There is really no such a thing as a stadard shock.. each make like fox,manitou and so on has a variety air shocks and a coil-over shocks.. what you would most probably find in a air shock is a air canister and some oil.. what you would find in a coil-over shock is a piston that sort of regulates the compression and a spring(please forgive me, i am not sure about coil-over shocks). I dont think there is any shock with a spring inside it. Its either with air or coil-over.. Hydraulic shocks do exsit for bikes.. the fox float RP3, the manituo 3-way swinger.. IMO air shocks are lighter than coil-over shocks, but coil-over shocks can take more beating than air shocks.. thats why you see coil-over shocks on DH bikes and and air shocks on XC bikes.. I dont think there is another kind of shock for bikes..

Bobflyer..