So, you have a well tested suspension design for a mountain bike that's had lots of real world use and some refinement. You're happy with it and decide to freshen up the range with a spangly lightweight carbon model.

So do you:

"Decide" to put the shortest possible shock in and design the carbon mainframe to accomodate it, just as many manufacturers are realising the potential of longer shocks with lower ratios.

OR;

Use the tried and tested design only in carbon, with the same shock that you know works well.

OR;

Use the wonderful properties of carbon to tweak things slightly in order to run a slightly longer stroke shock without affecting the shock angle/rate.

In my head, it's NOT the first one, so why have they done it? Surely not as a gramme saving measure when they could have just specc'ed a lighter shock?

Is this a glorious cock-up that was too expensive to rectify?

I believe that the shock stroke is the same as the aluminium bikes.

Is it? That shock looks either half compressed or the umpa-lumpa version!

It looks the same length as my idrive 4 which is a 165mm eye to eye length.

Yeah same as the ID4 in everyway but Carbon upfront. Which saves about 100grams I'd bet.

My ID5 Mediums got a 195, the Smalls have the size below this stupidly.

But thats the first ever GT review, well I've seen on BM, so good and look forward to reading the write up, being a GT ID fan.

We reviewed the ID4 when it first came out.

So 6" bikes use 190/200mm shocks with a 50mm stroke and nobody bats an eyelid. But put a 165mm, 38mm stroke shock on a 4" bike and it's a problem. No it's not.

My 4in bike uses a 200x50mm shock, and the nearest 6in bike to me has a 220mm ;-)

6" or 6.5" inch Mike? ;-) If so the 65mm stroke still gives a similar ration to a 165mm shock on a 4" bike.

150mm, so average 2.3:1. 38 on a 100mm bike is 2.63:1, which as you say is firmly in the realms of acceptability but on the high side for my tastes ;-)

(unrelated, but...)

what's that? scott ransom? short stroke, high pressure?

The Ransom breaks all the rules and rides great Mike!.

until the high pressure shock goes Bang and blows your legs off.

* will go look for ID4 review *

Nice review mike.

The answer to why it's different to the old design is, they've lessened the I-drive effect, so it doesn't cause the opposite reaction it's more neutral, upsides being outta the saddle peddling, downside being less active while not seated, where as I never felt that on the older design. It moves about 1/2 the amount, yes I've been comparing to my old frame.

The Ransom breaks all the rules and rides great Mike!.

Aye. It helps that the shock was designed for the bike. You wouldn't want to try that kind of setup with a regular shock ;-)

can't help worrying that I might be picking pieces of Swinger out of my legs with the pressure I have to run for my not insubstantial weight! (Giant manual says start with putting in your weight in lbs i.e. 224)...didn't move when I did that. Out of interest can anyone tell me the shock stroke on my 05 reign? I think it's 50mm but dont ever seem to get more than about 40mm; thinking that I might not be getting me full 6'' ?

Dan take all of the air out, compress it fully and measure the stroke, if it looks to low then you might have too much oil in there.

I'm only getting 38mm's outta 50mm's on my GT, falls through the travel aswell, so looking into getting a larger AVA air can to sort this soon.


Ot I could fit my vannila and sell it :)

cheers Dylan, I did take all the air out a while back and still only seemed to get 45mm ish. The think is I've never actually noticed bottoming the suspension out so I dont know whether I've used full travel. If I soften it any more then it gets too soft and sags about 20-25mm. It could be a 50mm stroke shock but it could also be 45mm!

whats the eye to eye length ( middle of the 1 bolt to the other ) if it's 195 then it's 50mm.

drain abit off oil out by angling the bike so the air valve is at the low point, when you release some air it'll force some oil out don't drain to much, see if that helps.

cheers I shall have a poke with it tonight!