"the world's first gravel fork"

[C40_guy]

I have an Enve gravel fork on my LiteSpeed Watia gravel bike.

It's light, naturally damping, disk-ready and takes wide tires.

[spoonrobot]

They've shot themselves in the foot with the "no damper" sound byte. Their target market didn't know what that was but now they're confused about why it's missing because every MTB guy from the 90s says it sucks bc it doesn't have one.

[Old School]

That is definitely a damper on the right side, and it sure looks complicated enough to force the price up over $1000.

Originally Posted by spoonrobot

They've shot themselves in the foot with the "no damper" sound byte. Their target market didn't know what that was but now they're confused about why it's missing because every MTB guy from the 90s says it sucks bc it doesn't have one.

[bicycletricycle]

So, r u saying it has a damper or that forks actually don’t need dampers? I don’t understand

Originally Posted by spoonrobot

They've shot themselves in the foot with the "no damper" sound bite. Their target market didn't know what that was but now they're confused about why it's missing because every MTB guy from the 90s says it sucks bc it doesn't have one.

[unterhausen]

can someone please quote that picture again? I haven't seen it enough times.

[spoonrobot]

Originally Posted by bicycletricycle

So, r u saying it has a damper or that forks actually don’t need dampers? I don’t understand

Has air damper not oil damper, as noted earlier by mickey d. Once we get a service manual we’ll see what they decided to call it. I think this was a marketing mistake. Suspension forks don’t need an oil damper to function acceptably, Suntour has several air damper only forks that are indistinguishable from oil damper forks at the mid/low end. How well this works for the CC compared to other gravel forks is up for debate but if they said riders couldn’t tell the difference I find that compelling. I’d have a hard time believing they don’t already have the performance metrics for all the other gravel forks on the market to compare.

[bicycletricycle]

Originally Posted by spoonrobot

Has air damper not oil damper, as noted earlier by mickey d. Once we get a service manual we’ll see what they decided to call it. I think this was a marketing mistake. Suspension forks don’t need an oil damper to function acceptably, Suntour has several air damper only forks that are indistinguishable from oil damper forks at the mid/low end. How well this works for the CC compared to other gravel forks is up for debate but if they said riders couldn’t tell the difference I find that compelling. I’d have a hard time believing they don’t already have the performance metrics for all the other gravel forks on the market to compare.

The comment about air damping was just that cane creek knows how to do air damping not that this fork has it, perhaps it does, I’m not sure any of us know here.

Has anyone claimed forks need oil damping?

On a side note, has anyone gone to their website to see what they claim? Maybe this is easy to answer

Skimmed through website including downloadable pdf manual, saw no mention of damping

I have to ask, do you work for cane creek or something???

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by spoonrobot

Has air damper not oil damper, as noted earlier by mickey d. Once we get a service manual we’ll see what they decided to call it. I think this was a marketing mistake. Suspension forks don’t need an oil damper to function acceptably, Suntour has several air damper only forks that are indistinguishable from oil damper forks at the mid/low end. How well this works for the CC compared to other gravel forks is up for debate but if they said riders couldn’t tell the difference I find that compelling. I’d have a hard time believing they don’t already have the performance metrics for all the other gravel forks on the market to compare.

We don't have the cut-aways to show all the internal workings of the parts on the right side, but it's a pretty good bet that it is a damper. Adding to that is the lockout switch is on the same side, and the standard way to lock out a fork is to lock the damper ports shut.

I'll throw my guess here that the engineers said something like, "It's all done with air, there's no oil damper", and the ad copy writers assumed there was no damper at all.

[bicycletricycle]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

We don't have the cut-aways to show all the internal workings of the parts on the right side, but it's a pretty good bet that it is a damper. Adding to that is the lockout switch is on the same side, and the standard way to lock out a fork is to lock the damper ports shut.

I'll throw my guess here that the engineers said something like, "It's all done with air, there's no oil damper", and the ad copy writers assumed there was no damper at all.

It is a good guess, but nothing in the website or pdf manual? Just all seems strange to me either way

[prototoast]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

We don't have the cut-aways to show all the internal workings of the parts on the right side, but it's a pretty good bet that it is a damper. Adding to that is the lockout switch is on the same side, and the standard way to lock out a fork is to lock the damper ports shut.

I'll throw my guess here that the engineers said something like, "It's all done with air, there's no oil damper", and the ad copy writers assumed there was no damper at all.

From the Bikerumor write up https://bikerumor.com/cane-creek-inv...spension-fork/

The space above the piston is the negative air spring, and below it is the positive air spring. On the right side of the fork is the Climb Switch lockout mechanism, which I describe below. It’s not a damper, and here’s why:

Cane Creek tested prototypes with and without a compression/rebound damper inside and found that none of the test riders noticed any real difference in performance. If anything, the compression damping limited how responsive the fork could be because, with just 30-40mm of travel, a damping circuit barely has time to actuate, anyway.

Before you dismiss it, remember that this is a fork designed to be as light as possible, as simple as possible, and be completely focused on gravel racing and riding from a drop-bar rider’s perspective. Losing the damper lets it react better to the small stuff typically found on gravel roads and trails…and now no one needs to explain what a damper is to a roadie.

[bicycletricycle]

Originally Posted by prototoast

From the Bikerumor write up https://bikerumor.com/cane-creek-inv...spension-fork/

Confirmed? No damper then ?

[prototoast]

Originally Posted by bicycletricycle

Confirmed? No damper then ?

No damper. And the Bikerumor review (separate article) gets into more details about how it rides with no damper. https://bikerumor.com/cane-creek-invert-review/

[bicycletricycle]

Originally Posted by prototoast

No damper. And the Bikerumor review (separate article) gets into more details about how it rides with no damper. https://bikerumor.com/cane-creek-invert-review/

Not even an air damper? Surprising

[spoonrobot]

Originally Posted by bicycletricycle

The comment about air damping was just that cane creek knows how to do air damping not that this fork has it, perhaps it does, I’m not sure any of us know here.

Has anyone claimed forks need oil damping?

On a side note, has anyone gone to their website to see what they claim? Maybe this is easy to answer

Skimmed through website including downloadable pdf manual, saw no mention of damping

I have to ask, do you work for cane creek or something???

The argument is the lack of oil damper makes it junk because short travel forks in the 1990s weren't good (apparently). Looking at the disassembled view and the various schematics available for the AD systems and other systems without oil damping I think it's clear the damping is provided by the air spring system in addition to the seals/rings and surface treatments.

IMO "undamped" is incorrect terminology for this type of fork.

This blurb is not an explanation([] mine):

The space above the piston is the negative air spring, and below it is the positive air spring. On the right side of the fork is the Climb Switch lockout mechanism, which I describe below. It’s not a damper, and here’s why:

Cane Creek tested prototypes with and without a compression/rebound damper inside and found that none of the test riders noticed any real difference in performance. If anything, the [OIL] compression damping limited how responsive the fork could be because, with just 30-40mm of travel, a damping circuit barely has time to actuate, anyway.

[Mark McM]

On the marketting blurb web page, the only mention of damping is this:

No other adjustments are necessary. Through blind testing with a variety of riders, Cane Creek decided that complex and wide-ranging damper adjustments simply aren’t needed when considering the minimal travel and primary use case of realistic gravel riding. Invert is everything a rider needs, and nothing they don’t.

So, it doesn't explicitly say whether or not there is damping, just that it is not adjustable.


In regard to the lockout feature, it says this:

Invert CS comes with 40mm of fork travel and a Climb Switch, that when clicked, dramatically reduces the amount of fork movement for pedaling out of the saddle,

This implies that the lockout doesn't physically lock the sliders. However, if there was air damping, then the damping would occur as air passed through a valve between two air chambers. If the valve was locked shut (by the Climb Switch), then one (or both) of the chambers would act as a small volume air spring, limiting the amount of fork movement.

I think it is still possible that there is a (non-adjustable) air damper, and that the lockout switch locks the damping valve shut.