That's a very pretty graph showing the "damage" comparison with and without B-cups by vibration frequency.
(puts on nerd goggles)--
It's a bit unclear how they came up with the damage figure. You'd have to know the thresholds for actual body tissue damage; did they find and use something like that? Seems unlikely, and if not, my guess from the look of the graph is they just used the instrumentation to measure vibration intensity by frequency, and then got a "total damage" figure from the area under the graph.
That's definitely easier, and does give some kind of comparison, but without thresholds we have no idea if the vibe levels at various frequencies are actually harmful or not. ISO standards for things like power tools and hand damage weight this kind of data heavily by frequency-- vibration within 8-16Hz is the worst; outside that range much less of a problem, but the chart covers frequencies from 0-50Hz.
If the chart curves are the result of using those weightings, that would be really cool. It'd mean the chart of straight up vibration intensity, before considering damage weightings, would have a huge dip in the danger area where they'd tuned the B-cups to absorb it, and we'd all be even more impressed by Rockshox's engineers.
Oh, and did you spot the math bobble in that chart? It says damage 0.68 vs 0.96, so damage reduction of 96-68= "28%". From the numbers it's actually a reduction of 0.28 units from 0.96, which is 29%. Surprised they missed that as it's in their favour.
(tosses nerd goggles in disgust)
By the way, Spank have a great online white paper covering THEIR approach to stopping harmful vibes--at the handlebar. Lots of juicy graphs. Of course if the B-cups work as claimed then they affect the whole bike, not just the hands as bars do.
Ride on.
Feb. 10, 2024, 8:17 p.m. - Flagrant_Mechanic
That's a very pretty graph showing the "damage" comparison with and without B-cups by vibration frequency. (puts on nerd goggles)-- It's a bit unclear how they came up with the damage figure. You'd have to know the thresholds for actual body tissue damage; did they find and use something like that? Seems unlikely, and if not, my guess from the look of the graph is they just used the instrumentation to measure vibration intensity by frequency, and then got a "total damage" figure from the area under the graph. That's definitely easier, and does give some kind of comparison, but without thresholds we have no idea if the vibe levels at various frequencies are actually harmful or not. ISO standards for things like power tools and hand damage weight this kind of data heavily by frequency-- vibration within 8-16Hz is the worst; outside that range much less of a problem, but the chart covers frequencies from 0-50Hz. If the chart curves are the result of using those weightings, that would be really cool. It'd mean the chart of straight up vibration intensity, before considering damage weightings, would have a huge dip in the danger area where they'd tuned the B-cups to absorb it, and we'd all be even more impressed by Rockshox's engineers. Oh, and did you spot the math bobble in that chart? It says damage 0.68 vs 0.96, so damage reduction of 96-68= "28%". From the numbers it's actually a reduction of 0.28 units from 0.96, which is 29%. Surprised they missed that as it's in their favour. (tosses nerd goggles in disgust) By the way, Spank have a great online white paper covering THEIR approach to stopping harmful vibes--at the handlebar. Lots of juicy graphs. Of course if the B-cups work as claimed then they affect the whole bike, not just the hands as bars do. Ride on.