To be clear, you can have 'suspension action' without the negative spring, but the initial movement would be harsh. Any decent air fork will have some sort of negative spring, be it air or coil.
Originally Posted by
floating dutchy
Bit of a hijack but more of a newbie question, The bottom shock in your photo shows a 2nd spring wound around the other way.
What do you guys mean buy "negative spring", does it mean that if you lift the front wheel it is supported by a spring? meaning you don't get the annoying bump that I get with the cheaper forks I have when you lift the front wheel?
Or is it about a second spring coming into play once the forks get pushed down past a pre-set point to help prevent bottoming out?
In the photo of the Fox air spring, the long coil is the negative spring and the short coil is the top-out spring. The top-out spring is what would prevent against the fork harshly topping out. The neg spring is there to help with overcoming the initial force of the positive air spring.