Vorsprung Telum

Designed and manufactured in British Columbia

There are few components on a mountain bike that experience as much brutal punishment as the rear shock. It’s kinda miraculous when you think about it - this small assembly of metals, polymers, oils and gases lives a violent life, doing its best to keep the rider in control, while that rider is doing their best to smash the shock into pieces. In addition to being a critical component of a performance mountain bike, the shock is a complicated machine unto itself, with dozens of high-tolerance bits and pieces, sliding past, over and around each other at blistering speeds.

Given the complexities involved in the design and manufacture of suspension systems, this realm is typically inhabited by huge corporations with deep R&D pockets. There are a few notable exceptions to this rule though, and Kamloops’ own Vorsprung Suspension is one of them.

Founded by Steve Mathews in 2012, Vorsprung's mission has always been one of improving suspension performance, and until now, they’ve exclusively offered aftermarket parts for existing suspension platforms from other manufacturers. Over the last few years however, Steve and his team of engineers, machinists and technicians have been working on the Telum coil shock, their first standalone suspension product.

While I’m not a suspension professional by any means, I am a machinist, and I’ve snooped around enough shocks to know that they are not easy things to make, let alone design. From the beginning, I eagerly followed the Telum’s development on social media, and while I was certainly rooting for Steve and his designed-and-made-in-Canada rear shock, how could it possibly go toe to toe with the current crop of excellent shocks from massive companies with decades of experience? Needless to say, I wanted to find out.

The Telum is a twin-tube damper design that comes wrapped in a Vorsprung-branded Sprindex coil, custom tuned for each rider who orders one. There are no stock tunes here - the Telum ordering process involves a comprehensive questionnaire, filled out prior to the shock being built. Everything from bike model, rider weight, skill and physical fitness are factored into the damper tune and spring rate recommended by Vorsprung. From beer league benchwarmer to Rampage destroyer, the Telum has a tune for you.

Available in common metric sizes, the Telum is available in standard eye as well as trunnion options. Where applicable, standard eyelets feature spherical polymer bearings that reduce side-loading and friction. Adjustments include spring preload, Sprindex spring rate, high speed compression, low speed compression, low speed rebound and hydraulic bottom out. Additionally, all Telum shocks come equipped with a 2-position climb switch. At 1,600 CAD, the Telum certainly resides in the “premium” category of mountain bike shocks, but for those looking for a custom tuned, North-American-made shock (rarer than hen’s teeth) the Telum is reasonably priced. The 205 x 65mm trunnion mount Telum I reviewed weighed in at 536g for the damper alone, and 993g including a 500-550lb/in Sprindex - right in line with other coil shocks in this category.

In a move that can only be filed under OK, that actually makes so much sense, Vorsprung doesn’t define the Telum’s service interval in “hours”, but in vertical metres descended. A full service is required every 100,000 metres of vertical descent, or once every calendar year - whichever comes first. 100,000 metres is a lot, and with the exception of folks riding lifts all summer, it’s probably safe to say that most buyers can default to the annual service schedule. In addition to the many Vorsprung tuning centres around the world, service can be carried out by most reputable suspension service centres, and will cost about 200 CAD.

Before ordering, potential buyers should check the online frame fitment / compatibility chart to make sure their bike will play nice with the Telum. Due to the excessive bending loads that can occur with longer suspension yokes, Vorsprung forbids their use with the Telum. Many other suspension manufacturers have similar warnings buried in their fine print, but few are as up front about this issue. Vorsprung has an excellent (and highly entertaining) “Shock-Frame Best Practices” document that should be required reading for any suspension nerd. I laughed, I cried, I learned.

Before we get into the all-important subject of what performance returns you earn on a $1,600 shock investment, it’s worth noting some of the Telum’s more unique features. To achieve a handful of design and performance objectives, it features a solid main piston that allows for all damping duties to be carried out in the reservoir bridge. Keen observers will note that the bridge area of the Telum looks significantly bigger than on other shocks, necessary to accommodate the increased valving and oil flow. A primary goal here is to achieve a climb mode that can be tuned exactly as desired in the bridge circuits, without being affected by oil flow through the piston. By forcing 100% of the damping duties to the bridge, this also allows Vorsprung to employ their patented Rapid Revalve technology, which allows the base tune of the shock to be adjusted in a few minutes, without dismantling the shock. Stouter construction, improved damper response and a novel hydraulic bottom-out system are all achieved through the solid piston as well.

While not exclusive to Vorsprung, the inclusion of spherical bearings at the eyelets is a big deal that you’ve probably never heard about. Spherical bearings isolate the shock from frame misalignment (more common than you might think), as well as side-loading events caused by frame flex while riding. The TLDR is that spherical bearings protect the shock from excessive internal wear, while minimizing friction throughout the entire suspension system.

Holding the Telum in your hand, you can tell a lot of thought went into every corner of this shock. In a sea of mass-produced forgings, with their sanded smooth finish, it’s refreshing to see the evidence of CNC toolpaths all over the Telum. The trunnion bridge in particular is a work of art - swoopy and angular, organic and industrial all at the same time. The name Telum comes from the Latin word for “weapon” - an appropriate name for a piece of kit that bears a striking resemblance to Darth Vader. If this shock performs half as well as it looks, we’ll be off to a good start.

When a Telum shock is built and shipped, the owner receives a detailed tuning report that includes charts and info related to damper settings, base tune settings, spring rates, as well as rider and bike info that were uploaded to the Vorsprung Tuning Hub upon purchasing the shock. Vorsprung draws on years of real world testing and experience to arrive at recommended settings for each Telum build, and the tuning report is the closest most of us will ever get to having our very own suspension technician for a day.

Installing the Telum on my bike went without incident, and before my first ride, I acquainted myself with the various damper adjustments, all of which are handled with either a 3mm or 6mm hex key. The first parking lot bounce revealed a shock that felt less damped overall than the RockShox Super Deluxe Coil Ultimate it replaced. The Super Deluxe is an excellent shock, and it’s my benchmark for a reliable unit that does everything I want it to, without any weirdness. The Telum’s lively feel had me wondering if I should mess with the damper settings before even hitting the dirt, but I resisted and put my faith in the Vorsprung recipe.

Climbing

My first experience with the Telum started out with a long singletrack climb. If I had any fears of the lively Telum leading to bad pedalling manners, they quickly faded as I got under way. With the lockout left open, the Telum felt calm and composed while grinding uphill. Looking down at the shock confirmed that it was definitely compressing a small amount with each pedal stroke, but the action was so smooth and quiet, it was hard to tell the difference between shifting weight and pedal-induced bob. Small-bump sensitivity and traction while pedalling were so good it was almost unnerving - I pulled over more than once to check that my tire pressures weren’t low.

Halfway up the climb, I decided to see how one extra click of LSC would affect pedalling inputs. The result was just noticeable, and resulted in an even calmer feel, without sacrificing any of the buttery smooth sensitivity that was evident in this shock from the get go.

Climb Mode

I’m generally not a fan of climb modes on shocks as no one ever seems to get them quite right. On one end of the spectrum you have climb modes that make no discernible difference to the ride quality at all, and on the other end you have climb modes that feel like the shock just ingested a pile of lego bricks. I’m a guy who climbs regularly on a heavy enduro bike, so I’ve gotten pretty good at spinning circles, keeping my upper body still and just accepting that climb modes kinda suck.

Until now. If you asked me a few months ago what the ideal climb mode should feel like, I wouldn’t even know how to answer. Now I would just say to make it feel like the Telum. It’s so different from anything I’ve ever experienced, and it’s hard to put into words. It’s quite obvious when it’s on, but the shock still moves, albeit in a stiff and highly damped manner. Imagine transforming a heavy 180mm travel enduro bike into a heavy 100mm XC bike - that’s what the Telum climb mode feels like. I personally relished the comfort and traction afforded by climbing singletrack without the climb mode engaged, so I found it most useful on asphalt and smooth gravel. Should you forget to disengage the climb mode before dropping into some heinous rock garden (a whoopsie-daisy I did only once), the Telum is equipped with blow-off protection on the climb circuit, protecting the valves from damage.

Descending (stop scrolling down now)

After a solid hour of climbing, I had my first chance to really open up on the Telum. I eased into some pace, half expecting to pull over and add a bunch of compression damping and spring rate to keep the bike balanced. Bike suspension has always been a game of compromise for me, and I’ve learned that when suspension feels as supple off the top as the Telum did, it usually means a cacophony of bottom-outs when the speed picked up. After about a minute of descending, it dawned on me that I hadn’t yet bottomed once, and in spite of my fears of spending the entire ride with the shock packed down to the bumper, it felt composed and balanced, devouring bigger and bigger hits with ease. I slowed down, got off the bike and just stared at the shock with a look of bemusement on my face, saying something along the lines of: “Uhhh, OK….Wow”. This weapon seemed to be packing some surprising firepower. I took a quick swig of water, got back on the pedals and decided to try a different tack.

With my trust in the Telum established, I resumed the descent in anger, ratcheting up to a vibe that could only be described as “reckless abandon”, and even when blasting through some very shitty lines, the Telum remained unfazed. On several occasions, I purposely jumped offline into landings strewn with rim-deleting rocks, and the Telum worked its magic. Within minutes of starting my first descent, I realized that there is some absolute sorcery going on in the marriage of the compression damping, the HBO circuit, and that Sprindex coil. The transition from mid-stroke into the HBO zone was seamless, and made for a truly bottomless feel, without the pogo-like return when relying on bumpers alone. Rebound damping was similarly exceptional, as I was able to run it quite fast, without the slightest hint of top-out or any bucking sensation. Did I mention it was dead silent? Not a peep or a squeak at any point in the stroke.

As my time on the Telum grew, I started experimenting with different damper and spring settings, and after plenty of knob twisting (or hex key twisting in this case), I came back to settings that were no more than a single click away from Vorsprung’s recommendations, a testament to the efficacy of the Tuning Hub process. On all adjusters, one or two clicks delivered noticeable changes in ride characteristics, although adjustments made to the HBO were more subtle and harder to detect - not surprising, as they only affected the final 15mm of shock stroke.

How a shock could be so efficient at devouring any sized hit delivered at any speed was beyond my layperson understanding, and I wanted to figure out what was going on in this assembly of metals, polymers, oils and gases. Diving deep into the Telum development story, it became clear that Vorsprung had mounted a militant campaign against friction in this shock, and I’ve come to believe this must have had a lot to do with its exceptional performance. More so than with any other shock I’ve ridden, the Telum stroke feels like pure damping, for lack of a better term. Obviously there is friction involved, but you’d be hard pressed to find it. When friction is kept to an absolute minimum, the damper is free to just get on with what it was designed to do: maintaining traction with the ground. The result is a shock that seems to react instantly to trail input, and is likewise able to rebound in a second instant. The Telum just seemed to make all the right moves at all the right moments, and it had me searching for ridiculous, off-camber bonus lines that made no sense - and often let me get away with them.

With all this talk about ground-hugging traction, you’d be in good company if you expected the Telum to transform any bike into a lethargic freight train, incapable of leaving the ground. I’m pleased to report that this was not my experience. As inexplicably as this shock glues the rear wheel to the ground, it’s surprisingly easy to pop into and out of all manner of terrain. Manicured lips, piles of baby heads, any metaphorical body parts you can think of - when you say jump, the Telum leaps. The rebound stroke is so well controlled, you can press and pump your way through any trail feature, and get a good energetic pop with no top-out. I mean, this thing was born in Whistler, so it sure as shit better know how to jump.

At the risk of stating the obvious, I’ve really enjoyed my time on the Telum. It’s changed the way I ride, and it’s changed the way I think about suspension. I’ve been riding hard on this shock for nearly 4 months, and its performance hasn’t diminished one iota over that time period. I started writing this review a bit worried that I didn’t have many criticisms for the Telum, and aside from the price tag (which actually started to feel quite reasonable after I came to terms with what this shock was capable of), the only complaint I can come up with is that the adjuster clicks are not quite as defined as on other shocks. The clicks are definitely there, they’re just not the notchy clunks we’ve come to expect from most present-day shocks. A petty criticism to be sure, but what credibility would I have left if I came out and claimed that Vorsprung’s first shock was perfect? In a world on fire, coming apart at the seams and surely on the brink of nuclear war, I’m willing to let the diminutive damper clicks slide.

Ok, it’s good, but is it $1,600 good? I was asked this exact question by a riding buddy, and while the question caught me off guard ($1,600 is a lot of money after all), it only took a few seconds for me to confirm that yes - it’s that good. Maybe money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a Telum, and to this mountain biker, that’s almost as good.

Vorsprung Telum - $1600 CAD.