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Not a Smashpot user, got a Push coil kit for my Pike cause sale, and it's night and day different IMO vs air and my old arms love me for it. I would love the HBO but the air version has worked great so far. Still poppy enough for me once you adjust and not sure I'd go back to air but those new Manitou's look nice.
If I didn’t live next to 100 miles of blue jump lines I would run coil forever. Bought my dad a Z1 he tried his air fork bike after and was like no way What bike you on?
Ive been riding a 140mm smashpotted 36 for over one year now... absolute perfection... NEVER going back to air. My hands are soooo happy... no top out... dreamy hydraulic bottom out.... supreme tracking.... now to convert the rear!!!!!!
Excellent question, my smashed 36 is on a v4 ripley at 140mm… the standout feature for me is the hand comfort, im super bummed that i’m unable to run a coil rear shock on this bike… really wanting to experiment with coil rear now BAD
This sounds way better to convert a fox 36 factory to coil with a smashpot vs getting a z1 coil to convert from grip to grip 2 or grip x2 if it's possible. I think it would be better simply bc I hear the z1 didn't have enough spring rates. 4 spring rates as way less than 10 with the smash pot. It may be more expensive but if you want the best you get the best
This conversion looks very appropriate for me. I often ride trails with far too many roots and braking bumps. The air forks are having very bad time there and so am I. But this conversion could help a lot.
Love your suspension videos. Question, have you had a chance to try a MRP Lift damper in any of your RS or Fox forks? Give it a try, completely transformed my Lyrik over the stock Rush RC damper.
1 pound more up front is NOT a lot for a full fat e-biker, unlike what you said. Especially when the complete bike weighs easily in excess of 45 to 50 pounds or more
I was thinking the same thing as you. Its like having a 900wh battery over a 720wh on a Norco Range. Altough Id rather have the bigger battery than a coil.
Ebike weight is mostly in middle of bike. This puts more weight out front so it's noticeable when trying manuals or lifting front end. I have smashpot fox 38 on my levo and I can notice difference. Not saying it's bad or anything. Just noticeable at first.
@@ryansmith7974 I think the bigger battery is always a good idea. Especially if you never use 100% of it, you're actually keeping the battery in a healthier state than draining it completely to 0% and charging to 100%.
Bruh it steers slower you can notice it little bit. I ride 58 lb bike with DH casing tires I don’t care about weight, but steering is slower like a dual crown fork
Converted to Smashpot 3 months ago. Night a day comparison, coil is so much more planted, front end tracking is great. Converted on my trip to Rotorua, made my weeks riding 👊💯
I had similar experiences with Z1 coil. Front end eat up rock and chunk and tracks well. But it can be a trade off as big hits / compressions eat up your travel.
@@BramBiesiekierski and since frame kinematics make your shock progressive, front and rear suspension will never be balanced - forcing you to ride off the back of the bike whenever you can take big hits
@Coerced I'm not an engineer. But I thought frame kinematics only apply to mtb rear suspension. We talking about front fork here. In any case, I currently have 61 strava koms on that bike. So it seams to be working for me
@@OtterMTBtech I’m seriously thinking about trying it. They’ve got my size on super sale for just over $200 bucks with the first time purchase discount.
Thanks for this. Saw your video on Rockshox Domain. I’ve got one that came with my Rocky Altitude Powerplay. Do you recommend spending $200 on a Luftkappe or selling it as a new takeoff to get a Marzicchi Bomber Z1 coil? They’re on sale for like half price right now. The other option is Smashpot for the Domain but it’s about the same price as the Bomber Z1 coil right now. Thanks in advance!
A Charger Damper from a Zeb fits in those. Or look for a used Zeb and save an pound of weight and have better damping and airspring. Does your fork have the Rockshox eMTB 1 1/8 tappered crown or a 1" lower crown? One benifit is they dont seem to develop play and become noisy.
I have Z1 coil on 2 different bike. It's good-ish running over rock/chunk, but you do tend to blow through the travel pretty easy on big hits. Even with hardest spring. So depending on what you like to ride you might like it or not.
The domain damper will always hold it back. Damper upgrade will give you the most performance. Air shock bike I’m guessing. I’d get a charger 3 like the guy said above, or a new fork with decent damper Old Z1 has decent damper, but with a air shock I wouldn’t
Not sure on spring it was from a heavy guy, I’m 230lbs 10 clicks low speed and have hsc wide open, 2 clicks of bottom out, that spring is progressive. Was weird to have hsc wide open
It’s not a totally fair comparison. The Smash pot is half the price of a DVO fork. OTT from DVO is very coil like, but it takes allot more work to setup your first time if your not familiar with it. They have the same sacrifice’s of pop when jumping, but to a lesser degree on DVO, and the pure coil has a bit more small What do you ride?
I don't understand why they don't make 25-40% progressive coils for the fork like they do in moto. MTB frame kinematics always have that kind of progression before considering coil an option. A fork has no linkage assisted progression and will therefore never be balanced with rear suspension.
@@OtterMTBtech you would need a position-sensitive damper in order to balance force curves. Like the HBO does for the final part of the travel, but across the entire travel range. Since thats not the case, the different spring curves front vs rear make the bike unbalanced
Great video thanks! Installed my smashpot this week but haven't had chance to get it on a proper trail yet. Can't wait. Definitely notice the weight increase but on my levo it doesn't bother me all that much. Might offset weight difference between carbon and alloy frames I spose.
@@OtterMTBtech fortunately I've got a super deluxe ultimate coil on the rear and a cascade long shock linkage. I put travel up to 170mm on the smashpot too. Looking forward to seeing how it handles trails.
I didn’t like it I couldn’t use more than a 3rd of my travel with out it ramping up an insane amount after that I didn’t want to pay to change the shim stack which I hear could possibly fix that I switched to lower spring weight which let me use the travel but then I was slightly under sprung
@@OtterMTBtech I had the 55lbs spring on my smashpot then changed to the 50lbs spring which didn’t have the odd insane ramp up 1/3rd the way not like the 55lbs spring, that didn’t let me use the travel. rear shock was dhx2 now I have a e storia that makes the dhx2 seem like a Walmart shock by comparison
I did Rock Shox Zeb coil conversion,cheap! First I took red Zeb air shaft 170 mm,put red part in wise jaws and unscrewed other side with key 12 anti clock wise. At the top air shaft has two pin holes. In my parts I have few old RS coil shafts,boxxer,domain,lyrik,same diameter 10 mm as Zeb.Simply I knocked out pin at placed coil head and pin on Zeb shaft it fits great. Also I gave a friend air token to work it on lathe,make it bit tighter for coil spring to fit,not to damage air top cap.I left other Zeb shaft parts,sliding ring and rubber bumper. Coil spring if X Fusion Vengeance 170 mm,blue,fit for my 93kg. Travel is 190mm. It works PERFECT!!No more bottoming,its linear,plush and soft on roots and stones. Finally I have my dream fork! Also I can pump a bit of air inside the fork,if I want.From small plastic bottle I have cutted coil spring wrap,not to click inside the fork or to scratch the stanchion inside.
Obviously you never rode both forks. The Zeb is a modern progressive fork. You need to be a like a enduro racer at level 9 skill level to need a single token on a 170mm fork . Fox 38 you need to pack it full of tokens to not bottom out. Air 38 feels like a coil.
Im thinking of the mtb term called poppy. Any motorsport/moto etc DONT use that fairy dust term because the suspension is supposed to keep you glued to the ground. MTB clowns have so many serious crashes because poppy means it will bounce you into the tree trunk. Off a cliff etc
"pop" isnt a fairy dust term. have you ever compared a rigid bike and a full sus bike on a pump track? the rigid bike will be so much faster because of "pop". bicycle suspension is completely different from motorsport suspension because we build speed and lift with inertia and body movement on bicycles, there is no motorized acceleration involved to propel you forward like a dirtbike or a trophy truck. and staying stuck to the ground is definitely not the only job of mtb suspension, jumps and gaps and manuals and pumping the terrain is all just as important for recreation or racing.
Lucky for you, mountain biking isn't motorsport. You become a faster rider with a relatively quick rebound allowing you to pop off small rocks or roots allowing you to clear the entire section while airborne rather than rattle all the way through to rocky or root section slowing you down.
I still haven’t got on with air. It’s fairly likely I’ll switch back at some point. My current favourite bike uses coil over air on the rear. That said… most of my trails are smooth so there is less of a reason to switch and more of a I dunno. I can’t get comfortable with air thing.
But poppy basically means more responsive to rider input for jumping, etc. I have had both types of bikes and in-between. Most trail riding I do is not “poppy” riding (rock gardens and drops), but there are certain flow trails with jumps and features where you don’t need a plush/traction oriented ride. We also have the general differences between air and coil, whereas coil is better for traction and speed and air is better for larger jumps and drops due to better bottom out/progression. We can see this evidence from Rampage vs World Cup DH rider bike set-ups.
Love my Smashpot. The mid stroke support of coil is unreal. I can’t see myself going back to an air fork, at least not a single positive chamber design. Have you thought about bushing burnishing? It can make a massive difference in how smooth a fork is. Could make for a good video. Almost every fork ships with tight bushings for a few reasons, and the bushings don’t “break in after a few rides” like some suggest.
They don’t break in after 4 years actually working on a 36 video now. 4 year old Rythem is chalky stiff bushings. Charger 3 lyric was unacceptably tight. So new Fox gold 2025 have it dialed
@@OtterMTBtech it’s crazy, reviewers ragged on the v1 Ohlins for tight bushings but Fox and RS got a pass for so long. Glad to hear the ‘25 Fox stuff is dialled!
