Veteran Patton 16" 126v 2220wh

[mrelwood]

2 hours ago, Al Alcatraz said:

Wait, does bottoming out cause the shocks to leak?

Seems so. I’ve seen two theories:

1. The sudden high pressure increase from landing a jump high enough to bottom out the shock can pop the shaft’s seal out of it’s place.

2. When bottoming out, the same seal gets crammed against the lower bracket that holds the shock in place, damaging the seal. And possibly popping it off as well.

About leaking shocks without having bottomed out the shock, I’ve seen much more talk about it as an issue than actual cases of it happening. It hasn’t seemed to be a common issue at all.

[stizl]

3 hours ago, mrelwood said:

Seems so. I’ve seen two theories:

1. The sudden high pressure increase from landing a jump high enough to bottom out the shock can pop the shaft’s seal out of it’s place.

2. When bottoming out, the same seal gets crammed against the lower bracket that holds the shock in place, damaging the seal. And possibly popping it off as well.

About leaking shocks without having bottomed out the shock, I’ve seen much more talk about it as an issue than actual cases of it happening. It hasn’t seemed to be a common issue at all.

First, I have to say that I am not familiar with the specific construction of the Patton’s FastAce forks/shocks. In motorcycle and higher-end mountain bike forks there are two major components to the seal system. The rubber you see on the outside (where the inner tube enters the outer tube) is a dust seal, or simply a wiper to keep debris off of the oil seal, which is below it. These wipers can usually be seated by hand and are held in place by a friction fit. They do not touch the oil unless the oil seal below them has failed.  

If the dust seals are damaged, then debris will eventually get in between the oil seals and the tubes and cause leaks.  I have yet to see, however, a fork design where the dust seal can be crushed by bottoming out the fork. There is typically a short length (usually about 10mm) of the end of the inner tube that never touches either seal.  

When a fork bottoms out, there is a metal-to-bushing impact inside each fork unit. This is usually harmless and is why the bottom-out bushing is there, but repeated hard bottom-outs will eventually destroy the bushing, generating debris inside the fork which will eventually compromise the oil seal.

On motorcycle forks, the oil seals below the dust seals typically have to be pressed into their seats with a special seal driver and are secured in place by metal snap rings. These seals have a shell-type profile, so the more pressure behind them the more force behind the lips and therefore the tighter the seal. With frequent and hard enough abuse though, some oil will eventually make its way past the oil seals, even if the seals themselves are intact, and especially if the the slider bushings (which keep the inner and outer tubes coaxial/parallel) are worn and allow any radial/axial free play between the tubes.

That’s more than enough blabbing from me, ha…I need to see how the Patton’s FastAce shocks are constructed to speculate any more. Some of their their moto forks, at least, are constructed traditionally,  as shown in the screenshot from the video below. You can see a dust seal moved out of the way and a retaining clip being removed from above the oil seal. 
 

 

Edited May 28, 2023 by stizl

[mrelwood]

47 minutes ago, stizl said:

First, I have to say that I am not familiar with the specific construction of the Patton’s FastAce forks/shocks.

While the basic construction is probably very similar to moto/MTB shocks, there are size constraints in an EUC that require some design changes. As do the different attachment methods. I haven’t heard of anyone measuring whether the seal can actually touch the attachment bracket or not. Or examining what kind of a bottom out stopper there is.

 But I’ve read about an incident where a landing from a very high jump dislodged what could’ve been a combination of an oil seal and a dust seal, since it resulted in an oil leak.

Edited May 28, 2023 by mrelwood

[stizl]

2 hours ago, mrelwood said:

While the basic construction is probably very similar to moto/MTB shocks, there are size constraints in an EUC that require some design changes. As do the different attachment methods. I haven’t heard of anyone measuring whether the seal can actually touch the attachment bracket or not. Or examining what kind of a bottom out stopper there is.

 But I’ve read about an incident where a landing from a very high jump dislodged what could’ve been a combination of an oil seal and a dust seal, since it resulting in an oil leak.

This also sounds plausible to me. I have seen a case of wrecked moto forks where the forks were hit hard enough that the upper slider bushings (just below the oil seals) dislodged and rammed into the bottom of the oil seals, destroying them while pushing them into the retaining rings.  This does seem more likely from forcible extension rather than compression though, not something you’d encounter under normal riding. 

A quick googling also shows that the FastAce moto forks cost nearly $1k by themselves. I doubt Leaperkim put FastAce’s high-end racing product into a $3k EUC. 

Edited May 28, 2023 by stizl

[Rawnei]

The ShermanS/Patton Fastace suspension is AHX13RC it seems a bit more simple than the ARX11RC model above (?).

A lot of people who I saw had leaking Sherman S shocks (Telegram/Facebook) had it from factory already so possible it's poor QC and/or something wrong with the seals themselves in those cases.

When hard bottom out happens we don't know where the impact is, wherever there is an impact there will be a lot of stress and it's not clear if the AHX13RC have any internal bumper to absorb that but it doesn't look like it from what I can tell, here is an image from EcoDrift of the AHX13RC shock disassembled (image was sent to them by LeaperKim/Fastace), missing in this photo is the oil seal and the dust wiper:

https://ecodrift-ru.translate.goog/2022/11/15/veteran-sherman-s-razbiraem/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=sv&_x_tr_pto=wapp

I can not find a user manual or more information about this shock specifically only about their ARX11RC model which is not the same, I know some resellers are putting more pressure on LK to provide more information for instance how much oil to use during service and such simple maintenance information that should be available.

[Rawnei]

While waiting for his replacement shock my friend put a thin layer of fixing silicone around the outer edge of the oil seal and it seems to have helped with the leaking:

[Rollin-on-1]

4 hours ago, Rawnei said:

The ShermanS/Patton Fastace suspension is AHX13RC it seems a bit more simple than the ARX11RC model above (?).

A lot of people who I saw had leaking Sherman S shocks (Telegram/Facebook) had it from factory already so possible it's poor QC and/or something wrong with the seals themselves in those cases.

When hard bottom out happens we don't know where the impact is, wherever there is an impact there will be a lot of stress and it's not clear if the AHX13RC have any internal bumper to absorb that but it doesn't look like it from what I can tell, here is an image from EcoDrift of the AHX13RC shock disassembled (image was sent to them by LeaperKim/Fastace), missing in this photo is the oil seal and the dust wiper:

https://ecodrift-ru.translate.goog/2022/11/15/veteran-sherman-s-razbiraem/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=sv&_x_tr_pto=wapp

I can not find a user manual or more information about this shock specifically only about their ARX11RC model which is not the same, I know some resellers are putting more pressure on LK to provide more information for instance how much oil to use during service and such simple maintenance information that should be available.

Really looking forward to a full suspension tear down video.  Am I seeing a valve stack at the top of the image, between the spring and the black tube?  Too bad there isn't a higher resolution image available.

[stizl]

6 hours ago, Rawnei said:

The ShermanS/Patton Fastace suspension is AHX13RC it seems a bit more simple than the ARX11RC model above (?).

Good finds here on the suspension model and internals photos!

Yes it looks more simple and less robust. There is no obvious top-out or bottom-out mechanisms I can see in that photo, but maybe the photo also doesn’t rule them out. 

6 hours ago, Rawnei said:

While waiting for his replacement shock my friend put a thin layer of fixing silicone around the outer edge of the oil seal and it seems to have helped with the leaking:

Leaking from the outer edge of the seal (instead of from in between the inner edge and inner tube) is indicative of poor parts spec/QC and/or poor assembly process. Having changed many (100+) sets of leaky moto seals in my previous life working on Japanese and European motorcycles, I have seen this only a few times and never from the factory. It was always either low quality, ill-fitting aftermarket seals or installer error damaging the seals during fork service. Of course, Japanese QC is legendary. Let’s hope FastAce sorts that out.

3 hours ago, Rollin-on-1 said:

Am I seeing a valve stack at the top of the image, between the spring and the black tube? 

It appears so. There’s likely an inverted version on the opposite tube, since one side handles compression and the other rebound.  We can also see a simple linear-rate spring, so the option for a progressive-rate spring swap is there too. 

[Clem604]

LeaperKim seat with side pads now available and it looks pretty good. Looks like the pad for the rear portion of the seat is attached to the rear bar so you can rotate it out of the way to use the trolley handle.

https://a.aliexpress.com/_mrpE9G4

Edited June 1, 2023 by Clem604

[stizl]

This guy is not the typical youtube hype salesman, but he has a pretty glowing common-man’s Patton review here. It’s worth a watch for the mortals among us, at least, IMO. He’s also very Zen-like in his perspective and delivery. I’m more intrigued than before watching it, for sure.

 

Edited June 1, 2023 by stizl

[techyiam]

27 minutes ago, Clem604 said:

LeaperKim seat with side pads now available and it looks pretty good. Looks like the pad for the rear portion of the seat is attached to the rear bar so you can rotate it out of the way to use the trolley handle.

Are you preparing yourself to make a Patton purchase, or just window shopping? 

[Clem604]

18 minutes ago, techyiam said:

Are you preparing yourself to make a Patton purchase, or just window shopping? 

definitely window shopping. This is the first seat I've have seen for the Patton. I'm a fan of the side pads that sit on top of the suspension like the pads for the Sherman S.

[Rollin-on-1]

Looking forward to watching this tonight

 

[Rollin-on-1]

3 hours ago, Rollin-on-1 said:

Looking forward to watching this tonight

 

Good to know that it wasn't a bad seal, but now I wonder if the top of the suspension was always loose or if it worked loose from riding and jumping.  I wonder how the shock would feel using a thicker oil?  It seems easy to work on at least.  It certainly isn't scaring me away from the Patton.

[stizl]

13 hours ago, Rollin-on-1 said:

Good to know that it wasn't a bad seal, but now I wonder if the top of the suspension was always loose or if it worked loose from riding and jumping.  I wonder how the shock would feel using a thicker oil?  It seems easy to work on at least.  It certainly isn't scaring me away from the Patton.

Agreed, it does not look too difficult to work on. I do wish he had filmed some more intermediate periods of the disassembly process. 

He did claim no harsh bottom outs, but there’s another video on his channel where he lets a heavier friend repeatedly ride it off some ~2ft drops and even points out the bottoming out. They don’t look that harsh, but definitely bottoms out.

We also have another confirmation of the FastAce fork tube model, visible in the video as AHX13RC and the oil seal dimensions listed in the description as 37x50x11mm. 

 

Edited June 2, 2023 by stizl

[Al Alcatraz]

Today my Patton arrived, finally!

Coming from the KS 16s, I am definitely not the right person to talk about performance or ride feel.
However on my way home from the EUC Dealer I took the Metro and was surprised how well that worked out.
 

The trolley handle is great and sturdy enough to lead the Patton downstairs while the suspension suppresses any bouncing.

Upstairs was more difficult therefore I avoided the trolley handle and pushed with the back handle. The grippy knobby tyre is a great help to climb stairs.

Also nice that the Patton does not block the escalator. People were able to pass me freely on the right side of the stairs.

In the metro trains I could sit and hold the wheel between my legs without disturbing other passengers. 
 

So there you have it. A niche but for some people important aspect of this new wonderful wheel discussed. 

Edited June 3, 2023 by Al Alcatraz

[mtl]

I imagine it was impossible to sit on that train pretending everything was normal.

Edited June 4, 2023 by mtl

[Hellkitten]

Looks fantastic! How do you like the wheel so far? How does it compare to the 16s?

Edited June 4, 2023 by Hellkitten

[techyiam]

There you go, a 90 lbs last mile device.

[Rollin-on-1]

9 hours ago, techyiam said:

There you go, a 90 lbs last mile device.

A last mile device that also goes 50mph.  That last mile can be straight up the side of a rocky, rooted mountain slope if need be.  

[techyiam]

3 minutes ago, Rollin-on-1 said:

A last mile device that also goes 50mph.  That last mile can be straight up the side of a rocky, rooted mountain slope if need be.  

+1

Not sure how safe at 50 mph, but it is plenty fast enough.

I think these 16" bad boys can be misconstrued by the general public as less intimidating wheels because the 16" wheel helps to make them look so compact. With less agressive looking power pads, maybe people may not mind as much on trains or buses. 

This new category of wheels may prove multi-purpose capable.

[Rawnei]

 

[Al Alcatraz]

20 hours ago, Hellkitten said:

Looks fantastic! How do you like the wheel so far? How does it compare to the 16s?

The difference to the 16s is substantial. So substantial that I felt today the need to practice basic riding skills like sharp turns, acceleration and braking on an empty parking lot again. Btw. I figured out that acceleration on the normal mode is somehow easier accessible to me compared to the hard mode. (I thought it should be the other way around)

On walking pace I really felt the 40kg and my legs are not used to throw such weight around for quick turns. Also, the riding position is now completely different. your feet are much further apart, the pedals are much higher and of the power pads and spiked pedals you are much more locked in.

But everything above said is outshined by the suspension. This was actually the main selling point for me. I am absolutely sick of the unforgivingly hard pumped up bicycle tire of the 16s which transmits every imperfection of the road surface directly to the knees. The Patton even topped my high expectation in this regard. It has not only a cushy suspension but the wheels weight and solid stance (legs wide apart) give confidence to tackle any road imperfection. I was for example riding over a meadow. The Patton rolled over the gras and ironed out all humps with such an ease that I did not notice much difference to a sidewalk.

 

 

He's a chunky boi.

 

These are both 16" wheels, right? 

 

Some people trash talked the pedals as being slippery and flimsy. I've honestly no idea what they are talking about. The pedals are sturdy and grippy. On the other hand, I've managed to ride on the pedals of the left wheel without much issues...

 

A 5A charger! Not a 3A charger as claimed on the ewheels site.

 

One thing I don't like is the shape of the light beam. It blinds everyone even if tilted down.

Edited June 4, 2023 by Al Alcatraz

[unicycle bunny]

12 minutes ago, Al Alcatraz said:

.

Thanks for sharing! Is this batch 4 from ewheels? 

[Al Alcatraz]

41 minutes ago, bunny said:

Thanks for sharing! Is this batch 4 from ewheels? 

I didn’t order from ewheels and I doubt they do deliveries to Moscow. 
Damn, I forgot that there are several Moscows in the States. Whatever, I reside in the capital city of Russia.