Six suspension specialists have joined forces with Metric Shock Sizing and Sram is the first to present the new generation of shock absorbers. According to Sram, a new suspension era is dawning with the Deluxe and Super Deluxe shocks.

New installation lengths

Until today, mountain bike engineers had developed rear triangles and then designed suitable shocks. As a result, the longer the shocks were designed specifically for a frame type, the more often they were bolted to the bike with a specific so-called tune. Now Rock Shox is introducing metric shocks, with new shock lengths (no longer in imperial inches, but in metric millimeters) and new kinematics - to which the bike manufacturers then have to adjust the rear triangle. In future, the metric installation lengths will be 190, 210 and 230 millimetres - and Rock Shox will no longer offer previous installation lengths such as 222.25 or 184.15 millimetres.

New mount, no more bushings

There are also changes to the bushings via Metric: The (difficult to measure) installation widths of 22.2 or 25.4 millimetres will disappear and be replaced by smooth metric dimensions.

Rock Shox is also addressing other issues with Metric: The new Deluxe and Super Deluxe shocks appear with ball-bearing mounts instead of the familiar plain bushings. This should significantly improve responsiveness and reduce wear. Another new feature is the so-called trunnion mount, which is a shock mount on the side of the housing and not on the front as before. The new design means that the installation lengths are shorter, and Sram mentions the advantage that shorter damper lengths do not have to be used for small frames, and that there is no loss of performance for small frames as a result of shorter dampers.

New seals

The Sram engineers have also worked on the seals: The area of overlap of the air chamber seal in the new dampers is around a third larger than before, and the piston seal area even has a 90% larger overlap. Sram wants to significantly increase durability as a result.

Downhill interior

Sram has given the two new dampers technology from the gravity segment. The negative spring of the Vivid and Vivid Air shocks will be used in the Deluxe and Super Deluxe shocks in future - and should ensure improved response.

Sram is launching the Deluxe shock for cross-country and trail bikes, while its Super Deluxe counterpart is also aimed at trail bikes and enduro bikes.

Sram is initially supplying manufacturers with the new dampers for the 2017 model year. The new technology is not backwards compatible; a Metric damper will not be compatible with an existing rear triangle.

www.sram.com