As much as many companies shout about a shock being tuned for the suspension design the bikes – and yes many of them do have a reasonable middle setting – most bikes still come with a massive amount of unwanted, unnecessary dial adjustment. In the past decade we’ve been dumped with a crazy amount of decision making on the dials out of nothing more than laziness, cluelessness or money–counting from many companies. It’s not uncommon to now see twenty clicks of high speed, a similar number of low–speed, plus the same again in rebound. When you add in boost valves and the pressures inside that it becomes a game of chance for many. Mind you, the new RockShox Vivid air and coil is a step in the right direction.

As much as the Ohlins is high end engineering lets not get too carried away here on internals, it is after all oil and washers – but that might be missing the very subtle element of magic that a unit like this brings. It doesn’t offer a monster difference in performance, but if you tune into the grip and control that such dampers offer then the difference is very significant. How much value do you attach between control or failure?

If you could simplify the sensation then the feeling is weighted more towards a hydraulic feel than a spring sensation. The Ohlins introduces a level of grip and chassis stability better than a stock unit. We’re dealing with tolerances here.

Spring rates: 26lb increments

High Speed Compression: 3 settings

Low speed compression: 20 clicks

Rebound: 6 clicks

Sensitivity with support characterizes the Ohlins’ ride dynamic. It delivers a ride that always feels it’s working on hydraulic, the sensation seldom too hard. First run on the Demo was given a full middle setting, three rebound, middle (2) HSC and ten clicks low speed. The ride was brilliant and I didn’t really know where to go from that point in the set–up. But I did.

In the hardest (3) HSC setting the Ohlins TTX still operates effectively but is at its best in different conditions, those being the bigger faster breakers where the bike now skips over the tops a touch more than the middle setting. Rebound was the adjuster that was a marked improvement than other dampers in that it pretty much eliminates the crazy extremes. It still livens up the ride but does not lead to ridiculously poor chassis stability.

The softer compression setting offers a weaker and livelier ride character but is still a workable solution and will certainly still work for different speeds and conditions. For me at 14 stone (196lb/89kg) it will be a real wet weather option. For riders new to damper settings they will quickly learn the benefits to what a change in settings brings when conditions change quickly from hard to soft.

All said and done the Ohlins can still be dialled into a less than optimum by way of going for the harder or softer setting in the wrong environment on the compression particularly, but crucially the adjustment is at a very rough guess about 15% off optimum compared with say 80% possibility found on many shocks. This is a massive benefit for any level of rider.

The new Demo bikes should be available right about now and the shock will be available aftermarket, which will fit on all current versions of the Demo (model year 2012/2014) and Enduro EVO (2013/2014) so should be a sweet upgrade. Individual countries will set prices very soon and they’ll be available to buy from Specialized retailers only.

Dirt had a chance to ride the new Ohlins damper out in Val di Sole during the World Cup but unfortunately the large Demo became unavailable. Still I managed to get some reminiscing in with Torkel (technical director at Ohlins) about the 70’s and managed to stash some yellow gold back to the UK. We also managed to catch up with Brandon Sloan, Director of High end bikes at Specialized, for a chat about where things were heading.

Brandon: It does not get any better than Ohlins when it comes suspension!

Mike McAndrews, who runs our suspension program, goes way back with Ohlin’s from his moto days. When we started talking about making best in class dampers, he dusted off his contacts.

The more focused range of adjustment is certainly one of the stories. It is easy to understand, we can focus the performance of the shock when it is being built for only one bike. The real goal of that focus is better ride quality… the technology of the shock also adds to the ride quality. Ohlins’ years of experience in taking shock dynamics (internal pressure control, heat control, friction control, and most importantly the ability to change direction between compression and rebound) to the next level give the shock a ride quality that we think is superior to anything else available.

Check out the spring rate chart. We basically set up rates two to three rates bigger and smaller than what we use stock on the bikes. So the range is huge and of course the increments finer than other bike shocks.

Both the DB and our Ohlin’s shock are twin tube designs (as is a RockShox Vivid technically), but how they go about everything else is up to the individual design (really obvious with the feel of a Vivid… it is certainly different). The DB uses their poppet valve system and of course have four adjustments with a traditional IFP (TTX uses a bladder instead of an Internal Floating Piston). You know I am a fan of the DB, but one way to think of it is Ohlins helped with the DB design a number of years ago… since then those guys have come up with a trick or two to improve the performance!

Ohlin’s currently has an exclusive agreement with Specialized Bicycle Components for the bicycle world.

You can see we agree that all bikes need simple and more effective set–ups, this is just one feature of the a Brain shock on our XC bikes and the reason AutoSag exists on pretty much all our air shocks. Simple set–ups that are appropriate for the ride is what we are looking for. That being said, set–up is only a part of the Ohlin’s story. Superior ride quality is actually the top story.

So Mitch Ropelato has been running the shock all this season. Unfortunately he messed up qualifying at VDS, but he will be in the mix at Andorra. It will be interesting to see how things shake out next year. Ohlins is famous for not paying riders to ride their product. All moto GP, WRC, F1, motocross teams actually pay Ohlins for the product and race support. This is very different from other suspension brands.

Now why would we make a fork?!

Understandable in detail, consistent in performance, and if they do come up with a fork to match the damper then it will pretty much shut the game down.