GT idrive, Giant Reign, Commencal super 4, I have owned and loved every one of them over the years.

One more thing to bat on about. I read about the physics of suspension, but very rarely read about the physical attributes of the rider and their effect on different suspension and reckon this would be a better discussion.

Stepping off the dirt for a moment and looking at a roadie – road bikes are generally stiff at least to a degree at high level that would be negligable between companies, uet contador ‘dances’ up a hill where others ‘grind’ or ‘stomp’ but they often are split by seconds after 6 hours racing.

Its not ‘horses for course”s its horses for riders’ when talking MTB, a bike shop owner once told me – I have since bought 2 x MTBs and a roadie from him as well as everything I have needed since even down to water bottle holders.

this shop also takes their full fleet out from time to time for a half day demo, sets it up for you and lets you go at it no prejudice.

Try it and all this discussion about suspension designs becomes irrelevant.

Shocks with lock-outs seek to stop nuances in other linkage designs, but they are silly as they contradict the very reason we suspension back there and the same goes for platforms. Rider induced bob cannot be stopped with any linkage design, but that is why Specialized’s brain is so brilliant.

Single pivot designs have so many flaws. Pedaling forces and braking forces interrupt the suspension action and many have whacky curves in their travel = less performance (so why are the athertons so quick on the ciruit?? because they’re freaky).

vpp, dw link etc are complicated single pivots essentially and so they often suffer from the same problems as single pivots.

with the horst link, fsr is fully active all the time with out the rider input (pedalling, braking) disrupting its job.

that is all.

The new Santa Cruz APP design and VPP is outlined here:
http://www.santacruzbikes.com/nickel/

Here’s the best resource I’ve seen though:

http://www.ellsworthbikes.com/tech/

Hope that helps!

We must consider that a “neutral” suspension linkage only removes the most ostensible inefficiencies of bicycle suspension dynamics. There are many more it cannot cope with.

The horst link is a great suspension design. But, I will go as far as saying it is antiquated. Not because of what it does. It is, in fact, perfectly neutral. It is antiquated because of what it cannot do. A horst link is nothing more than a single pivot suspension design with a patented neutral link. It was the best previously, but it’s downfall is in it’s former strength; that it is neutral.

As modern kinematics have illustrated adeptly, there is no way to dial out many unwanted physical effects on bicycle suspension, mass transfer, squat, gravity, and changes in angle of a climb or descent.

Dual link designs have the POTENTIAL to mitigate these physical factors. I agree on the most repeated point that Jason made, some of the bikes that ride the best are of the most simple designs. The Athertons killed it on Single Pivots in the UCI Downhill this year. But we are nearing the threshold where efficient designs are equaling the ergonomics, cornering, rigidity, trackability and huckability of the best,and at some point efficient characteristics will be found in the “best riding” bikes.

Let’s not be ubiquitous and say all designs have their drawbacks, like we are pissing in the wind of all technological advancement. And I don’t want someone to feel that he or she made a 5K dollar investment in obselescence with a horst-link. Just be aware that the physics behind bicycle suspension dynamics are currently evolving rapidly and even now some designs are coming close to referencing all known physical limitations and deliver a faster AND more intuitive ride.

Cheers.