If you razz a mountain bike in the 1980s or 90s , suspension was just a ambition — something only the rich kids could give . Gradually , though , it became a must - have feature for serious trail rider . It began with shocks in the front ramification , and later evolved to full suspension with shocks on both wheels — and finally , give - repel interruption gave style to pneumatic . But there was a problem .
If you go down your rearward suspension to be too voiced , you suffer a lot of pedaling power because every metre you stomp down the suspension absorbs the energy , so you lose a lot of that power when transferring it your private road train . Set the rearward suspension too firm , though , and you ’ll feel every little gibbousness reverberate through your organic structure . It ’ll make your ride , bumpy , mentally ill , and uncomfortable . So which do you choose ? One ? The other ? Something in between ? Do you get off your bike every time you want to vary the resistance ?
You could do that . Or you could let this well-informed galvanising respite system from Lapierre and RockShox deal with it for you .
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What Is It?
Gallic bicycle ship’s company Lapierre and RockShox ( a ubiquitous maker of bike interruption systems ) spend five yr of R&D dialing in the atomic number 99 : i , or “ electronic intelligence , ” electric shock system . It consists of several piece : a cycle computer with an accelerometer in it , a handlebar - rise control switch , a 2nd accelerometer in the front fork , a cadence sensor in the bottom bracket , a battery large number , and last but definitely not least , a Monarch Relay containing a servomechanism motor that controls the compression of the shock absorber ( shown in the top icon ) .
Those constituent , when couple with a compatible set of shocks ( from RockShox ) , create a suspension organisation that automatically adjusts itself to the terrain and circumstances . For all that , it adds only 12.3 ounces to your carriage .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvC27zVn21 g
How It Works
Before you head out on the lead , you aline your “ sag , ” or how much the rear impact compresses when you put your full system of weights on it . Too loose , and you could bottom out when you down from a parachuting or a drop , which could break your ramification ( or crotch ) . Too tight and all that quivering and gibbousness is translated into your dead body . Most manufacturer recommend about a 25 to 30 percentage sag . You adjust the amount of droop using an air ticker as per common and manoeuvre out .
From there , you could pretty much let the e : i arrangement do its affair . It works like this : on the cycle figurer , quality one of the auto fashion . This engage the einsteinium : i system . From here on out , your rear dangling is paying attention to what happen in your front suspension . For exemplar , when you ’re voyage downhill without pedaling , the system will respond by afford up the rear suspension to absorb any bumps along the way . If you ’re wheel uphill , it ’ll lock out your rearward suspension so all of your push blend into the crank , not the shocks .
But what if you ’re pedaling and it start to get rough ? Like , for representative , you ’re cycle over a bunch of smaller bulge and bumpy terrain . The e : i system will switch to “ pedal ” mode , which balances power transfer and smoothness . Hit a big gibbousness , however , and the front accelerometer will take note , immediately opening up the rearward suspension so your seat does n’t post a shockwave up your spikelet . How fast is it ? Try 0.1 seconds . tight enough that if you could hit a fully grown rock candy move 22 MPH , the rear abeyance would release before the rock hits your rearward rack . That ’s damn telling . Lapierre ’s engineers estimate that on a typical ride , the e : i system will adjust your rearward pause 200 times . Can you imagine manually adjusting your bike that many time in an hour ?
Now , about the user port . The onboard computer break you manual controls ( and also displays your average speed , current speed , chronograph , space , beat , and the current position of the shocks ) . If you hump you ’re in for a longsighted downhill division , you could utilise the toggle electric switch to sky it to open . If you live you ’ll be climbing for a while , switch to locked mode . Or if you know you ’ll be pedal over some pugnacious stuff , you may thumb it to the foot lever modality . But the automatic mode is how you lock e : i — within auto , there are five levels of sensitiveness . Level 1 makes the threshold for bumps very low-down , easily releasing into the cushier overt mode . Level 5 will take a much boastful bump before it releases the rear suspension . This is more for people who are going to be pedaling a lot and going for speed . barrage fire life is typically 25 hours of use on a unmarried commission .
Using It
Last hebdomad I got the fortune to prove the atomic number 99 : i system on a duet Lapierre bikes : the Zesty All - Mountain and the XR ( cross - country bike ) . The Zesty has a good spate more travel ( the amount of movement the suspension can accommodate ) , so e : i ’s mien was very noticeable . We localise the droop to 30 percent and adjust the computer to Auto 2 , which mean it would be pretty liberal with reprieve but would n’t go subdued at the slight excrescence in the road . You still have to manually leave the front fork ’s suspension assailable , otherwise it has no travelling and the accelerometer ca n’t tell your rearward suspension when to open up .
While coast in the downhill section , the suspension opened up as advertised , and it made for a very smooth ride . I was clearing jump , fall , tabletop , and landing easy - breezy ( and I ’m not a very accomplished mountain cyclist ) . As shortly as we hit a climb , I could feel my rear suspension lock out . I tried the same stretch compared to give birth the suspension manually set to spread out , and it find like normal biking versus pedal through bubblegum . Then ( still in eastward : i motorcar mode 2 ) , if I hit a rock , I instantly find everything get looser . This came in ready to hand while pedaling up niggling hills only to come up a gnarled tree - root right field at the top — which seemed to happen a lot .
The dangling reacted tight enough that I never feel like I was going to get charge off my seat while flap down into a rock . It dedicate me the confidence to hit jumps , teeterboard - totters , and steep berms that I would n’t have dared tackle otherwise . My experience was n’t about as good on the XR , but that was really my own defect . I should n’t have selected a cross land motorcycle for a fairly technological downward-sloping course . It dead cruised on the uphills and in the flats , but I got into bother on the downhill sections . My centerfield of gravity was too mellow , and there was n’t enough grip on the tires or travelling in the shocks . This culminated in me leave a fair amount of shin , knee , hip , chest , and elbow peel on the pile . as luck would have it I was wearing Google Glass , so there ’s some choice POV footage of me eating copious amounts of shit .
Getting Them
The e : i shock absorber system debut on Lapierre ’s high - ending bikes last time of year , but they never made it to North America due to patent issues . fortuitously , that ’s in the past , and the atomic number 99 : i shock system will be available for the first metre in the U.S. in January 2014 . That ’s the good news .
The bad tidings ? E : i is exclusive to Lapierre ’s high - closing mountain bikes : the Spicy , Zesty AM , Zesty Trail , and XR . These bikes ai n’t cheap . We ’re blab out $ 8,000 for the top - end C example , and around $ 5,000 for the lower - terminal interlingual rendition that still amount with due east : i. In other words , this is a organization design for serious cyclists only . But if you ’ve have the breadstuff to drop on a new mountain bike , the e : i shock system will spoil you mighty fast . [ Lapierre bicycle ]
Top Image Credit : Manu MoleMiddle Image Credit : David SchultheisBottom Image Credit : Lauren Fallert
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