Inmotion V14 Adventure: a new trail wheel from Inmotion

[techyiam]

1 minute ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

The only thing you can change with off-the-shelf parts is the spring.

Well, Bob Yan said the size of the coil-over was intentionally to be an off the shelf part.

They even showed a webpage of after market coil-over shocks in their promotional launch video.

4 minutes ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

A different linkage would need to be custom made, and travel can’t be changed. At the end of the day, linkage isn’t really any more customizable than fork suspension.

If third party can makes linkages for Begode suspension wheels, they can certainly do the same for the V14. The only question is whether there is a need for it.

Extending travel is a different ball game, since the slider is already motorcycle grade, there won't be much demand to replace that.

That is why for those who want to do the big drops and jumps, the ride may be stiffer than a suspension with longer suspension travel.

8 minutes ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

Also, these enclosed sliders are almost the same size as forks, so why not just use forks? I see no benefit to linkage at this point, and many drawbacks such as: more friction, more exposed to damage, more maintenance, hard to keep clean etc.

Off-the-shelf coil-over replacements, and rising rate linkages that can offer much more aggressive ramping of leverage ratios than progressively wound springs.

I say both suspension types have a role to play.

 

[InfiniteWheelie]

@techyiam Let me be a little more clear…

There are 3 main attributes of a suspension that matter: travel, spring weight, and progression.

Yes, you can get off-the-shelf rear suspension for the V14, however the only attribute that would change is the spring weight. There’s no other purpose that I’m aware of (except maybe quality).

So for both the Lynx and V14, off-the-shelf parts can only change spring weight. The V14 does have more weights to choose from, but that’s not inherent to fork vs linkage (a wheel manufacturer could easily choose to offer more).

If we look at custom parts then sure, you can get a linkage made to change progression, but the same is true for custom progressive fork springs.

Edited December 6, 2023 by InfiniteWheelie

[Punxatawneyjoe]

15 minutes ago, techyiam said:

Off-the-shelf coil-over replacements,

I think this is where it shines as well, looking at some of the videos the original shock looks a little to stiff for my taste as well as it being one of the lower end shocks (fast ace) so i would probably end up replacing it with a company like fox anyway, there is a reason why the fast ace shock is $125 and the fox is $600.

 

2 minutes ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

except maybe quality

Motocross riders aren't using fast ace any time soon. And if you have felt the ride quality difference between a cheap shock and an expensive one then you should understand why it is so important.

 

On  a side note, isn't it funny how the Inmotion Adventure thread became the My Lynx d is bigger than your Inmotion one thread.

[InfiniteWheelie]

@Punxatawneyjoe I don’t own a Lynx and I’m not trying to put down the V14. Rather, they’re both just examples of the latest in both suspension types that we’re discussing.

It’s true that for rear suspension, there are lots of high quality options to choose from. It’s also true that technically speaking, linkage can do specific progression curves that simply aren’t possible with progressive forks springs.

That said, let’s say manufactures were to release wheels with high quality forks, and a large selection of springs (with different weights and progression). At that point, forks would be superior in every single aspect, excluding the ability to have special linkage progression curves. However, in practice, I doubt those special curves offer much advantage at all over properly chosen fork springs.

Edited December 6, 2023 by InfiniteWheelie

[Punxatawneyjoe]

1 hour ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

I don’t own a Lynx and I’m not trying to put down the V14.

It wasn't directed at you , more like the last 3 pages of comments. And i meant extreme. I happen to be looking at your comment when i typed it and confused my reference. Sorry. My Mistake.

1 hour ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

 excluding the ability to have special linkage progression curves

As well as travel, as some have done changing the geometry of the linkage as @ORDO NOVUS doesn't seem to understand. In my opinion we have gone about as far as we can go until someone smart makes a trailing arm style or rakes the forks. riding backwards has no real use anyway other than "impressing the ladies". The fact that the slides are perfactly vertical is comical at this point. It's like a bad suspension joke.. The clear advantage the linkage has would be speed on which it can be changed as well as being able to install some real suspension tech in the form of one new part. If you feel like street riding that day change out the shock in 5 minutes and you can have as plush a ride as you want. You can change the spring in the fast ace telescopic shock, but you still have sub par parts/engineering into the suspension. The disadvantage is more moving parts on the linkage obviously. So i feel they both have their pro's and cons. In the case of any off road 2 wheeled device we have raked front telescopic "shocks" and a "trailing arm  linkage" design in the rear of which both absorb the initial shock of the bump by directing the force both back and up. No matter how great the travel and dampening is. The force still needs to be changed from a backward to an upward motion and without any backward travel the shock of the bump is directly transferred through the chassis first. Who knows maybe some smart  guy like @Vince.Fab with design the next generation in EUC suspension. His Extreme linkage was impressive.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Punxatawneyjoe

[InfiniteWheelie]

5 hours ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

As well as travel, as some have done changing the geometry of the linkage

I don't think that's true. Doesn't the slider have a maximum travel distance regardless of the linkage used, and it just changes the progression curve?

5 hours ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

The clear advantage the linkage has would be speed on which it can be changed as well as being able to install some real suspension tech in the form of one new part. If you feel like street riding that day change out the shock in 5 minutes and you can have as plush a ride as you want.

Assuming I'm correct about the linkage, swapping the shock would only change the spring weight. Sure, that's much easier than changing fork springs, but how many people actually frequently change out shocks to suit riding conditions? Usually people just get air suspension for that, which we can also use in forks.

So yes, right now linkage has the advantage in availability of quality shocks and lots of springs. However that changes once a wheel comes out with a top quality fork and abundant spring options. Even now, the LeaperKim suspension has received high praise, even for jumping.

That's not to say linkage is bad, I just think it has a lot of downsides and almost no advantages compared to forks done right.

Edited December 6, 2023 by InfiniteWheelie

[Rawnei]

1 hour ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

I don't think that's true. Doesn't the slider have a maximum travel distance regardless of the linkage used, and it just changes the progression curve?

No, the linkage determines how much travel is actually used, if it's not designed correctly the the linkage with the shock will bottom out before the full length of the sliders.

Another design flaw on the extreme linkage is that it is too wide, hence why they needed to redesign their own custom beefed up shock mid production which they are shipping now so that the pins don't bend, putting any normal shock in there you will risk bending pins again because it's just too wide.

Overall it's a very poor design.

Then we have the stanchions themselves, same as on all Begode wheels, they are problematic to start with, it's a graphite bushing rubbing against a metal pipe, it all wears fast and is open for dirt to come in there and start grinding (common issue), that is why Inmotion did a similar concept but with seals.

[InfiniteWheelie]

@Rawnei Well that’s actually kind of what I said. The slider does have a maximum travel, regardless of the linkage chosen. You can’t add more travel than the slider is capable of. You can use a badly designed linkage that reduces travel, but that’s clearly a bad thing.

So it seems I’m correct that the only benefit of changing out your shock on a linkage wheel, is to change the spring weight and/or upgrade to a higher quality unit.

Edited December 6, 2023 by InfiniteWheelie

[Rawnei]

16 minutes ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

@Rawnei Well that’s actually kind of what I said. The slider does have a maximum travel, regardless of the linkage chosen. You can’t add more travel than the slider is capable of. You can use a badly designed linkage that reduces travel, but that’s clearly a bad thing.

So it seems I’m correct that the only benefit of changing out your shock on a linkage wheel, is to change the spring weight and/or upgrade to a higher quality unit.

Then I misunderstood what you were asking, the point of just swapping the shock itself would be just as you said upgrade to a better quality one.

The main point swapping shock would be that the stock ones they are giving you are kinda poor quality and can start leaking oil and have other problems and be difficult or impossible to service so most often it's something one does out of necessity.

[InfiniteWheelie]

So to summarize my thoughts…

It seems to me that if forks are done right on an electric wheel (quality, design, parts availability etc), then linkage offers nothing but a list of significant disadvantages. The only exception being fancy progression curves which only linkages are capable of (which I imagine is totally unnecessary and not worth the numerous tradeoffs).

Our current fork offerings still have a long way to go though, so i can see the appeal of the V14 for some people. I just think long term forks are superior, and should win out.

Edited December 6, 2023 by InfiniteWheelie

[techyiam]

10 minutes ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

Our forks are not yet perfect though, so i can see the appeal of the V14 for some people. I just think long term forks are superior, and should win out.

I shared an opposition opinion.

Right now, I think the current consensus of many riders is that the Leaper Kim suspension wheels have the smoother, more plush suspension out of the box.

However, with time the manufacturers may be able to figure out how to make better sliders, and rising rate linkages that would enable linkage suspension to outperform the Leaper Kim's hydraulic suspension designs.

Motorcycles and mtb's still use linkage suspension for the rear. I doubt that is going to go back to a single pivot swingarm and dual coil-over shocks.

[Rawnei]

20 minutes ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

So to summarize my thoughts…

It seems to me that if forks are done right on an electric wheel (quality, design, parts availability etc), then linkage offers nothing but a list of significant disadvantages. The only exception being fancy progression curves which only linkages are capable of (which I imagine is totally unnecessary and not worth the numerous tradeoffs).

Our current fork offerings still have a long way to go though, so i can see the appeal of the V14 for some people. I just think long term forks are superior, and should win out.

I agree, people complain that you can't swap the Fastace shocks on a LeaperKim wheel but why would you want to? They work really well and are easy to service, will have a long lifespan.

Why do you think they "have a long way to go"? I think they are already excellent.

[InfiniteWheelie]

@techyiam @Rawnei That probably came out a little wrong. Although I haven’t ridden forked suspension wheels, from everything I’ve seen I do believe they’re already superior in their current state.

What I meant was, in order for forks to totally beat linkage wheels in every specific aspect/situation, we need things like more spring options and air versions. Also, since they’re not a standard swappable unit you can upgrade, they should be made with as much quality as possible (if they’re lacking at all currently).

Edited December 6, 2023 by InfiniteWheelie

[Ro.man]

9 hours ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

The only thing you can change with off-the-shelf parts is the spring. A different linkage would need to be custom made, and travel can’t be changed. Practically speaking, linkage isn’t really any more customizable than fork suspension. The Lynx has 4 different spring weights, and they’re also progressive like linkage.

You can also change the shock. Something that is nearly impossible for Veteran fork-style suspension.

As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing wrong with V14 linkage or sliders. But only time will tell...

[Punxatawneyjoe]

8 hours ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

Doesn't the slider have a maximum travel distance regardless of the linkage used

Yes, this is true. However as Rawnei pointed out, most companies don't use all of the travel the stanchions are capable of. Case and point the difference between the "hard" and "soft" holes of the linkage on the extreme. I think from a maintenance and ease of changing to different rates quickly point of view the linkage has it hands down because you don't have to completely disassemble your wheel to do either. So we can agree to disagree. As far as doing jumps on the Leaperkim "plush" suspension, i don't think any are capable of both effectively even with a progressive spring. That's where the easily swapped shock comes into play. Without having tested either one myself i am just giving my "lack of experience" opinion. I will certainly get back to you when i get the Adventure and do some testing.

[Rawnei]

7 minutes ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

Yes, this is true. However as Rawnei pointed out, most companies don't use all of the travel the stanchions are capable of. Case and point the difference between the "hard" and "soft" holes of the linkage on the extreme. I think from a maintenance and ease of changing to different rates quickly point of view the linkage has it hands down because you don't have to completely disassemble your wheel to do either. So we can agree to disagree. As far as doing jumps on the Leaperkim "plush" suspension, i don't think any are capable of both effectively even with a progressive spring. That's where the easily swapped shock comes into play. Without having tested either one myself i am just giving my "lack of experience" opinion. I will certainly get back to you when i get the Adventure and do some testing.

LeaperKim wheels are more than capable of jumping, with enough compression dampening there's no hard bottom out, the narrative that they are not suited for jumping is a myth.

[Punxatawneyjoe]

1 hour ago, Rawnei said:

LeaperKim wheels are more than capable of jumping, with enough compression dampening there's no hard bottom out,

Interesting, so you are saying spring rate doesn't play a role in large drop offs. All you have to do is turn up the compression dampening? But wouldn't that eliminate the "plush" feeling everyone raves about? And wouldn't the same be true with all shock systems with compression dampening? So travel and spring load doesn't play a role in jumping, all you have to do is make it compress like a brick so it doesn't bottom out?

[Rawnei]

2 minutes ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

Interesting, so you are saying spring rate doesn't play a role in large drop offs. All you have to do is turn up the compression dampening? But wouldn't that eliminate the "plush" feeling everyone raves about? And wouldn't the same be true with all shock systems with compression dampening? So travel and spring load doesn't play a role in jumping, all you have to do is make it compress like a brick so it doesn't bottom out?

Why would you think that and what made you reach those conclusions?

The most important thing is that you have the correct sag, i.e. the correct spring that gives you the correct range of adjustable sag for your wieght, when you have your sag dialed in then you can tune compression dampening to adjust for the activity you are doing, using a bit of dampening on the Fastace shocks doesn't really take away much from their responsiveness, they are still very responsive and have a wide range of dampening adjustment available.

If you want subjective example, I'm no Shibby but I do "medium" sized jumps and drops and I have 7 clicks of dampening on my Sherman S, it's still very responsive more so than my S22 and it does not bottom out for the type of riding I am doing, I have friends who jump a lot higher and longer than me with their Sherman S, same principle there they have adjusted dampening and don't have any issues.

[InfiniteWheelie]

2 hours ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

Yes, this is true. However as Rawnei pointed out, most companies don't use all of the travel the stanchions are capable of. Case in point the difference between the "hard" and "soft" holes of the linkage on the extreme.

Why would this ever be desirable? I can’t imagine a scenario in which you’d voluntarily reduce travel. Shouldn’t you change the damping and/or springs to make it “hard” or “soft”?

2 hours ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

I think from a maintenance and ease of changing to different rates quickly point of view the linkage has it hands down because you don't have to completely disassemble your wheel to do either.

It seems clear to me that fork suspension is much simpler and requires much less maintenance. Any time there’s issues with the sliders you’d also have to disassemble the wheel. There hasn’t been a reliable slider yet, and even if this new sealed slider is better, I bet it needs maintenance about as frequently as forks do anyway.

In terms of tuning… They both have easy access to damping so no difference there. Sure changing springs is easier with linkage, but if someone’s riding style requires changing coils that often why not just use air? At which point linkage has no advantage, air pressure can be adjusted just as easily on both.

Edited December 6, 2023 by InfiniteWheelie

[UPONIT]

On 12/4/2023 at 9:31 AM, ORDO NOVUS said:

there are only 2 usecases, trails and city. 

* I Y O (In Your Opinion)

Which is wrong, btw. Off the top of my head: beaches, skate parks, race tracks, grassy fields, and--if you own an A2--the ocean. 

18 hours ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

riding backwards has no real use anyway other than "impressing the ladies". 

Learning to pendulum?

Edited December 6, 2023 by UPONIT

[Punxatawneyjoe]

1 hour ago, UPONIT said:

Learning to pendulum?

I really don't see a use for this, maybe I'm missing something. So you can juggle in front of a crowd perhaps? If its to remain on the wheel at a stoplight, i myself prefer to just put a foot down. Or even sit down on the the v13 while i wait.

7 hours ago, Rawnei said:

Why would you think that and what made you reach those conclusions?

I just don't understand how you can have a "plush" suspension as well as take big jumps with it. No other suspension offers this with any degree of small bump compliance if its set up for jumps. Professional motocross riders use several different shock setups depending on the course and swap them out before the race. I have yet to see a one size fits all setup. I have to admit though i have never ridden a Sherman s so i could be mistaken but you would think the sport that is all about the bumps would have it first.

6 hours ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

Why would this ever be desirable? I can’t imagine a scenario in which you’d voluntarily reduce travel.

I never said it was desirable but it happens. Begode wheels do a lot of things that leave you scratching your head.

 

6 hours ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

There hasn’t been a reliable slider yet

Some people have over 10k miles on their v11 with no slider problems, I have over 2k off road miles on mine with little to no wear and 0 stiction. There really isn't anything that can go wrong with them aside from stiction and very few people have had that issue which is easily preventable using dry lube.

[Unventor]

15 hours ago, techyiam said:

Right now, I think the current consensus of many riders is that the Leaper Kim suspension wheels have the smoother, more plush suspension out of the box.

Might be. 

But if you want to feel connected to the ground and not floating as a hoowercraft then this is not really a positive in this regard? 

Now as a more generale open question here. When different people mention that the box suspension shock isn't as high quality what do the mean? 

To me quality could mean different things like... 

Able to handle more bounch cycles? 

Less prone to breaking on impact/crash?

Higher control/ more fine tuning steps of preload and rebound? 

Different behavoid of of anount of the olie in terms of internal to preload/rebound control? 

I could make a longer list but if you made it so har, what do you mean by quality shocks? 

[OldFartRides]

“Riding backwards has no real use anyway…”

Oh contrare Pierre !  Riding backwards is the penultimate uni accomplishment IMHO.

It’s even more difficult than riding forwards. It answers the question “ what’s next ?” after learning to ride the damn thing.

Best,

[Uras]

16 hours ago, techyiam said:

Motorcycles and mtb's still use linkage suspension for the rear. I doubt that is going to go back to a single pivot swingarm and dual coil-over shocks.

Many motorcycles are still made with dual shocks on the rear. The main reason for the linkage system is the length of travel - this is why you won't find a motocross, enduro, adventure bike etc with dual shocks. The other advantage, mainly for mtb, is centralising mass.

[techyiam]

2 hours ago, Uras said:

Many motorcycles are still made with dual shocks on the rear. The main reason for the linkage system is the length of travel - this is why you won't find a motocross, enduro, adventure bike etc with dual shocks. The other advantage, mainly for mtb, is centralising mass.

Low stiction, little play, and durable shocks are pricey for high quality premium ones. And ones with long stroke are even more so. Now you double up on them, one on each side. Which would you choose: mono shock or dual shocks?

With a linkage, designers need to put in only one shock.

Additionally, by using leverage ratios, further savings can be had since shorter stroke coil-overs can be used.

But there is more. Otherwise, manufacturers would not make rising rate linkages. They could just put in any old linkage, like those design by Begode.