Cane Creek Cloud Nine
I just put a Cane Creek Cloud Nine on my MkIII. I've used a Cloud Nine on my Hollowpoint and it's my favorite shock on that bike. So far, albeit after only one ride, I'm liking the Cloud NIne on the MkIII too.
The Fox Float R that came on the bike is actually a pretty good shock. It's not as plush as the Cloud Nine, but when the going gets rough it does a very good job. I have no doubt that some folks will prefer the feel of the Fox Float over the Cloud Nine. The bike feels solid with the Float, probably because the small bit of platform keeps the rear end fairly still on smooth(ish) terrain. (Note: The Fox Float that I'm using came with my MkIII. It's my understanding that the ProPedal damping has been tuned for use with the DW-Link suspension. An ordinary aftermarket Fox Float will most likely be way, way overdamped.)
The Cloud Nine, on the other hand, has no platform, so the rear suspension is free to move around as it wishes. Hit the smallest bump, and you'll likely see some amount of shock movement. Spin your legs really fast and you'll see some movement that you might think is pedal induced bob. It's not. I recently built a hardtail and discovered that when I spin fairly fast, my hardtail sort of bobs too. (The hardtail's "bob" is actually pretty annoying. Clearly, I need to sort out my spinning technique.) Anyway, the "bob" that I see is actually the suspension doing its job at smoothing the bouncing created when I spin my legs fast.
Hit the trail and the Cloud Nine lives up to its name. With the right compression and rebound damping settings, you kind of float over the trail, especially the small stuff. It does a pretty good job on the big stuff too, though there were a few points during today's ride where I think the Float does better. On those occasions, the Cloud NIne's rebound kicked in a bit too early and the rear end got some air. I may slow the rebound down a bit more, but I need to get some more riding time in first because midway through the ride, I tweaked the compression damping adjustment and I want to see if that helps to fix the problem. I felt that the bike did better after my tweak, but I want to ride the entire course again to be sure.
The Cloud Nine has rebound and compression damping adjustments that cover a fairly wide range. The range is so wide in fact, that you can get some really bad, bouncy behavior when you don't have enough damping. Of course, if you go too far, you can make the shock feel really dead too. None of the other shocks that I've used have this wide of an adjustment range.
I doubt that the Cloud Nine is the perfect shock for the MkIII, but it's a good one. As has been my experience with my shock testing on the Hollowpoint, each shock has its pluses and minuses and each shock changes the feel of the bike, sometimes quite dramatically. The same is true of the two shocks that I've tried thus far on my MkIII. The Fox Float makes the rider feel more connected to the trail, the Cloud Nine, as I have it set up, less so.
I wish the CCDB were a better match for the DW-Link suspension. I'd like to try a shock in which high and low speed compression damping and high and low speed rebound damping are all independently settable.