Meet the smart shocks that will help you dial your ride while you ride

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It’s very hard for the basic bits of suspension technology to move beyond springs and forcing oil through various shims, stacks and the odd bit of cleverly controlled valving, but if there is anything that can be improved very quickly it’s how well a rider can set up their suspension.

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Suspension telemetry on mountain bikes isn’t new by any means, but it’s usually the preserve of professional mountain bike teams and development engineers who have the capability (and budget) to dive into huge amounts of real-time data about how well their shocks — and therefore their athletes — are performing. If that technology could be distilled sufficiently for even the most technophobic of riders to understand, and made more affordable, it would represent a huge leap forward in being able to marry the potential that suspension designs have into how well they actually work for the end user.

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Happily, there are some developments afoot that point to a time when setting up your bike will be as simple as looking at your smartphone. So could 2017 be the year that ‘smart’ technology rather than witchcraft begins to help the average rider get the best from their shock?

SRAM's Shockwiz

Shockwiz began as an Australian Kickstarter project and was given more than a little kickstart when it was bought up by component giant SRAM. It’s now part of SRAM’s Quarq power meter division, and with all of the suspension and data acquisition resource and experience now available to Shockwiz it is sure to have helped to speed up the process — with SRAM showing a very polished-looking prototype at Eurobike this year.

How does the Shockwiz work?

The Shockwiz works by connecting to the air spring of your shock or fork and then using the changes in pressure as the shock compresses and extends to figure out what’s going on.

It’s possible to gather the data and transmit it to your phone on the fly, or to wait until the end of a run and then transfer the data from the unit to the phone

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How does it work?

The unit is pretty much there, but the algorithm that powers the app and gives recommendations is still very much in development

What’s next?

You can read more at BikeRadar.com

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