Stictionless forks, What are the options?
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Nope, Cannondale is the only one with the Bicycle Ultra LossLess Stictionless Headshok Integrated Technology.
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162 Posts
what is the big deal? Most air forks have negative air springs to reduce friction at the first bump nowadays. Get a fox or a rockshox. not much stiction there. rockshox even has a negative air chamber to tune out the stiction.
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Well, only RS has an adjustable negative spring as far as I know, and IMO it's critical. The fox versions use a "self adjusting" air spring, but that is always going to set to a certain value depending on the positive pressure. You simply can't do the tuning that you can with the RS "dual air" versions.Bikeeveryday said:
Not to say that other air shocks/forks suck, you might just get lucky and the pre-set self-adjusting feature may be to your liking, but it depends on how much pressure, progressiveness, and other parameters that you want to tune, and the negative air is not going to be a constant for everyone.
Otherwise, your best bet is a coil shock with good lubrication. There are still some, but they are getting rare these days. The dual-air RS forks are pretty damn good considering everything else and their prior models.
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Do remember that the dart series is Rockshox's lowest entry level fork series, meant for bikes that are only for beginners off road, so dont expect performance thats on par with their high level forks with better spring systems and dampeningtomsmoto said:
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There is hope, make sure there is enough oil in the lower legs, and teflon lube the stanctions. I did this to a dart 1 (even crappier) and while it's not as buttery smooth as my Pike, it does feel better than when it was new (because there was no oil!).graftoon said:
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I think this is wrong. I think stiction comes from the seals and the bushings being tight.
The dual air/negative spring setup allows you to tune out preload which used to make air forks feel like crap.
The best way to keep forks stiction free is regular lowers servicing.
HeadShock forks are relatively stiction free as they use needle roller bearings instead of bushings
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These bikes are the reasoning for my original question, i tried the 4 differant fork set ups(dart3 was painted black during the swapouts). I love the after setups, just hope my superv500 dont suffer stickton fatigue but noticed it took the dart3 better than the F600.
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Before
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These bikes are the reasoning for my original question, i tried the 4 differant fork set ups(dart3 was painted black during the swapouts). I love the after setups, just hope my superv500 dont suffer stickton fatigue but noticed it took the dart3 better than the F600.
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162 Posts
just ride your bike. dont be so concerned about stiction.
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Fox air forks use a non-adjustable coil for the negative spring.
A negative spring allows a fork to activate at a lower force without greatly affecting the rest of the spring rate through the rest of the travel. So while it doesn't eliminate stiction, it helps feel like it did.This graph (which I blatantly stole from another thread) helps explain it quite well:
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A negative spring allows a fork to activate at a lower force without greatly affecting the rest of the spring rate through the rest of the travel. So while it doesn't eliminate stiction, it helps feel like it did.This graph (which I blatantly stole from another thread) helps explain it quite well:
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To the OP, your problem isn't stiction, but the fact the Dart is a rubbish fork. You could eliminate all the stiction in it, and it would still ride like crap. Either upgrade to a better fork, or just ride it.
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That graph is showing that preload can be eliminated with a negative spring.
Stiction is constant because it is nothing to do with the pressure, only the friction from the seals and bushings.
So again it doesn't feel like it has eliminated stiction (because the stiction still can be felt), but rather eliminated the preload which used to be typical of air forks.
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I don't think preload means what you think it means.retro83 said:
I said it only feels like you've eliminated the stiction because the negative spring allows the fork to activate at a lower force (which the chart shows), and stiction is one of the factors which keep a fork from activating.
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Let's agree to disagree :thumbsup:bad mechanic said:
The negative spring cannot eliminate stiction. It eliminates preload caused by the high air pressure in the positive spring which is trying to force the piston open even at when it's already at full extension.
Using the negative spring you can balance this pressure and thus end up with no preload (i.e. on your graph the lines would cross the 0 point on the pressure axis). This is what the graph shows.
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