I look at lot more around 50% travel and for something around 90-100 as far as AS %My interpretation of the Linkage Design graphs is that the Salsa split-pivots have an anti-squat right around 100% at sag, so that's good.
I think the performance of split pivot bikes is probably comparable to a modern Horst Link. Like HL bikes, they have more active suspension when braking (less anti-rise) because the brake is attached to the seatstay rather than the chainstay.
But with a high anti squat further into the travel you also get more pedal kick back.I look at lot more around 50% travel and for something around 90-100 as far as AS %
Why?
Because bikes are only at the sag point during a static situation. If you are climbing, encounter a bump, the suspension moves to a point where the curve may have much less anti-squat, then you pedal hard to keep going, but because there's less anti-squat, your pedaling causes the suspension to further compress, kind of getting into a feed-back cycle during rough terrain, most notably uphill, since that's really where you can apply the force like this. It also un-weights the front end when this happens and is generally bad IME. The only positive is the once-touted "massive traction" feel, where it feels like the bike is using more travel uphill on the bump than it would if it was just coasting on the flat, while that can help you dig in, the resulting front-end "lift-off" effect really negates any benefit here IMO.
The problem with the graphs is they don't really show you the slope of the AS plot very well. One may look "flat", the next may look steep, but you have to look at the actual % numbers to figure it out, hence, looking at mid-travel, where you will be often on any kind of non-uniform surface IMO. The static "sag point anti-squat" is not realistic, except for a perfectly smooth road and weight transfer/load (how heavy your pack is, etc.). The steeply falling slopes pedal like crap IME, regardless of the sag AS number. This is also a big reason why a lot of the parallel link makers like the DW, SC, Intense, Yeti (effectively the same) run around 100% out to at least half travel, sometimes 2/3, before dropping off. At those later points it doesn't matter, but I would argue at 1/2 the travel, it does bigly.
Designers have flattened the profile of many bikes these days. Horst link bikes have been significantly flattened out, many single pivots replicate most of the parallel link bike curves, and so on. This should lead to much more consistent pedaling in more situations.
The more neutral braking of a horst-link is not necessarily the best thing. With braking weight transfer, that means the bike will pitch forward more during braking/cornering situations. Some brake squat is often seen as beneficial.
Huh? Most tables will show the AS values through a range of cassette gears and you can get a pretty good idea from the pivot location and AS values what will happen by going up or down 2 teeth on the chainring. Yes, not perfect, but not useless by any means.One thing that isn't mentioned is cog, which on a bike it's never the same even with the same rider and there's no reference from most manufacturers, (I doubt if anyone actually publish this detail) of cog that corresponds to the given AS values, so this renders any as table utterly useless.
Is it going to change that much? The more optimal the AS curve is, the more that CoG won't matter, since if you lean back more or have a heavier pack, the suspension that has "squatted" to a new position will still have a healthy amount of AS, as long as it's not one of those steeply falling curves or way less than the numbers I was mentioning mid-travel.Without a fixed Centre of gravity, the results can't be compared and are useless, a variable cog will give different as values for the same configuration, so we are basically left with what you percieve while you peddal
For the pedaling to compress the suspension, the AS would need to be below 0. So if you're AS is 60%, the bob is still from weight shift. Right? My complaint just has to do with pedal strikes. I can't enjoy myself with a 60% AS bike going up a rocky hill having to be so careful about ramming a pedal into a rock. ugh.So anyways, on many of these bikes that had low AS, you had a significant amount of power being robbed by the pedaling forces compressing the suspension. Putting the power down on a steep climb didn't seem to make the bike move forward by an expected amount. When riding the higher AS bikes, this was a bit of a revelation, pedaling harder would make you go measurably faster, instead of bogging down. So my point is there's a lot more to it than the "visual bob". If one can get past that, it leads to a lot more bike-enjoyment IME too.
Might be the same thing, as you pedal forward, you shift weight back as an opposite and equal force, the AS should counter this, but when it doesn't, it will compress the suspension. If it's 100%, it's not going to shift backwards when you pedal (theoretical). The weight shifts I was talking about earlier were just things like the mass of your legs moving back and forth or up and down relative to the CG, body weight, where suspension will still "bob", but it won't be "robbing power" to anywhere near the same extent.For the pedaling to compress the suspension, the AS would need to be below 0. So if you're AS is 60%, the bob is still from weight shift. Right? My complaint just has to do with pedal strikes. I can't enjoy myself with a 60% AS bike going up a rocky hill having to be so careful about ramming a pedal into a rock. ugh.