The air spring curve is just shaped like a hammock. Very stiff at the initial travel, boggy through the middle, then ramps up again.
If I lower the air pressure enough to fix the initial harshness it becomes terrifying when riding anything steep. If I pump it up it feels great on steeps (as long as things don't get too fast) but miserable at higher speeds.
The two changes address this in different ways I suppose - The B1 addresses it directly - it doesn't have the aggressive topout and has a more functional negative spring, so you can run more pressure and have more midstroke without the small bump dying.
The idea with the HC97 is to improve midstroke at lower pressures via more damping. I think that may be the biggest weakness, stock damper provides minimal low speed compression damping as the HSC circuit just bypasses. If you close HSC up enough for the LSC knob to do anything, the fork just starts to feel... wierd.
My other two bikes have a Fox 38 RC2 and a DVO diamond d1 and both are much easier to dial in. I mainly attribute this to the fact that the damping adjustments actually make a difference.
May 26, 2022, 4:27 p.m. - Kenny
The air spring curve is just shaped like a hammock. Very stiff at the initial travel, boggy through the middle, then ramps up again. If I lower the air pressure enough to fix the initial harshness it becomes terrifying when riding anything steep. If I pump it up it feels great on steeps (as long as things don't get too fast) but miserable at higher speeds. The two changes address this in different ways I suppose - The B1 addresses it directly - it doesn't have the aggressive topout and has a more functional negative spring, so you can run more pressure and have more midstroke without the small bump dying. The idea with the HC97 is to improve midstroke at lower pressures via more damping. I think that may be the biggest weakness, stock damper provides minimal low speed compression damping as the HSC circuit just bypasses. If you close HSC up enough for the LSC knob to do anything, the fork just starts to feel... wierd. My other two bikes have a Fox 38 RC2 and a DVO diamond d1 and both are much easier to dial in. I mainly attribute this to the fact that the damping adjustments actually make a difference.