I saw where these guys are like kind of just holding it in the air and then they tilt the bike down like downhill and you can hear it click. And then you tilt it up and then you can hear it click and then they shake it and here here's, both of them click. So it was kind of cool because you can actually hear them, uh, working. So, uh, let's see my notes on the Fox. Live wired is, uh, is, it knows the pitch, front and back, which is great. Front and rear sensors, which was a little more accurate.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:You can adjust the suspension without bumps. I don't know what, oh, the sensors to adjust the suspension without bumps. So what it does is, you know, normally, like on the old brain shocks is you had to hit something to activate it and then it had to delay open. Fox is a little similar to that, except it also uses the pitch of the bike. So if you're going uphill it's going to bias towards closed and, as you point, downhill. The other thing is it has accelerometers in it so it knows when you're free-falling, and I tested that at Northstar. I went and did the drop zone at Northstar and did all the drops and every single one, even the big one which had me hanging in the air quite a while. Still it was open when I hit the ground. Oh wow, so I could not fool it, that's good.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:That would have been bad if you had hit the ground and it had been closed.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, well, it would have been for the shock and probably my wrists and ankles, but yeah, I was pretty impressed because I actively tried to fool it and I couldn't. Right Now, something to note on Fox Live is that Fox pretty much sets it up at the factory and they usually work with the OEM to do that. And they usually work with the OEM to do that. And one of the things that I would tell you is that Fox live would normally always be considered a cross country race setup.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Okay.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Until Pivot started putting it on their Firebirds. Which is their like a big enduro, big, you know big enduro bike. Yeah, mini downhill bike, it's a big, big travel bike, and so it's a bike.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:It's like Mini downhill bike. Uh, it's a big, big travel bike and so it's a bike. It's it's like a downhill bike with a with a single crown. Yep, yeah and uh, I, I wrote it. And what pivot did was they worked close with Fox. They tuned the um, the Fox live to not have a really a closed circuit. What they had was they explained it to me. It's kind of like when it's closed, it's not closed, it's basically like a standard suspension and then when it opens, it's like super plush.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Okay.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And so what it was doing was giving you the same ride quality as a normal switch or, sorry, a Firebird. But when you pointed it downhill and it knew you're hitting stuff, it opened up and made pillow mode Okay. So their efficient pedaling platform was great and it stayed that way, yep, and it was so good that they didn't need to lock out the suspension. What they really did was use it in the opposite way, which was to make the suspension even softer Right, which was crazy. It kind of blew my mind.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Okay, that makes sense. So they basically changed the baseline of the starting point Exactly, yeah.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And that is.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Because the Firebird itself, basically all pivot bikes are like, so efficient to pedal Yep.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, it didn't you didn't need the closed circuit.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, you didn't need it to be biased to closed.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:No, and if that could foreshadow the future, I would tell collaboration. I think fox learns just as much when they collaborate with bike companies as the bike companies do. Absolutely, I think that kind of taught them something too, because that really made that bike it. It, just it. It made sense. You know, it wasn't like hey, let's stick this stuff on and try and sell some wires, it was like hey, let's, how can we make this bike better? And making it an automatic lockout didn't make any sense, right. So not on a firebird, and I was really impressed because that was really a good application of that. I rode, um, not to dog, uh shram, but I rode the rock shock, uh flight attendant on some of the early stuff on some giant bikes and giant in my opinion, keep in mind people will argue me are not very efficient peddlers.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Their maestro system isn't as efficient as what I'm used to and so and I was really disappointed because the bike just it just kind of had like a Jekyll and Hyde personality.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Have you ridden a recent Giant?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:That was probably three years ago.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, you got to try one of the new ones. They've put a lot of work into it.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I don't know man, this was one of the new ones. They've put a lot of work into it. I don't know man, this was one of the new ones, but I'm not going to dog on them too much, because what happens is you get a taste for a style, right, and then you kind of like that style. And then when you have something different, which could be better or worse, it doesn't matter, it's just different, and you just notice the difference.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:You know how you you can feel like you're on a bike versus in a bike yeah yeah, on the giants I always feel like I'm on the bike on top and every other bike I have I feel like I'm in the bike yeah, that makes sense. But like yeah, now, which do you prefer? Prefer in the bike?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:yeah, me too, yeah yeah, I, I don't want to feel tippy, so yeah, um, but you know people love giant. They do a great job, they're a great company. I don't want to dog on them, I just I'm used to a certain type of pedal platform and when you switch it's shocking. So so, um, back to Fox live. Uh, my pros were the pitch. The you can fine tune, which is great. Longer battery life, although you had wires. And then, of course, the comms are the cost. Obviously, uh, need a bike built for it, so you can't just put it on anything. And the wiring harness is a nightmare.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I've had to swap out a few and they are time consuming, it's it's bad, because you've got to wire this thing all the way internally routed, internally routed all over the place, with these random ports, and most companies, I think, do a good job, but I could see you know some companies that don't keep their QC as high as some of the ones we deal with having a nightmare of it. But even the ones that we've dealt with were pretty hard. Okay. So now we come to more current Fox, fox, neo.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:When did Neo come out, like last year?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, it just came out, I mean last year, in 2024, I guess. So yeah but it feels like six months.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Okay.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So maybe less. So cost on NIO is about $1,400, and you have to buy everything modular. Now here's the crazy part of Fox NIO it is just a rear shock, that's it. So you get two sensors, one for the front and one for the rear, and you get a rear shock and then you get a charger and that's it. So there's nothing on the fork. There's nothing on the fork. Okay, and they do make a coil. Most of them are built off of either a coil DHX format or a float X format. I guess some of the commenters were upset that they weren't on X twos and stuff and it had to do with how the valving works and twin tubes and getting the electronics to fit on them. So I have no doubt that they'll get there, they'll come out with other things, but they didn't want to redesign the shock.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:They were able to put this Neo on existing. You know um with existing. You know um with with minimal redesign. So, um, they've been testing it for a while. We've been seeing stuff on on world cup pits and stuff and spy photos for a while. I Niko Malili.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, god, I can never remember how to pronounce his last name. Um, he's, he's been testing it for a while, so, and uh, he's liking it too, so, uh, it's really cool. Here's the big thing is uh, you know, right now we've got flight attendant out there and I would say, if I was going to ride a cross-country bike and I wanted that thing to be the most efficient race weapon that I could have, flight attendant is the right choice.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:You want that More than the old Fox Live.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, and it's also a great choice if you want a big hit, if you want one bike and you want to have two completely different personalities you know.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I think it can really help you with that, and it's cheaper than two bikes. So, um, so, flight attendants done a good job of covering, but I don't think you're going to see flight attendant floating on the downhill bikes or the super enduros. I will see, you know. You know, um, the thing that I always have to remember about sponsored racers is that they're paid, you know, and so they use what the companies give them.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, you know, if you watch the private ears you know the guys that have to buy their own stuff. That'll give you a little bit better idea of what is good stuff. Yeah.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Cause they're only going to buy the stuff that works the best.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yes, exactly um. So neo is really um, gravity focused. Uh, so fox really doesn't feel like they need to do anything with the fork. They want that fork to move, they want it to move over stuff and it's not necessarily um built for somebody who's going to stand and sprint and doesn't want the front to dive like a cross-. Racer. It's really trail orientated or downhill orientated and you're not really wanting that fork to have any interruption. You don't want to have that low speed only option. You want a high speed and low speed separation for your compression. So it allows you to run your fork as a normal fork. But they put the sensor right on the brake because they want that sensor to to be. These sensors have their own coin batteries in them and they're wireless. So which is all obviously that, if I didn't say that before, the new neo is wireless. So no more wires fits on almost anything as long as the shock's being made for it, and I don't see any reason why they couldn't pretty much fit everything out there. That's current.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Okay.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So if you've got like an old, like you know, non-metric rear shock on a bike that can't take anything else, you may be out of luck. But everything current they're making it for on the bigger hit side, I don't think there's any short, short ones.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Okay.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And then wireless sensors on the front brake and the rear brake and they will know where Like where, on the front brake and the rear brake, and they will know where, like where on the brake?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Are they on the piston or on the?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:motors. You mount it right under the brake bolt so it's got like this little wing that kind of sticks out and it's tucked enough to where it's not going to get just sheared off with every ride. But it's kind of under the brake so it doesn't interrupt your braking. It doesn't interrupt your braking, it doesn't interrupt your brake setup, you don't have to re-space anything, it just goes on under the bolt like a think, like a flat washer with a little like an l bracket and it's got a little sensor so and uh.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So that sensor is down there at the unsprung weight, uh, at the wheel, at the axle you're gonna have to explain unsprung weight for our listeners. So, uh, unsprung weight is or unsprung position is, is one that's just moving at the same undulation with the trail.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:It's not impacted by the body weight. Well, yeah, Cause sprung is like when I sit on my bike everything that's getting impacted by my body weight is sprung and everything that's not is unsprung.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Well, sprung weight is being affected by the suspension. Unsprung isn't, and so the unsprung weight is literally taking every jar and every movement. The ground gives you Gotcha, whereas your handlebars aren't. So you can't put the sensor on your handlebars or on the front of the bike or anything like that. It's gotta be on the uh, it's gotta be on the ground. So it's sensing the ground as much as possible.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Right so so one on the front, one on the back, um, that helps it know. You know what pitch you're at, Uh, and you know it's. It's first indition is aftermarket, so they weren't like a OE spec, but you can get it on a lot of OE bikes. Uh, I know Pivot's offering it on a lot of their bikes. It's 20-ish hours on the rear shock, battery life, battery life and it's rechargeable. And then there's coin batteries in the sensors on the wheels in there longer.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So, let's see, it does need an app to work, which means to set it up and to deal with it. You need the app. You can do some cool things with the app, like you can change the, uh, the, I guess, the, the, the colors and the leds that come on, uh, to turn them on or off or dim them, so that you don't use extra battery power. So if you're doing a long weekend or something like that, you don't, you don't run out of battery, yep. So, um, let's see, it's definitely more trail orientated and downhill and the default is closed. Uh, so it's not pedal power, god I, I feel like that's wrong, but I think that's right. Uh, so the default is closed and then it opens up when the front fork hits something.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I mean that would make sense because that's what their live valve was right. So continuing that kind of same concept.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:The difference is that even on their old live valve, the front fork, even if it was locked out, had enough give to where you could. You didn't feel like super rough Right, but the rear shock was always open way before the bump got to the tire. That's how fast the system moved, and so, in other words, by the time the sensor in the front has sensed the bump, the rear shock will already be open, which is impacting the back of the bike yep, exactly yeah and so um.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So the default is closed and but it knows pitch and impact. So and then it's not pedal, uh bias. So it doesn't know how much power you're putting down or how much you're pedaling. So again, trail and downhill makes sense. It's really not worried if you're coasting or if you're soft pedaling or sprinting through a section, it's not doing that, it's really sensing the trail only. So so a cool system. I think you know, because I'm a gravity guy, I like that one better because it makes more sense for me. However, I gotta tell you the flight attendant is really surprising me on how versatile it's, making a big travel bike, right, you know. And and then we've got a couple customers out on the mach 4 sls with Flight Attendant, and these are power meter-equipped bikes with the full transmission drivetrain and they're metric. People they love numbers and they're getting all of this data?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So that was going to be my question Like are these systems collecting telemetry data as well?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:They are. I'm not sure how much they get, but the app, how much the system shows you, yeah, like how much it really kind of translates to you. Uh, I don't even know, honestly, all of the different applications, but tram is keeps updating them to where, how, how often they can basically connect more info to it. You know, like I said, they're working on a new dropper that I think is going to come out at some point and I think they're trying to make the dropper talk to the live valve system. Sorry, flight attendant man, somebody's going to smack me.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:We're confused. We've confused the fuck out of our listeners. I think well, if they're not asleep by now after all this, yeah they're, they're like so SRAM is flight attendant best for cross country, unless you want a bike with two personalities. Yeah, and this new NIO is like, if you're gravity oriented and trail oriented and trail oriented.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And I think that the NIO would really help. I think there's going to be. This happened when the brain kind of came out. The specialized kind of got really lazy on pedal efficiency and they relied on the brain to make the bike, I mean.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:the kinematics of the suspension design sucked at that point too.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So they were, they were overcoming the shitty frame design Theirs versus some other four bars was definitely on the lazy side. They were using the brain to give them the the uh pedaling efficiency the pedaling efficiency and then letting the bike be super active which which is a selling, selling feature. If you're a marketing company, right, you're like ours, are super active, but the brain stops it so that you get really efficient. You know, but really their suspension design was bad and so the brain had to be on the bike you know Otherwise it would just feel like you're riding through sand all the time.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I think this NEO system is going to do the same thing. It's going to allow maybe some of these high pivot bikes, you know, or high pivot idler bikes that really have this super plush suspension design that can really just gobble up the terrain, but have been trying to figure out how to make the idler do all the work as far as pedal efficiency.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I think it's going to allow those bikes to be even more efficient you know, and it may distract from some of the bikes that have really good pedal efficiency. Uh, designs, so like if you have a DW link or a bike that's been really been refined to be a pedaling bike, something that can you know. Uh, again, we're a pivot dealer so I'll use those bikes. But like a switchblade is super efficient peddler, but it's 160 mil and 145 or whatever it is, and it's.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:it can gobble up some good trail and do some light Enduro and and it's a you can even use it at the bike park. That bike doesn't need Fox Neo. So you know, could you have a less expensive design that that performs just as well if you put Neo on it?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Interesting, so so late. You can make up for for past sins. Yeah, Another part of the system.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So there's this thing that Fox did a long time ago called pro pedal. That was put on the rear shock.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:You remember pro pedal, fuck yeah.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And man, we sold Santa Cruz at the time and Santa Cruz their VPP, well known before that. Uh, so like their old super light that was?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:that was like a.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:It was a single, single, single pivot high, high, orange, yeah, and if you had a super light and you wanted it plush, you just had to get ready for that thing and inchworming down the trail like crazy Cause every time you peddled, pedaled, it would kind of bob, yeah, and it was awful. And so we would tell all the people on on super lights, just just crank up that air pressure, make it as as stiff as possible, and just it'll take the edge off. But it's a race bike, you know, you don't, you don't want a lot of suspension. Pro pedal come out, came out and it basically calmed the shock down and it was awesome and it really kind of compensated for a lot of bad designs. I wonder if the opposite is going to happen now, where bad designs are going to come out oh no, because the suspension is so good.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, oh man so I don't know, that's my, my theory, so um.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So that's all of the electronics all right, okay, so so is it worth the money? I mean in general. So so let's, let's talk about different use cases. So I'm a let's, let's, let's talk about different use cases. So I'm a let's, let's, let's go through like different types of riders. So, I'm like a once a year cross country racer.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Is it worth?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:it no, I'm a two times a month cross country race. Yes, absolutely.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:If you're racing cross country and you're serious and you know I'm I'm saying this with my daughter, you know doing Nika. So you know I got to say that there's going to be some, you know, caveats to this. But if you're trying to be the fastest racer out there and I feel like flight attendant is the way to go, is the way to go.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:It really is.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And you also said I'm the guy that I want a big hit bike, but I also got to ride with my kids or with my friend josh that likes to ride cross country trails you're like like in our area where you have this big mountain where you can go do really big, nasty stuff, or you're on honeybee or the flattest, yeah, the vortex, yeah, the super smooth trails, and you don't want to buy two bikes and you really want it to optimize on both.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I would say that's cheaper than two bikes, that's cheaper than two bikes, yeah, and then, uh, okay, so let's go to the, let's go to the neo. So you are a and and I can let me. Let me make sure I got this right with the neo, I can put it on any bike yeah okay, so I'm a neo and it was interesting because I was like, huh, I'm sitting here thinking lacy's, my wife's birthday's in may, she's got a switchblade but you just said, a switchblade doesn't need it.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So so so the more efficient the bike, the less. I feel like neo will make that big a difference okay so if your bike is is super saggy and just plush as hell and you love it because you hit something big and it just feels like a pillow and you don't want to give that up, but you want to race some enduros and you don't want to suffer every single time you have to pedal that thing.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Fox Fox Neo is awesome.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:You're going to love it, yeah, so, specifically if you have a bike that doesn't have the best pedaling efficiency, this will help get you more pedaling efficiency, but also give you the squish, and that's where the value comes in.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Could you put Fox Neo on the most efficient bike like they sees comes in. Could you put fox neo on the most efficient bike like they sees and would it be kick-ass? Absolutely it would, but the most efficient or the most value you're going to get, the most difference it's going to make, yeah, is if the bike so put it on an orange yes, like that serious, yeah, yeah yeah, a bike that's really kind of needs the shock to do a lot of the managing of the suspension right okay and so yeah, so value.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So like I don't want people to be like, oh, I don't need Fox Neo on a pivot, they come on pivots. You can get them on pivots If you want the best suspension and the most most efficiency you can get. And Lacey may still be a candidate because with her racing, because every little bit, that that thing, every couple seconds, helps Exactly. But if you're just going to a bike park a couple times a year, I don't feel like it's a great value. If you got oodles of money and you're driving the Porsche or whatever and money's not really the blockade, then you're going to enjoy it and you're going to love it. But if you have to pick between your, you know, your bike, getting something and feeding the kids, that's a tough choice.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Don't, don't do it, you know they eat a lot, you know, maybe it's not feed as much, so that was the wrong button All right man Well hey so so now tell me this out of it. So you know, we talked about buttercups and we talked about rock shock. If you wanted to do more, vortex on your bigger bike now, yeah, and it's a setup in the the.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I have the gorilla gravity set up in a smash configuration, so it's a one 50 front, one 45 back. Yeah, um, fox factory, uh, air shock in the back and, um, I can take that on cross country rides and outside of the size of the tires. Yeah, it pedals fucking amazing.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:What if it was better? Do you think you'd ride your Specialized as much? Yeah, you still would.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, because my Specialized weighs like 25 pounds or something or 26 pounds. And that thing weighs like 34, 35 pounds.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Now what if you could only have one of those bikes?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:If I had to get rid of all of my, if I had to get rid of every bike, I would keep the Smash and I would put the Neo on it. I think, based on what you just said.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:That's kind of how I feel Like if a lot of our customers that come in here can't have multiple bikes, you know, I mean it's crazy to me.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Whether it's money or space, right.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, money, space or commitment to the sport. You know, sometimes they're just new and like just getting one of these bikes is enough.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Well, yeah, because it's super expensive.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:But yeah, I feel like for me. I bought one of the flight attendant systems because I really liked the one that I got from.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Tram, and you're the suspension guru, so you pretty much have to.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And I found a use for it. So I'm kind of stoked to use it in that use and maybe get rid of one of my bikes. I may be taking two of the bikes that I normally have yeah, I know bullshit, I know it's true you'll just put this on more bikes, yeah I'll just get a different type of bike pretty soon you'll see me on a fixie gear blowing up my knees more so but uh, well, that's awesome man.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I've heard a lot about flight attendant. I've heard a lot about the fox, the fox live valve, and I've heard recently about the neo. I really didn't know what was going on. I have a really good understanding of it now and whether there's a use case for me. The the pricing scares me, but yeah, we have established that I'm cheap ass, so that's part of it and but um I can definitely see you know where this would benefit a good portion of the riding community yeah, it's, it's.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:It's tough to sometimes spend the money, but uh, you know I I think when you get really into something it's not that hard you know, and I think you know, if you're really into guitars, you're going to spend way more than I would.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I know.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And if you're really into cameras, you're going to sell some of those guitars and buy more bikes. You don't need to get rid of hobbies. I'm the only one that did that.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I got too many hobbies, man, that's for sure. Well, hey, man, I really appreciate you taking through the research here. The suspension guru, you guys, if you really have questions, you can hit us up and we can. I'm sure Dane would be happy to answer any questions that you have. Yeah, man, you got any final thoughts for our listeners?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I think that's it. Man, Just have fun out there.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Okay, nate, we love you guys. Take care, all right, thank you.
