Ya, I don't know about this one. I'm sure there is somebody at either Fox or Rock Shox that could speak about this endlessly.
As trailpovguide points out, there probably is a good argument that higher spring pressures cause higher absolute friction on a shock shaft. However, if we're talking about a higher leverage bike, which by definition has higher forces acting upon the shock, this becomes less clear. It seems to me the relative friction (i.e. how much friction is the seal exerting on the shaft relative to the force handled by the shock) would be the most important thing. Does this relative friction force go up higher relative to the increased forces on the suspension, or are these friction forces actually dwarfed by everything else going on as the pressures go up? Does the relationship remain linear? What about the differences in shaft speed in a high/low leverage system?
My guess is there's no simple answer for this, and if there were, we'd have all the shock companies working to figure out ways to lower their pressures as much as possible.
Feb. 28, 2020, 5:35 p.m. - Dave Tolnai
Ya, I don't know about this one. I'm sure there is somebody at either Fox or Rock Shox that could speak about this endlessly. As trailpovguide points out, there probably is a good argument that higher spring pressures cause higher absolute friction on a shock shaft. However, if we're talking about a higher leverage bike, which by definition has higher forces acting upon the shock, this becomes less clear. It seems to me the relative friction (i.e. how much friction is the seal exerting on the shaft relative to the force handled by the shock) would be the most important thing. Does this relative friction force go up higher relative to the increased forces on the suspension, or are these friction forces actually dwarfed by everything else going on as the pressures go up? Does the relationship remain linear? What about the differences in shaft speed in a high/low leverage system? My guess is there's no simple answer for this, and if there were, we'd have all the shock companies working to figure out ways to lower their pressures as much as possible.