Nice review Deniz. I think this link would make many Druid owners happy. I ended up getting one for my Dreadnought. I can sum my experience in one work; extreme! Since I couldn't get my EXT Storia to work with it initially (more on that later), I ran it with a Rock Shox Super Deluxe (I can confirm that the Float X2 clears too). At first I had a Meg Neg on there, but that was a bit silly. Even at over 40% sag, I could only get about 90% travel, even when I tried to bottom out. I swapped back to the regular can and that was better. The link takes the already quite progressive Dreadnought and pushes it to 11. I haven't seen small bump performance like that since I was riding DH bikes. Tons of mid stroke support and even with no volume spacers, it was extremely hard to bottom out. I know this sounds awesome, but if I wanted to use close to full travel on most rides, I ended up having to run a bit more sag that desired, so I ended up in the firm mid-stroke (unless I un-weighted the bike or rode front heavy). This was great for pinning it, less great for those days I was tired.
I was told that shocks like the EXT Storia wouldn't work because of the spring contacting the link. I was pretty convinced that a coil would be way better so I got some help from Peter and Pinner Machine shop in Whistler. I sent him my shock and link and he milled an aluminum spacer to move the spring forward a bit so the link would clear. This worked like a charm! Now I could run a little less sag but the bike would still sag under it's own weight. I'm about 185 lbs and I was running a 350 lb spring and this set up was still very hard to bottom out.
The great thing about the link is that it didn't really change the pedaling efficiency.
The big question, would I recommend it to other Dreadnought owners? I'm not sure. It would certainly make some people happy. But it really cranks up a lot of the bike's character. The nice thing is that it's not overly expensive (certainly cheaper than buying a new bike) and it's reversible. I hope this helps!
Jan. 1, 2022, 6:40 p.m. - grimwood
Nice review Deniz. I think this link would make many Druid owners happy. I ended up getting one for my Dreadnought. I can sum my experience in one work; extreme! Since I couldn't get my EXT Storia to work with it initially (more on that later), I ran it with a Rock Shox Super Deluxe (I can confirm that the Float X2 clears too). At first I had a Meg Neg on there, but that was a bit silly. Even at over 40% sag, I could only get about 90% travel, even when I tried to bottom out. I swapped back to the regular can and that was better. The link takes the already quite progressive Dreadnought and pushes it to 11. I haven't seen small bump performance like that since I was riding DH bikes. Tons of mid stroke support and even with no volume spacers, it was extremely hard to bottom out. I know this sounds awesome, but if I wanted to use close to full travel on most rides, I ended up having to run a bit more sag that desired, so I ended up in the firm mid-stroke (unless I un-weighted the bike or rode front heavy). This was great for pinning it, less great for those days I was tired. I was told that shocks like the EXT Storia wouldn't work because of the spring contacting the link. I was pretty convinced that a coil would be way better so I got some help from Peter and Pinner Machine shop in Whistler. I sent him my shock and link and he milled an aluminum spacer to move the spring forward a bit so the link would clear. This worked like a charm! Now I could run a little less sag but the bike would still sag under it's own weight. I'm about 185 lbs and I was running a 350 lb spring and this set up was still very hard to bottom out. The great thing about the link is that it didn't really change the pedaling efficiency. The big question, would I recommend it to other Dreadnought owners? I'm not sure. It would certainly make some people happy. But it really cranks up a lot of the bike's character. The nice thing is that it's not overly expensive (certainly cheaper than buying a new bike) and it's reversible. I hope this helps!