MichaelW

When a manufacturer tells you that a full sus bike has eg. 150mm of travel is this to do with the suspension geometry of the frame or the model of shock unit? Can you change the rear shock unit to give more or less travel ? Is the frame restricted to size and spec of shock unit?

Thanks

Hopper

When they say the frame has 150mm of rear travel they are saying that the rear axle moves 150mm. The actual rear shock only will have a stroke length of around 2.2 inches. It is possible to put in a shock with a slightly different stroke length (but you will want to keep same i2i length if possible) to change suspension travel. However this is almost never works for increasing travel (to do that you will probably need a slightly longer i2i length) and this will throw out the geometry of the bike to a point that it will feel differnet (may be good) but can change the angles of hte forces on the bike and cause the frame to be weaker (not good) and on some bikes (mine included) if I increased the travel the rear wheel will buzz on my seat mast/seat. I know quite a few people who have lowered the travel of an Avanti D8/Keewee D8 and ORange 222/3/4's by getting a new shock wiht the same i2i length and shorter stroke length.

In general I will say don't try to increase travel with a longer stroke shoke and if you want to shorten travel make sure the i2i of hte shock is the same as the original.

MichaelW

Thanks for the info.