Veteran Patton 16" 126v 2220wh

[Bustapalapno]

8 hours ago, Wonton said:

At 85kg (187lb) geared up, I'm apparently in the middle of the recommended weights for the 62lb and 66lb suspensions. Any thoughts on which one to go for? I'll be riding this 90% on trails and single track.

Cheers

I'm 175lb geared and have tried the 58lb and the 62lb. I preferred the 62lb but still enjoyed the 58. The 58 is more plush and uses more of the suspension travel at my weight. The 62lb felt a little stiffer and more controlled at the middle setting. You can always make it a little stiffer with the adjustments. Based on that limited experience, I think you'll be fine with the 62lb. The 66lb is probably going to be slightly too stiff.

[stephen]

62lb will be fine you can always adjust the preload to add upto 5lb

[Rollin-on-1]

9 hours ago, Wonton said:

At 85kg (187lb) geared up, I'm apparently in the middle of the recommended weights for the 62lb and 66lb suspensions. Any thoughts on which one to go for? I'll be riding this 90% on trails and single track.

Cheers

There is another thread dedicated to this topic. Here is a post rhat I left in the other thread that may be beneficial:

I asked Bradley at Eevee's what he considered to be the minimum rider weight for a Patton with the 66lb spring. As far as I'm aware, they may be the only ones that have demoed one and his weight is pretty close to mine. He responded and said he thought the 66lb spring would be good for anyone 170 lbs or more, and even lighter if doing jumps or big drops.  Based on his feedback, I changed my pre-order to the 66 lb spring.  My riding weight fully geared is around 185lbs. 
 

    For context, I briefly rode a Sherman-S with a 62lb spring on the default settings and I found it a little soft for my preference. I like to have a little more feedback from the road.  I am sure that with more pre-load and stiffer compression the 62lb spring would be fine, but I am going with the higher spring rate so I have more room for adjustment when needed.  When I changed my order, I was told that the majority of Patton pre-orders are for the 66lb option.
 

    I will provide my impressions once I get it.
 

     
 
https://forum.electricunicycle.org/topic/32403-sherman-spatton-shock-decision/?do=findComment&comment=470792

[Wonton]

[Paradox]

28 minutes ago, Wonton said:

 Ah, I get it. 

Edited April 19, 2023 by Paradox

[Rollin-on-1]

See, not so bad...

https://youtu.be/0fWADDHOark

 

[Rawnei]

7 hours ago, Rollin-on-1 said:

See, not so bad...

https://youtu.be/0fWADDHOark

 

 

Awesome, very close to what I theorized before 😂

 

On 4/7/2023 at 8:27 PM, Rawnei said:

Here is what I imagine you have to do, this is pure speculation but not unrealistic speculation from watching tear down:

1. Unscrew all the bumpers/kickstand/etc i.e. anything extra that bridges the two battery boxes together
2. Open the top of the battery boxes so you can unplug the batteries from the controller
3. Unscrew controller construction, don't open controller leave it sealed
4. Unscrew only one battery box from suspension pillar and lift it off (possibly something else needs to be loosened here like mudguard mounts difficult to say at this point)
5. Unscrew suspension pillar from motor
6. You now have access to motor for tire swap
7. If not enough space to work with would have to do the same thing with battery box and pillar on other side so that motor comes completely free but people are swapping tires this way on other wheels

 

 

[techyiam]

On 4/19/2023 at 9:07 AM, Rollin-on-1 said:

I asked Bradley at Eevee's what he considered to be the minimum rider weight for a Patton with the 66lb spring. As far as I'm aware, they may be the only ones that have demoed one and his weight is pretty close to mine. He responded and said he thought the 66lb spring would be good for anyone 170 lbs or more, and even lighter if doing jumps or big drops.  Based on his feedback, I changed my pre-order to the 66 lb spring.  My riding weight fully geared is around 185lbs.

I can concur, based on my limited time on a Patton in a parking lot, Intro2speed type setting. I was told that the Patton I was on has a spring rate of 62 lbs/in. I can tell that the wheel was clearly under sprung. I weigh less than 170 lbs. Now, it rode fine on flat pavement, in fact a cushy ride, but the suspension action under load would not perform ideally, and can bottom easily should you do some kind of drop or hitting big edge bumps.

Edited April 24, 2023 by techyiam

[Rollin-on-1]

3 hours ago, techyiam said:

I can concur, based on my limited time on a Patton in a parking lot, Intro2speed type setting. I was told that the Patton I was on has a spring rate of 62 lbs/in. I can tell that the wheel was clearly under sprung. I weigh less than 170 lbs. Now, it rode fine on flat pavement, in fact a cushy ride, but the suspension action under load would not perform ideally, and can bottom easily should you do some kind of drop or hitting big edge bumps.

Do you happen to know what the preload, compression, and rebound settings were?

[stephen]

 

[techyiam]

16 hours ago, Rollin-on-1 said:

Do you happen to know what the preload, compression, and rebound settings were?

No, I don't. But I did ask. The reply was that the spring preload was never touched from factory. 

But I could separate the damping action from the under sprung action by feel. It was under sprung by so much that I didn't think the preload was going to matter. I can tell quite distinctively because I have experimented with spring rates before on suspension bikes.

Edited April 25, 2023 by techyiam

[Clem604]

Teardown!

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Clem604

[Rollin-on-1]

12 minutes ago, Clem604 said:

Teardown!

 

Really glad to see that the improved bearing seals are working well. The ecodrift teardown didn't look as promising. I'm feeling good about the Patton at rhis point.

[stizl]

On 4/24/2023 at 7:10 AM, techyiam said:

No, I don't. But I did ask. The reply was that the spring preload was never touched from factory. 

But I could separate the damping action from the under sprung action by feel. It was under sprung by so much that I didn't think the preload was going to matter. I can tell quite distinctively because I have experimented with spring rates before on suspension bikes.

I’m a long time reader but first time poster here, so I’ll start off with a proper long post:

I agree that significantly undersprung configurations can be identified by feel, especially by an experienced rider, but we should also consider the static sag range achievable with a given spring rate combined with the setting of the limited-range preload adjuster. 

Just as the suspension absorbs bumps by allowing the tire to travel upwards (thereby keeping the tire on the ground and maintaining traction, braking/acceleration, and overall stability), the suspension also allows the tire to stay in contact with the ground when the ground falls away from the wheel, such as when riding into a pothole or other downward undulation. The latter can only happen with proper sag.

Opinions on the exact range of acceptable sag will vary, of course (and there will always be outlier opinions), but the extremes of this sag range are generally from 15% to 35% of the total travel. My main point here is to caution against choosing a spring rate so high as to not be able to achieve at least 15% sag. With less (or worse no) sag, the suspension performance and overall handling will suffer. On top of that, the suspension could regularly top-out instead of occasionally bottoming out, which would probably have worse overall handling and comfort outcomes. 

If one selects a spring rate that allows some minimum of acceptable sag but still encounters frequent/excessive bottoming out of the suspension after adjusting the damping settings, there may be other remedies. I suspect that these wheels have constant-rate springs, as most fork springs are. We may be able to find (or some aftermarket will make) progressive springs, which have progressive rates and could somewhat emulate the linkage-type suspension performance found on other wheels like the S22 and Begodes. Another possibility may be adding volume-reducing spacers inside the suspension tubes, which would add some progressivity, at least toward the end of the stroke   (as these aren’t pressurized tubes) where it would help resist bottoming out. 

Lastly, the plush ride of the Sherman/Patton type suspension is widely considered the best currently out, but not for jumping. The plush ride is due in part, at least, to the linear suspension action, which allows the wheel to generally use more of its travel when compared to similar-travel progressive suspension wheels under the same conditions.  Bottom line: you can’t have it all. Everything is a compromise. 
 

Once people start getting these Pattons in hand, we can start a thread where owners report their spring rate, rider weight, and measured sag. This could help future buyers make better decisions. 

[techyiam]

 

5 hours ago, stizl said:

Lastly, the plush ride of the Sherman/Patton type suspension is widely considered the best currently out, but not for jumping. The plush ride is due in part, at least, to the linear suspension action, which allows the wheel to generally use more of its travel when compared to similar-travel progressive suspension wheels under the same conditions.  Bottom line: you can’t have it all. Everything is a compromise. 

Get on a Patton, and see for yourself. 

[stizl]

1 hour ago, techyiam said:

 

Get on a Patton, and see for yourself. 

Will do. I have one on order. I am 170lbs and went with the 62lb/in. Given my previous rant, I’ll post my preload/sag on Day 1. 

[techyiam]

19 minutes ago, stizl said:

Will do. I have one on order. I am 170lbs and went with the 62lb/in. Given my previous rant, I’ll post my preload/sag on Day 1. 

That's great. You will be able to provide a really good data point, given your understanding. 

I hope the spring rate will work well for your use case.

[Rollin-on-1]

2 hours ago, stizl said:

I am 170lbs and went with the 62lb/in.

Is 170lbs your geared up riding weight?  

When we start the spreadsheet, perhaps we should ask each rider to measure sag when geared and ungeared so we get a larger data set to look at.  Asding fields to allow riders to enter their preload, compression, and rebound settings may be beneficial as well.

[mrelwood]

@stizl, while your post was very informative and clearly well informed, I have trouble figuring out what you mean by this:

10 hours ago, stizl said:

Another possibility may be adding volume-reducing spacers inside the suspension tubes, which would add some progressivity, at least toward the end of the stroke   (as these aren’t pressurized tubes) where it would help resist bottoming out.

A volume spacer in a coil spring suspension strut??? Never heard of one being used with a coil spring. If they are however, how is it different from the preload setting?

[stizl]

45 minutes ago, Rollin-on-1 said:

Is 170lbs your geared up riding weight?  

When we start the spreadsheet, perhaps we should ask each rider to measure sag when geared and ungeared so we get a larger data set to look at.  Asding fields to allow riders to enter their preload, compression, and rebound settings may be beneficial as well.

Yes to the spreadsheet idea and getting 2x the data using geared/ungeared! 

I am about 169 geared, last I checked. 
 

From prior experience setting up motorcycle and MTB forks, having only three available spring rates to choose from will leave many in-between riders will having to choose a compromise rate based on their typical use case. Hopefully the adjustable preload will bridge some of these gaps.  
 

Adding preload spacers under the fork caps is a common method to get extra preload with motorcycle forks, assuming there is space for them in the tubes.  This is the easiest mod to do if you are a suspension geek, but I’m guessing most would rather leave the tubes as they are and just set it and forget it, except maybe for damping settings.  

 

[techyiam]

Look at how well the suspension is soaking up the undulations for the rider doing stairs in the video below:

The stairs segment starts at 1:01.

Are they certain that they have the stock production suspension structs in the unit used for making this video? 

 

[stizl]

1 hour ago, mrelwood said:

@stizl, while your post was very informative and clearly well informed, I have trouble figuring out what you mean by this:

A volume spacer in a coil spring suspension strut??? Never heard of one being used with a coil spring. If they are however, how is it different from the preload setting?

You are correct that volume reducers in coil applications are not typical.  Reducers are mostly used in air shocks.  There are exceptions, however.  For example, the new-ish Marzocchi (Fox) Bomber Z1 Coil MTB fork has preinstalled volume reducers "for progressivity and bottom out control", according to their website.  

This is different from the preload setting because air springs are non-linear.  A quick recap here for those interested: linear spring force is calculated using Hooke's Law as F=ks, where F is the spring force, k is the spring constant (ex: 62lbs/in), and s is the distance the spring is compressed.  A crude simplification of a progressive spring would be F=ks^x, where (in our case) x>1 and in the case of air springs x is dependent on s and other factors outside of the scope here (temperature, gas properties...don't kill me, physics lovers).  Adding spring preload simply adds up to a few percent (of travel) of the s-value, allowing you to achieve desired sag level but not making much difference further into the stroke.      

Every coil fork still also has some air spring effect, but it is essentially negligible in comparison to the spring effect of the coil except for near the very end of the stroke.  Air-only forks eliminate the coil by being pre-pressurized and therefore have non-negligible force at the beginning of the stroke.  Marzocchi reduced the air volume of their Bomber Coil fork to shift the air spring's effective range further up into the travel. 

On damping rod forks (as the Patton has, evidenced by the compression adjusters on the "fork" caps), there is a telescopic shaft that extends through the inside of the coil, so adding spacers would be difficult.  For damping rod motorcycle forks, air volume is often instead reduced by increasing the fork oil level.  This needs to be done with precision, however, as excessive oil levels can lead to large increases in air pressure at the end of the stroke and compromise fork seal life. 

Okay, I'll try to keep my future replies shorter!

[mrelwood]

1 hour ago, techyiam said:

Look at how well the suspension is soaking up the undulations for the rider doing stairs in the video below:

It didn’t seem as smooth as some 18/20” wheels though, for understandable reasons.

 

30 minutes ago, stizl said:

This is different from the preload setting because air springs are non-linear.

Based on what you typed, it would seem that coil shocks are also fully sealed units with a fully sealing piston and a fully sealed main chamber. Based on what I remember from the Sherman S strut teardown video however, that didn’t seem to be the case. The main chamber didn’t seem sealed to me. So the spring would be coil only, without an air spring effect.

 And even if they were all sealed, the coil is very long, and isn’t very short even when fully compressed either. So the air pressure of a sealed main chamber would never get high enough to matter anyway. And if the volume reducer would be installed in a way I’d expect it to, which is to effectively shorten the length of the tube the spring operates in, it would indeed be practically identical to a tighter preload. And all it would do at the end of the stroke would be to let the spring get tighter. Which is exactly what a preload does.

 But I’m not deeply familiar with bicycle shocks in general, I’ve just tried my best to keep up with EUC shock systems.

30 minutes ago, stizl said:

Adding spring preload simply adds up to a few percent (of travel) of the s-value

It adds a fixed length to the s-value though, not a percentage of the travel at any given time. But I’m sure that’s what you meant.

[stizl]

15 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

Based on what you typed, it would seem that coil shocks are also fully sealed units with a fully sealing piston and a fully sealed main chamber. Based on what I remember from the Sherman S strut teardown video however, that didn’t seem to be the case. The main chamber didn’t seem sealed to me. So the spring would be coil only, without an air spring effect.

 And even if they were all sealed, the coil is very long, and isn’t very short even when fully compressed either. So the air pressure of a sealed main chamber would never get high enough to matter anyway. And if the volume reducer would be installed in a way I’d expect it to, which is to effectively shorten the length of the tube the spring operates in, it would indeed be practically identical to a tighter preload. And all it would do at the end of the stroke would be to let the spring get tighter. Which is exactly what a preload does.

 But I’m not deeply familiar with bicycle shocks in general, I’ve just tried my best to keep up with EUC shock systems.

It adds a fixed length to the s-value though, not a percentage of the travel at any given time. But I’m sure that’s what you meant.

Agreed that the air spring effect is minimal on coil shocks/forks, even when sealed and even with purposeful spacer/fluid volume reduction. If sealed, then the system is a dual-sprung system, with a linear coil spring and a (much weaker) progressive air spring. 
 

Some increase in bottom-out resistance is really the only meaningful effect of the air spring here, but that could be beneficial to retaining the Patton/Sherman plush upper/mid-stroke ride without bottoming out on bigger hits. Since the air spring is exponential instead of linear, volume reduction could make a noticeable difference at the end of the stroke, perhaps more than the preload effect there.  We’d need displacement measurements to confirm.

Most of my experience comes from motorcycle suspension, but I would be surprised if the Patton/Sherman shocks weren’t sealed. They are telescopic fork types, so their total internal and external volume is certainly smaller when compressed than extended. If vented, there would need to be some way of displacing/recovering the air externally and to prevent dust/debris from getting sucked in when extending, likely via an external expandable bladder/bellows chamber or hose with an air filter, which I don’t see. 

Yes, I meant that preload adds a fixed length to the s-value. Good catch, thanks!

So much for my short posts, ha. 

[mrelwood]

23 minutes ago, stizl said:

I would be surprised if the Patton/Sherman shocks weren’t sealed

The strut as an entity did seem sealed, but I think the piston did not. Meaning, there would be no sealed main chamber. But I really need to find the disassembly video again, since I’m definitely not sure.

 The spring length looked to be roughly something like 25cm when freely extended. And I think the suspension travel is 10cm. That wouldn’t increase The pressure in a sealed chamber higher than something like 27psi. Most shock pumps’ dial has barely even started at that point. For reference, I use 160psi in my V11 air shocks when they are fully extended. When compressed it gets up to around 600psi IIRC. 27psi really is nothing. Definitely not worth disassembling your struts to insert a volume spacer.

Edited April 26, 2023 by mrelwood