Full Suspension | horizontal or vertical shock ?

[drfragnasty]

What's the best suspension geometry?

I'm drawn to the Trek ABP upright shock design since
pedal force won't compress the shock as much as the simpler
horizontal geometry.

I've Googled it and there's a mix of World Champion's bikes that
run both.

[Carbon_Dude]

I like the suspension characteristics of my Specialized FSR design, I think it's an improvement over my previous IP-036 frame.  I think the FSR is a more sophisticated and evolved design.  However, the Trek ABP is also nice, as is the new Scott Scale Spark design.

[tripleDot]

@Carbon_Dude, I think you mean Scott Spark, the Scale is a hard tail.

[Carbon_Dude]

Yes, the Scott Spark.

[drfragnasty]

Thanks for the feedback.
The Spark looks great:



Any Chiner equivalents available?

[carbonazza]

Some well known brands keep the horizontal shock for 2017 like Pivot Cycles, Santa Cruz, Ibis.

The links and pivots positions and the curve they make when moving is what matter the most regarding the pedal bob and squat.
However the vertical shock may offer a lower center of the gravity.

Look for Andrextr on youtube, he has many videos explaining how pivots, links and shocks work.

[bxcc]

For some reason, I put a lot of value on a unified rear triangle. I'm not a big fan of designs that use pivots near the rear axle. I realize that those pivots don't move much but I'm still not sold on the idea. Whether the shock is horziontal or vertical, I've never really thought about that. Trek's design uses a "floating" shock which ends are attached to some sort of pivot.

[Carbon_Dude]

Unfortunately, there are but a few Chinese full suspension designs available.  Possibly because there are many patents surrounding suspension designs.  One thing I did notice somewhat on my IP/CS-036 was the amount of flex in the rear triangle.  The seat stays were a bit undersized in my opinion, and since the rear triangle wasn't "unified", meaning a closed triangle like on a Santa Cruz, there is quite a bit of lateral flex in the frame.  However, the -036 is a lightweight, cross country frame so it is fit for purpose and still rides well despite the flex in the frame.  Just don't expect it to do as well on rough terrain.

I think Workswell had one vertical shock FS frame, but I don't see it on their website anymore, it's about the only one I know of.  Otherwise, you have the IP/CS-036 and the Carbonal Titan frames as choices for the horizontal shock.  If you are considering a 27.5+ bike, Peter at XM Carbonspeed has the CS-M04 which I think would be high on my list for a FS plus bike these days.  If you want to see what that a CS-M04 looks like when built up, check out Olympia Bikes Italy, (http://www.olympiacicli.it/en/models/full-suspended), they have good pictures.

[drfragnasty]

Awesome info. thanks for sharing.