Pedal feedback: Coming full circle
A disturbing trend seems to have reappeared on my rides lately: right knee pain (the knee I injured in a OTB crash back in '05).
My first full susser in '06 was a blur xc. You know the story by now; backward crank tugs on granny climbs followed
by aching knee for the next couple days. Couldn't wait to get rid of that.
So I played it safe on my next couple bike purchases, sticking to the tried and true horst link flavors of suspension design.
Fast forward to 2011, and I realize that I'm avoiding long climbs on my Knolly Delirium due to how winded you get when things get steep.
But while Knolly's 4X4 may be the most efficient HL design on its face, I'm realizing that for AM riding it's just not the ticket.
(Unless you're one of the guys featured in one of gthose North Shore videos on the Knolly site.) Still a great bike , though.
Just not my cup of tea as an all rounder.
While I was still leery of dual link designs due to the potential for pedal feedback (and how hard that is on your knees),
a couple of Firebird demos that featured technical climbs without a hint of noticeable pedal feedback convinced me to give the
Firebird a try. So I sold the delirium frame and picked up the Firebird frame a few months later.
Everything went well at first as far as the pedal feedback goes. (Although I did have to ditch the rp23 that the bike came with
for a DHX air to get some plushness out of it.) The DHX air started drooling oil a few months back, so I sent it back on warranty,
and while it was there at Fox they retuned it for the Firebird spring rates and my weight- I was told - in addition to the warranty work.
I thought, WOW, splendid and dandy, but I still wanted a bit more plushness out of it, so I've decided to go for a fox DHX RC4 coil.
Now (finally) we get to my question: While I really want to make this mod, will going coil possibly have a negative impact on the
overall pedal feedback issue ? The suspension was apparently designed around an air shock, which are inherently progressive.
So would going coil help flatten out the spring rate curve a bit in the middle, perhaps lessening the overall amount of
pedal feedback that goes into my knee ?
I should add that while I'm not feeling the classical symptoms of pedal feedback, i.e., backward tug on the cranks, herky-jerky pedaling
in the granny/tech, etc., I'm pretty sure my knee pain is due to the chain growth that goes along with dual link designs.
Thanks for reading.
A disturbing trend seems to have reappeared on my rides lately: right knee pain (the knee I injured in a OTB crash back in '05).
My first full susser in '06 was a blur xc. You know the story by now; backward crank tugs on granny climbs followed
by aching knee for the next couple days. Couldn't wait to get rid of that.
So I played it safe on my next couple bike purchases, sticking to the tried and true horst link flavors of suspension design.
Fast forward to 2011, and I realize that I'm avoiding long climbs on my Knolly Delirium due to how winded you get when things get steep.
But while Knolly's 4X4 may be the most efficient HL design on its face, I'm realizing that for AM riding it's just not the ticket.
(Unless you're one of the guys featured in one of gthose North Shore videos on the Knolly site.) Still a great bike , though.
Just not my cup of tea as an all rounder.
While I was still leery of dual link designs due to the potential for pedal feedback (and how hard that is on your knees),
a couple of Firebird demos that featured technical climbs without a hint of noticeable pedal feedback convinced me to give the
Firebird a try. So I sold the delirium frame and picked up the Firebird frame a few months later.
Everything went well at first as far as the pedal feedback goes. (Although I did have to ditch the rp23 that the bike came with
for a DHX air to get some plushness out of it.) The DHX air started drooling oil a few months back, so I sent it back on warranty,
and while it was there at Fox they retuned it for the Firebird spring rates and my weight- I was told - in addition to the warranty work.
I thought, WOW, splendid and dandy, but I still wanted a bit more plushness out of it, so I've decided to go for a fox DHX RC4 coil.
Now (finally) we get to my question: While I really want to make this mod, will going coil possibly have a negative impact on the
overall pedal feedback issue ? The suspension was apparently designed around an air shock, which are inherently progressive.
So would going coil help flatten out the spring rate curve a bit in the middle, perhaps lessening the overall amount of
pedal feedback that goes into my knee ?
I should add that while I'm not feeling the classical symptoms of pedal feedback, i.e., backward tug on the cranks, herky-jerky pedaling
in the granny/tech, etc., I'm pretty sure my knee pain is due to the chain growth that goes along with dual link designs.
Thanks for reading.