[Ganderson]

Air pressure and ramp up are supposed to be adjusted together before adjusting rebound and compression settings, right? Any thoughts on this tuning conundrum with my 140mm Fox 34? It keeps telling me to remove air, but has conflicting suggestions on the spacers.

Ride 1- 80psi, 2 spacers
Suggestion- remove air (yellow), add spacer (yellow)
Ride 2- 75psi, 3 spacers
Suggestion- remove air (yellow), remove spacer (yellow)
Ride 3- 70psi, 3 spacers (trail side adjustment)
Suggestion- remove air (yellow), remove spacer (yellow)

Ride 1 had the highest confidence (95%). Ride 2 & 3 scored at 79-80% and is asking to ride bumpy/footy trails. Should I keep riding for a higher confidence score before removing the spacer again? Maybe I need to split the difference and drill out a spacer...

I'd start with the factory recommended volume spacer setup for the fork, and only adjust air pressure until green. Once pressure is dialed, then move on to spacer tweaks until green.

As with feel tuning, maybe it's a bad idea to change more than 1 parameter at a time with the Shockwiz?

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[Sasse82]

Ride 1- 80psi, 2 spacers
Suggestion- remove air (yellow), add spacer (yellow)
Ride 2- 75psi, 3 spacers
Suggestion- remove air (yellow), remove spacer (yellow)
Ride 3- 70psi, 3 spacers (trail side adjustment)
Suggestion- remove air (yellow), remove spacer (yellow)

Did you recalibrate your Shockwiz/fork after making the changes?
I'm just asking because you didn't mention it and could be a reason for questionable results.

 

[tuckerjt07]

I'd start with the factory recommended volume spacer setup for the fork, and only adjust air pressure until green. Once pressure is dialed, then move on to spacer tweaks until green.

As with feel tuning, maybe it's a bad idea to change more than 1 parameter at a time with the Shockwiz?

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It doesn't work that way. Adding or removing a spacer will change the pressure requirement of the shock/fork. Those two components have to be changed together as they are interdependent.

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[Ganderson]

It doesn't work that way. Adding or removing a spacer will change the pressure requirement of the shock/fork. Those two components have to be changed together as they are interdependent.

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Fair enough.. I'll stay out of it.

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[bogeydog]

It doesn't work that way. Adding or removing a spacer will change the pressure requirement of the shock/fork. Those two components have to be changed together as they are interdependent.

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Instructions say, if advised, to change pressure and spacer at same time. However if pressure is not green and spacer is, then pressure only. Vice versa. It's all in the instructions.

 

[tuckerjt07]

Instructions say, if advised, to change pressure and spacer at same time. However if pressure is not green and spacer is, then pressure only. Vice versa. It's all in the instructions.

You can get away with changing pressure and no spacer but if you change the spacers 99% of the time you have to change pressure. That's just the way physics works.

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[Pau11y]

Alex,

Just a quick nerd question...
If you guys are using the ideal gas law equation in your algorithm, you prob have a temp sensor in the hardware, yeah? Is there also some form of a timer in there to drop a time stamp on each of the data points?

And, would it be possible to do a data dump to say something like a PC/laptop and pull the data into an Excel (CSV or some other form) and plot some value over time curves...pressure, temps, and maybe each of the eval'd elements being provided by the interface on the phone...for some visualization?

Apologies in advance if this has been asked...I did do a quick glance over the entire thread, and didn't see anything. TIA

 

[gte534j]

A thermocouple in the shockwiz would only measure ambient air temperature. The air and suspension fluid temperature inside the shock does change of course.

You calibrate the Shockwiz to determine the compression ratio. I.e.
P1V1=nRT1
----- -----
P2V2=nRT2

assuming T1=T2

P1V1
----- = compression ratio (constant, not a function of temperature)
P2V2

During calibration you enter in or measure the compression ratio into the app.
During the ride, the Shockwiz then measures P2 and then can calculate V2 to determine shock stroke position accurately. With shock stroke position and acceleration, it can uses those values in their algorithm (magic sauce) to output their recommendations.

This is how I think the device works anyways based on use and reading.
Ian

 

[petercarm]

P1V1=nRT1
----- -----
P2V2=nRT2

assuming T1=T2

Point of information:

Adiabatic compression. (P1V1)^1.4 ~= (P2V2)^1.4.

T1 <> T2

 

[ragetty]

why would they need a temperature sensor? ... shockwiz tells you to use a (for you) ideal absolute air pressure based on the fork and selected riding style. 1. if the temperature rises so much that the air pressure in the fork changes significantly - well, you just let out the excess. 2. if you are concerned about the fork warming up during a session, i think the main problem here would be changes in oil viscosity - and considering that aspect is very probably not part of shockwiz's feature set.

as for the data dump - for the more complex analysis procedures (so not necessarily quasi DC aspects, such as dynamic sag), i imagine the p(t) line is FT'ed to reveal the 'signatures' characteristic of typical fork tuning aspects. e.g. an overall under-damped fork will show 'ringing', and amplitude, asymmetries (higher order components) will indicate the necessary fix. similarly, an over-damped fork will exhibit little to no ringing, which then also indicates the necessary fix ... like i say, i'm guessing, but the net result is that a data dump and a simple plot in excel probably won't get you very far.

 

[ragetty]

@Quarq Tech - more unusual behaviour this weekend

the bike & hike tour over the weekend involved about 300m of climing on asphalt, fireroad and trail, then around 90 minutes of shouldering the bike to the summit. then around a 60 minute break at the summit. the descent was 900m of steep but 90% rideable (i.e. 10% still too much snow) alpine trail, so roots, rocks, hairpins, and with copious amounts of 'multiple steps' sections, then around 300m of similar with much more of a 'flow country' aspect to it. all this followed by some fireroad & asphalt back to the car. temperatures were somewhere between approx. 16C (sunny side ascent) and close to 0C at the summit (still snow up there), and absolute max. elevation was about 1800m. altogether, ride time was minimum 2 hours.

the session indicated that the fork was well tuned, which was my own impression too. you could imagine the ideal tune to be something like 'Playful/Aggressive' with a good dose of HSC/LSC to prevent brake and 'step' diving in steep terrain. tyre pressures are very low in maxxis DHF II 2.5 front /2.4DD rear, certainly sub-20 psi (for a 70kg/155lb rider) so as to help give traction on the soft slushy snow, wet roots and wet, often wooden step sections.

however, Confidence indicated only 20%. i rode the bike again today on much more moderate terrain, but no budge. shockwiz says to go ride a rocky rooty trail - but it had a good 60 minutes of that yesterday ...

any thoughts?

 

[Pau11y]

Point of information:

Adiabatic compression. (P1V1)^1.4 ~= (P2V2)^1.4.

T1 <> T2

I'll be honest, I had to look up "<>." More used to seeing "!="

 

[tuckerjt07]

I'll be honest, I had to look up "<>." More used to seeing "!="

VB for the win!!!

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[lucifuge]

I've been through the calibration wizard 3 times successfully now; achieving full extension and compression as requested. I end up with calibration ratios (CR) of 2.6, 2.6 and 2.7. So the process is giving precise results. However, the physical displacement of the the forks travel compared to the travel on the Shockwiz app is very different. For example, if I displace physical travel by 30% on the stanchion, I see the app showing something like 45%. It's only when I set a manual CR of 4.3 that I get a 1-1 match between the two. My understanding is the latter is the preferable choice.

This is inflating a 160 Lyrik to 75 psi, no tokens and possibly importantly; using a Luftkappe.

So,.... is anyone getting very different CRs from calibration to manual adjustment? Also keen to hear form Luftkappe owners for any success/issues they might have observed.

 

[mantra]

Knowledge is power! Just because an adjustment cannot be made easily, does not mean it cannot be made. Granted it may mean you can't do it yourself, but I still think it's better to have that information that to omit it. With the information at hand you have actual data backing up the need for said change which, if it requires a suspension center or the manufacturer to perform, further justifies the need to send it off. [/INDENT]

Alex@Quarq

I feel that this is a great statement to be quoted in regard to the HSR feature

I´ve played with this device for the last 4 days in Finale Ligure. On the first 2 days, I only let it monitor my fork settings without changing anything to get a good impression on how my own setup performs against the data.

I used "agressive" and the findings/"Suggestions" were mostly as estimated as I tend to ride stiff and progressiv springs on the front. What also correlates with my personal impression is HSC statement. I somehow always under the impression that forks are verry overdamped in that department...:

- Remove Air -> red
- Remove Spacers -> yellow
- Rebound OK -> green
- HSC make softer -> yellow
- LSC OK -> green
- Bottom Out Resistance - Remove resistance -> red

Detections -> all OK -> all green
Dynamic Sag -> 28%

Does someone have a scientific opinion about the "dynamic sag"? How much should it be? What conclusions can be drawn out of this measurement e.g. what impacts on the general riding impression do smaller or larger figures have?

I tried to lower the pressure for day 3, but as I were already pretty beaten up after those two days, I got somehow scared by the increased dive and returend to the higher pressure again.

So my current conclusion is, that I might have to take a different approach to this. Maybe I shouldn´t start the tuning process with 4 tokens as the resulting ramp and bottom out resistance seems to be issue. Also I might need to rethink handlebar hight?! I absolutly don´t want the fork to bottom out but maybe I shoul try to use more travel and compensate for the lower "dynamic stack" by using more rise on the handlebar?!
Also, I now think, that there is no way arround internally retuning HSC...

Btw.: If I switch to "Playfull" all suggestion turn to green except HSC "make softer" -> yellow, so the first finding is, that there is quite a huge difference between tuning styles.

All in all, it seems to be a nice gadget and it is very intersting to get an "external feedback" about the settings. Also the fact that it confirms my own feelings is a sense of achievement

It is also interesting to see, that it is possible to achive "all green" in "detections" with 2 to 3 red bars in "suggestions"...

After toying with it, I must say, that I´m also interested in the possibility to access more raw data and for what it´s worth... I´ve never had a single issue with the bt-connection no matter if bt was already on before I started the app or if I turned it on after the app was already started.

EDIT: Once it wanted to do a firmware update although the latest version was/is already installed. Don´t know why this happens...

 

[jacksonlui]

Has the shockwiz been a game changer for anyone? Most of the feedback seems to be small tweaks and confirming what they already know. It seems like a neat device.

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[mantra]

Has the shockwiz been a game changer for anyone? Most of the feedback seems to be small tweaks and confirming what they already know. It seems like a neat device.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

I think it´s too early to answer that question, and I also assume that most of the people posting here, have the ability to dial in an, at least half-decent setup anyway, so "game changer" might be a bit too much?!

If you´ve read my last post, you´ve maybe understood that I´m currently under the impression that it helps you, to verify your own feelings (this somehow gives you a certain peace of mind, which I find very helpfull) and like in my case, it maybe triggers you to rethink a thing or two?! For example...during approx 20000 meters of descent, I had only 4 "deep compression events" and I´m pretty confident that I realized them all while riding cause all 4 happend in very sketchy situations where I clearly did something very wrong. If its worth anything... the fork didn´t harshly bottom out during these events and I was (maybe only therefor) able to hold on, but also due to this setup, I sacrificed a lot of useable travel during those 20000 meters of descent which I absolutly can feel in my arms right now.
The fact that I now know, that my usage of travel is kind of poor, makes me rethink my setup cause actually I haven´t got the strenght to hold on to such a stiff fork for such a long time and as you all know, this can end bad but so can a hard bottom out which rips your hands of the bars...
Now I´ve to evalute for myself if I want to ride a stiff spring to avoid occasional hard bottom outs and prevent dive, or if I want to allow the fork to use more travel, in order to reduce the permanent stress on my body.

To answer your question... Yes, I think it´s a neat device which lifts "knob-turning" to a new level, and as Alex said earlier..."Knowlage is power", but I also think I you´re able to dial in a half-decent setup, this device won´t turn an average Joe into a Pro.
If you´re the kind of guy that likes to constantly toy with settings, get one! If you´re more the set and forget type of person, borrow or rent one, evaluate your settings and go ride...

It´s worth nothing, that many people out there ride with horrible, completly wrong settings and don´t even notice it. But most of them have never thought about air pressure or damping at all. For those people, this device would probably indeed be a game changer!

 

[ragetty]

just to add to the useful previous post:

i for one am still very much in the 'where does it fit in for me' phase. this is (only partly) due to an unfortunate mix of gaining previously unknown knowledge about the supposedly identical forks i own, and some curious behaviour of the shockwiz that still needs explanation. otherwise i'm basically still 'exploring'.

overall i can certainly see and expect potential, but so far there has been little positive gain - other than i'm riding my bikes more

it would not surprise me if this were - right now, so soon after launch - true for a lot of the users out there ...

 

[petercarm]

Is it a valuable option to spoof Shockwiz?

From my Shockwiz experience, the suggestions for a 165mm travel Enduro bike didn't make sense until I had ridden the bike aggressively on a steep challenging, fast, rocky, steppy trail with a couple of biggish drops. On more "trail" riding, where I spend a lot of time, the suggestions were off and didn't make sense.

If I spoofed Shockwiz with a lower compression ratio, Shockwiz would see the mellow trail reaching the deep end of the spoof travel range and wouldn't keep telling me to lower air pressure.

Also, the GF rides a big travel bike with less aggression (probably) than me. Might a spoof CR give good results for her?

I'll be trying this out, but any thoughts on the validity of the process? Obviously sag percentage will be perceived to be deeper but I'm not talking about massive change; just a slight change on the deepest expected travel, say 90% of full range.

e.g.
- 160mm travel spoofed as 90% of that would be 144mm
- 30% sag on 160mm would measure up at 33% of 144mm
- In CR terms a 2.6:1 CR would be spoofed at 2.44:1.16. i.e. 2.1:1

If I've got my sums right.

 

[petercarm]

Detections -> all OK -> all green
Dynamic Sag -> 28%

Does someone have a scientific opinion about the "dynamic sag"? How much should it be? What conclusions can be drawn out of this measurement e.g. what impacts on the general riding impression do smaller or larger figures have?

...

All in all, it seems to be a nice gadget and it is very intersting to get an "external feedback" about the settings. Also the fact that it confirms my own feelings is a sense of achievement

...
After toying with it, I must say, that I´m also interested in the possibility to access more raw data and for what it´s worth... I´ve never had a single issue with the bt-connection no matter if bt was already on before I started the app or if I turned it on after the app was already started.

I've taken to validating the suggestions across all the tuning styles rather than accepting the suggestion at face value and I've seen the same as you. Playful/Balanced match my expectations for the way I want the bike to ride and I can get "all green" with the possible exception of HSC.

For Finale you've definitely got the terrain to challenge a bike. You've got to be honest with your sessions as well. If you have an Enduro/DH bike that you aren't pushing hard, the suggestions won't match. Doesn't sound like you're doing this. Just an observation from my experience.

As regards raw data, forget about it. There isn't any.

Shockwiz does not have a massive memory buffer constantly stacking up observations and filling up a database of what happened when. It doesn't work like that. It doesn't have to. Shockwiz looks like it uses something like Bayes theorem. This is a statistical method for using multiple inaccurate observations (each of which has a known chance of fluking an accurate result) to gradually build confidence with regard to a specific question. It does this by tracking a window of the "100 samples a second" and applying various statistical techniques to that window. e.g. can I see packing? can I see pogoing? can I see bob? After the window has moved onto new data, the old observations are discarded. Only the newly calculated "confidence" is retained.

From an implementation POV, this makes perfect sense. The individual observations are inaccurate. (Motorsport suspension data logging has done this for years. For everybody except the top formulas and manufacturers, filtered statistical data is fit for purpose. The top boys gather gigabytes of data and have the analytical horsepower to number crunch it against track-specific models, cross compared with data channels for driver input and an aerodynamic model)

Other observations: The air pressure change in shockwiz takes place after most of the high frequency components have been filtered out by traversing two schrader valves and a bit of pipe. The sensor, A to D and readout will have some settling time. Everything also hits Nyquist sampling limitations, so the aforementioned high frequency filtering probably helps protect the system from aliasing. So the raw data is probably "mush" and the statistical methods take a long sequence of "mushy" observations and finds the consistent statistical patterns that have relevance for tuning suggestions.

This isn't criticism. I see Shockwiz as fit for purpose.

Dynamic sag is probably a long term average of where the suspension sits during your session. This will vary based on rider position and gradient of the slopes you are riding. The damping settings may also hold the suspension from averaging out at its static sag position. If you have aggressive compression damping and fast rebound, dynamic sag will be lower percentage than if you have open compression and closed rebound.

For my use case (170mm Lyrik, 3x tokens, 87kg rider, 9 clicks out rebound, 4 clicks LSC) I'm seeing ~20% dynamic sag and happy with this setup in aggressive terrain. My Vivid Air out back is ~35% dynamic sag.