For me... it was too linear (way more linear than any coil shock I have ridden). But this can be adjusted, and I am being picky, plus some people would like that feel.
The sensitivity is very good for an air shock, but still not quite up there with a good coil shock, close tho.
You do however have to bear in mind that this was a pre production shock, so a bit unfair for me to comment on the real deal.
I really like the m/m Vivid Airs on the Legend.
I've had a 2011 Vivid air on there and now run a 2013.
Put about 40 park days on the 2013 set up this season.
Both are good, but the 2013 is more compliant on initial travel and seems to recover slightly better from multiple high speed big hits that put it deeper in to the travel.
I don't think it's too linear.
I run 30-35% sag and frequently adjust compression and rebound to the terrain, trail conditions, and speed.
It's easy to find a setting that works great most of the time, but it's such an easy shock to adjust that I find myself tweaking it for where and what I'm riding.
I run the newer Fox mounting hardware on the Vivid.
I rode the 2012 version of the Vivid Air (mid-tune) for a while on the Legend, and was never happy with it. I found (much as builttoride did) that it felt very linear, feeling fairly unsupported in the mid-stroke and reaching a harsh bottom-out easily. More importantly, I felt like I couldn't get the rebound feeling fast enough, even at full open on both beginning and end stroke rebound adjustments. Even running as little as 25% sag to raise the pressure to try to drive the rebound faster, it was still on the slow side. It is worthy of note that I am pretty light-weight at around 150lbs without gear, and this may have had a significant effect on my experience with the shock compared to Norman Clydesdale (who I assume by his name that he is surely much heavier than I...)
For comparison, I've run both the Vivid Coil and the X-Fusion Vector coil, and been fairly happy with either of those. I currently have a Fox RC4 on it but that arrived after I destroyed my shoulder so I will have to wait for next year to ride it. I have helped a crew of junior racers tune the RC4 for their Legends, and they all seem extremely pleased with that shock and I am eager to try mine out.
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