"the world's first gravel fork"

[duff_duffy]

They can’t compare it to other gravel forks, theirs is the first

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.

[bicycletricycle]

Originally Posted by spoonrobot

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):

I didn’t make that argument. Although early short travel forks do feel surprisingly terrible compared to modern forks. I think the Marzocchi bomber was the first fork that kinda felt like a modern fork. Smooth, low stiction , etc

[bicycletricycle]

Good spot mark, weird there is no details on that system

Originally Posted by Mark McM

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



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:



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.

[robertbb]

Originally Posted by StressStrain

I look forward to other innovative world firsts like:

first spoked wheel
first pickleball paddle
first alcoholic seltzer
first avocado toast

You can't have avocado toast and this fork, unless you're a boomer.

[72gmc]

"It's the avocado toast of gravel forks"

[jbrainin]

Or perhaps the pineapple pizza?

[Old School]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

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

The lockout part of the air damper is hydraulic. Pretty impressive actually.

Originally Posted by BikeRumour

It’s a hydraulic lockout, with a small shim (center part, on the bottom) covering or opening ports for oil to flow through. That lets it blow off if you hit something really big while it’s locked out, but otherwise is very firm. The bladder is there to keep pressure on the oil to avoid cavitation.

[dddd]

As who knows how many of the marketing translations are getting delivered via AI, something like the detail description of the internal "cartridge" could so easily arrive to us in many different forms.

The progressivity of positive and negative air spring chambers can allow topping- and bottoming-bumpers to be done away with for yet lighter weight.

The weight of this C-C fork is an accomplishment considering it has to handle concentrated disc-braking loads down around one leg of the axle end of the fork. I think that the low weight and high price reflect both the design effort and the quality of materials used.

I put a very old and heavy, 1st-gen 700c Marzocchi air fork on a steel-framed Trek hybrid that wasn't made for suspension, and the fork's extremely short travel didn't cause the handling to suffer noticeably, only the bar height seemed to be slightly affected (for the better).

The short 1.25"(?) air-sprung suspension was a great improvement using 38mm tires on singletrak.

Like same-period Rockshox Mag21 forks, the Marzocchi fork came with high-quality boots/gaiters that prevented stanchion tube scratches and extended the maintenance interval.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by Old School

The lockout part of the air damper is hydraulic. Pretty impressive actually.

That's about 99% of what is needed for an oil damper, and would be over-kill if it didn't actually have oil damping. I suspect that it does indeed have oil damping of some kind. And maybe the reason that don't mention that is that one of the bullet points for this fork is low maintenance, and oil dampers have a reputation for needing maintenance..

[mickey.d]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

That's about 99% of what is needed for an oil damper, and would be over-kill if it didn't actually have oil damping. I suspect that it does indeed have oil damping of some kind. And maybe the reason that don't mention that is that one of the bullet points for this fork is low maintenance, and oil dampers have a reputation for needing maintenance..

The lockout is just a lockout- in the SL model the entire lockout assembly is gone.
You set the fork to 95% of your body weight in PSI- YOU are essentially the rebound damper.

[rice rocket]

Originally Posted by mickey.d

The lockout is just a lockout- in the SL model the entire lockout assembly is gone.
You set the fork to 95% of your body weight in PSI- YOU are essentially the rebound damper.

No, that's just undamped.

Dampers slow the rebound speed of the wheel, unless you're guiding the wheel up and down with your hand while riding, that ain't it.

Not sure who this is for exactly. A weight weenie that is riding not-rough enough terrain to be concerned about traction, but not weight weenie enough to go with a cheaper stem system? The net savings over Fox 32 Tapercast is 100g, you can bet that damper is worth every single gram.

[benb]

Price seems high for a 40mm fork with nothing but air spring preload.

I guess the idea is they think every gravel bike, rider, and route would be fine with the same damper settings?

Just hard to swallow that it would be more expensive than some MTB forks that are 3 or 4 way adjustable for damping/spring and have lockouts and/or adjustable travel.

[mickey.d]

Originally Posted by rice rocket

No, that's just undamped.

Dampers slow the rebound speed of the wheel, unless you're guiding the wheel up and down with your hand while riding, that ain't it.

Not sure who this is for exactly. A weight weenie that is riding not-rough enough terrain to be concerned about traction, but not weight weenie enough to go with a cheaper stem system? The net savings over Fox 32 Tapercast is 100g, you can bet that damper is worth every single gram.

I don’t have to bet the damper is worth 100 grams, because i’m a grown man, and I learned 30 years ago that 40mm of travel is not worth the hassle, for me.

Hear me out though, most of the “magic” in good suspension setups for something primitive like 40mm of travel is getting your spring rate right, and having your damping match the spring rate. Their is likely a little dimple on the shaft that seal head for the spring is mounted to. The metering of flow between the positive and negative chamber, when you have a the right spring force is pretty easy to control. You are looking at more than twice the air pressure as a fork with hydraulic damping.
A short travel drop bar bike by definition limits how much a rider can shift their weight around, fore/aft weight shifts are why we need mechanical low speed compression damping on our “fancy” forks that run less spring force.

Suspension and grip, ultimately are about balance. The marketing hyperbole that launched this thread isn’t too outlandish- even though this is a product space that the bike industry has been squatting in for mor than 30 years, most telescopic suspension product to date is a bit… overkill for riding around on dirt roads.

[benb]

I guess I misunderstood if it does have a damper.

For such small travel the air damper can probably work pretty well.

The damping is important IMO though when the fork travel is so close to the amount of compression the tire itself can have if this is going to end up on a gravel bike with a 40mm tire. The fork starts to need to provide the damping to dampen out the tire bouncing.

I had a shock that worked like this years ago. It was pretty finicky I guess, and the all air setup was pretty problematic from a reliability standpoint.

It does really seem like this is going to come down to how well it actually works, cause even at the relatively light weight it still seems like a big weight penalty compared to an all carbon rigid bike.

I had never really given much thought to why inverted forks haven't hit big in cycling, I don't know if it's really a cost thing since they've been so successful on motorcycles. And a lot of the motorycles that have them are fairly weight weenie in the grand scheme of motorsports. It's still just a big difference in weight as a priority versus suspension quality as a priority though.

The inverted fork reduces unsprung mass by a huge amount, which might help a lot in a case like this fork.

[rice rocket]

Originally Posted by benb

I guess I misunderstood if it does have a damper.

For such small travel the air damper can probably work pretty well.

The damping is important IMO though when the fork travel is so close to the amount of compression the tire itself can have if this is going to end up on a gravel bike with a 40mm tire. The fork starts to need to provide the damping to dampen out the tire bouncing.

I had a shock that worked like this years ago. It was pretty finicky I guess, and the all air setup was pretty problematic from a reliability standpoint.

There is no damper, there is no such thing as an air damper. I'm not sure where you all are getting this.