I had high expectations of this shock. For whatever reason I could not get it to feel good on my bike (Giant Reign X1). Apparently other people like it, so it must work on some bikes for other people. Not for me on this bike!
Update: They took a look at the shock and found it was indeed defective. I will be trying a different one next week.
I've also got to give props to Go-Ride. They really have proven to me that they care about their customers and will bend over backwards to help them out in tight situations. Their turn around time on getting the shock back, tested, and another one sent out to me is great.
NEW REVIEW!
New shock is for sure better and more controlled.
Good:
- Compressions feels amazing! Can't stress enough how tunable and buttery the compression is on this shock. Utterly amazing. Helps eliminate small bumps into nothing.
- Shock stroke is very supple and smooth. My last shock had bad stiction.
- Shock feels better in a lot of ways than my Roco TST but is still somewhat lacking.
- Rebound is a little better on this one than my last Elka Demo.
Bad:
- Damn rebound just isn't cutting it even though it feels better than the last Elka demo. Way too little low speed rebound and then once the adjuster starts getting some, it ruins the high speed. Still major fail IMO. My Roco TST still puts the Elka to shame in rebound. I guess I could pay a lot more to have it custom tuned, but then I don't know how much I want tuned, which might add up to a lot of trips back for retuning the high speed rebound and lots of money. I like the PUSH rebound feeling the most where it is more damped on the low speed stuff and opens up for higher speeds.
I'm sure some people like having little or no low speed rebound, as it does help pop the wheel off of jumps and keep it higher in the travel. I find that in conjunction with the good compression and the preloading of the air chamber spring, the back of the bike actually JACKS UP when hitting multiple fast hits. This does not feel good to me personally, and has caused my feet to bounce off the pedals and other crap.
- Top Out. I'm sorry, but the damn air spring is really pissing me off. I don't know how you guys think of this, but the top out from an unchecked air spring drives me bonkers. Even with a stupidly lighter coil spring, it still feels funky.
The combination of the air spring preloading effect and the backwards damped rebound leave me not so blown away on this shock. Time for a CCDB and to be done with it!
Update: They took a look at the shock and found it was indeed defective. I will be trying a different one next week.
I've also got to give props to Go-Ride. They really have proven to me that they care about their customers and will bend over backwards to help them out in tight situations. Their turn around time on getting the shock back, tested, and another one sent out to me is great.
NEW REVIEW!
New shock is for sure better and more controlled.
Good:
- Compressions feels amazing! Can't stress enough how tunable and buttery the compression is on this shock. Utterly amazing. Helps eliminate small bumps into nothing.
- Shock stroke is very supple and smooth. My last shock had bad stiction.
- Shock feels better in a lot of ways than my Roco TST but is still somewhat lacking.
- Rebound is a little better on this one than my last Elka Demo.
Bad:
- Damn rebound just isn't cutting it even though it feels better than the last Elka demo. Way too little low speed rebound and then once the adjuster starts getting some, it ruins the high speed. Still major fail IMO. My Roco TST still puts the Elka to shame in rebound. I guess I could pay a lot more to have it custom tuned, but then I don't know how much I want tuned, which might add up to a lot of trips back for retuning the high speed rebound and lots of money. I like the PUSH rebound feeling the most where it is more damped on the low speed stuff and opens up for higher speeds.
I'm sure some people like having little or no low speed rebound, as it does help pop the wheel off of jumps and keep it higher in the travel. I find that in conjunction with the good compression and the preloading of the air chamber spring, the back of the bike actually JACKS UP when hitting multiple fast hits. This does not feel good to me personally, and has caused my feet to bounce off the pedals and other crap.
- Top Out. I'm sorry, but the damn air spring is really pissing me off. I don't know how you guys think of this, but the top out from an unchecked air spring drives me bonkers. Even with a stupidly lighter coil spring, it still feels funky.
The combination of the air spring preloading effect and the backwards damped rebound leave me not so blown away on this shock. Time for a CCDB and to be done with it!