Hidden away in the boot of Dave Garland's unassuming Citroen Saxo sits the culmination of years of hard graft on the World Cup circuit and a wealth of experience from the automotive suspension industry. We peer into the back of the car to inspect the finely engineered damper unit more closely — and attempt to shelter from the blizzard-like conditions — as Dave explains how he and his business partner, Franco Fratton of Extreme Racing Shox, ended up getting into the world of mountain bike suspension manufacturing.
"Two-and-a-half years ago I decided to make my
childhood dream of owning a proper works rally car come true and went out and
bought a Citroen Saxo Super 1600 kit car," he says. "I needed some
tarmac suspension for it and tracked down the company that built that
suspension for Citroen, as they still do now. That was Extreme Racing Shox and
Franco Fratton, who's one of the key people in the world of car and motorcycle
racing suspension. He found out that I was working with mountain bike
suspension and asked if I'd be interested in working on a project building a
downhill shock."
Fast-forward to today, and what's carefully being
fixed to my bike is a real work of art. Everything from the beautifully
machined body to the intricately finished adjustment dials screams attention to
detail. It doesn't take long for Dave to put his years of World Cup spannering
to good use and get the shock bolted on and set up, ready for me to hit the
trail.
WHO IS DAVE GARLAND?
Dave
is the founder of suspension tuning company Stendec Works, as well as being one
of the top mechanics on the World Cup downhill circuit. He's spannered for the
likes of Chris Kovarik as well as, more recently, 2011 world champion Danny
Hart. For 2015, Dave continues to work with Giant Bicycles and has just
returned from pre-season testing with their enduro and downhill teams.
Taking on Goliath
After repeatedly hammering the toughest rock garden
BikePark Wales has to offer, I return to Dave's Saxo so he can fettle the
shock's settings further. While he's busy tinkering I dig a little deeper into
the background of the EXT shock I'm riding.
"I've been lucky to work with a lot of suspension
manufacturers, so I had a good idea what we'd be up against," says Dave,
knowingly. I raise an eyebrow. A good knowledge base and sound understanding of
suspension is one thing, but taking on well established companies like Fox and
RockShox at their own game is something else altogether.
Fortunately for Dave, Extreme Racing Shox have been at
the top of the suspension game in the car and motorcycle racing industry for
years, producing dampers for the likes of Citroen, Ferrari and Williams. It's
safe to say Franco knows a thing or two. "We knew that between us we could
come up with something more efficient than what's out there at the
moment," says Dave. "I'm not saying the suspension out there is all
bad — it's not, it's really good — but what sets us apart from other
manufacturers is that we've set out to make something that's the best it can
possibly be for the individual, that they won't need to get rid of or replace.
It's future proof.
"It's unfair to say that other suspension
manufacturers don't do a great job because they do," he continues.
"But they're bound by pricing and volume. They need a damper to be made to
a certain price point and in high quantities. With mass produced suspension you
lose a certain amount of that perfection just because of the beast that it
is." Dave and Franco, on the other hand, have no such restrictions,
originally planning to create just 500 shocks in the Extreme Racing Shox
facility.
Simple but effective
Dave joins us back up on the hill, with a couple of
tools in his pocket just in case we need to make any final adjustments. We've already
fiddled with the low-speed compression settings quite a bit, and I'm surprised
just how much diference a couple of clicks is making to the bike's behaviour on
the trail. "We wanted a very usable range of high- and low-speed
compression adjustment so the rider could feel the diference, whether they make
a big or small adjustment," Dave says.
Both EXT shocks — the Storia (enduro) and Arma
(downhill) — are relatively simple. Both feature high- and low-speed
compression adjustment, along with a rebound dial, and the coil springs come in
25lb increments to help make tuning that bit easier. There's no bottom-out
adjustment or lockout, just a damper unit designed to do exactly what it needs
to do in the most efficient way possible.
So, if you're not going to make a shock with just
about every dial and adjustment going, what's the priority? "The shock
needs to be as bump efficient as possible," says Dave. "Very, very
sensitive. That was the initial project — to see how low we could get the pressure
(also called charge) rating, but still produce a very usable, adjustable
damper." The low pressure used in the piggyback chamber helps minimise the
force needed to get the shock moving.
The wind picks up and the snow starts falling once
again. Luckily we're just about done snapping pictures. We head to the cafe to
grab a drink, warm up and learn more about the guts of the EXT unit. With
bellies full of cake and coffee, Dave dives enthusiastically into more detail.
"The pressure rating — 2bar or 29psi — is
extremely low, like nothing else out there," he says. The EXT damper is a
mono rather than twin-tube design and uses a fraction of the pressure normally
required to enable a shock to perform effectively. It's common to see well over
200psi in other designs. Dave elaborates: "When you need to put in an
amount of pressure like that [200psi plus], you're beginning to cover up an
inadequacy inside the damper. Whether it's through design or costs, something
means you have to run that pressure to make it work properly."
Honed to perfection
After two-and-a-half years in development, the EXT
shocks have undergone multiple piston changes, tweaks to the compression range
and the addition of a new coil spring — created by Franco and Dave — that is,
in Dave's words, "more efficient and dynamic than titanium", while
continuing to maintain the ridiculously high quality that Franco was insistent
on throughout. They're now ready to roll out to the public.
So, how do the two EXT units compare with current
high-end offerings? Is this a case of less is more? Well, initial impressions
are certainly promising, with plenty of control and composure when it counts.
Dave also plans on working with each and every customer to get things dialled
in properly so they can get the most out of the damper. While he may not be
driving a big rig suspension service centre, he knows what he's doing.
As the light fades, Dave sets of on his long drive
back home to North Wales, in the same car (well, maybe not the exact one) that
he has to thank for getting this shock project up and running in the first
place.
COIL OVER AIR
While the big players in the
suspension business are all touting air shocks for enduro racing both EXT
shocks are coil. Controversial? Maybe, but Dave has his reasons. “You can’t
replicate the dynamic feel of a coil shock with air,” he says. “Air is a
changing entity. Trying to make air and coil feel as close together as possible
is the holy grail of mountain bike suspension.
“People sway towards air shocks
because they’re so light [but] it’s static weight. If you’re going to
concentrate on making a bike go fast, your rotational mass has to be as light
as possible. A damper is static – it doesn’t make you go slower because it’s
150g heavier. You have to look at what it gives you in bump force management
and what the job of a shock really is.”
TESTING
Dave is a firm believer in
balancing dyno testing with real-world testing. “Dyno testing is absolutely
essential,” he says. “It tells you what the thing does at a multitude of di_erent
shaft speeds, lets you monitor heat build-up, shows you the general balance of compression
and rebound, and helps you make sure hysteresis [the damping lag that occurs
when a shock switches between the compression and rebound phases] isn’t too bad,
as that’s the enemy of suspension. But you also have to factor in the feeling a
rider gets from suspension.” Using top riders for in-the-field testing meant
Dave and Franco could evaluate their dyno findings against how the shock
performed on the trail.