The BOS Stoy rear shock simply has that something extra even though it’s a very straightforward unit inside…
From Dirt Issue 123 – May 2012
Words by Steve Jones. Photo by Steve Jones.
Whilst the suspension dyno will dish out quantitative data until the cows come home, the figures might be seen of little use when it comes to a high speed left deep into a damp Ligurian oak woods, especially if the product manager has specified the incorrect tune. One of the things it does reveal is the consistency of production between brands. A couple of years ago we carried out such a test with Luis Arriaz of K9 industries of the various dampers from the suspension manufacturers and found amazing consistency from both BOS and Cane Creek in their product performance in a controlled dyno environment.
Over the course of a month I’ll probably ride many shocks from many companies, I have no idea what the lab would throw out on any of these relying solely on making sense of it in qualitative form. The most common of these – your RockShox Vivid’s, BOS Stoy’s, Cane Creek DB’s, Fox DHX RC4’s, are all very good dampers dependably going about their job of gripping, guarding and supporting.
Qualitative analysis of these four pieces of bike kit is often enough simply because the difference between the four mentioned is very slim, and with suspension design more often being at fault or the shock tune chosen by that particularly company. If the tune is right for the bike you can rely on those shocks. Yes a very broad generalization!
However, all with different philosophies, tellingly I could identify blindfolded each of the four based on trail sensitivity and support. I’m frequently asked what’s the best suspension that I’ve ridden. It’s pretty simple – the Orange 224 with a first generation CCDB in 2006 or the Morewood Makulu with early BOS Stoy’s stand out. The former was a great combination but unfortunately the Cane Creek doesn’t suit every design, plus it is incredibly time consuming to get right. BOS has the benefit of teaming up with a similar philosophy fork, the Idylle plus the RaRe version in both fork and damper more suited for harder downhill applications.
Why do I rate the BOS Stoy Rear Shocks so highly? Even for the pro riders it’s impossible to get an optimum shock or setting for each track that is visited during the season and most riders simply opt for a good base shock and work up or down the dials within a small range, maybe a softer damper for really heavy going. Asking the question is one better or faster than the other, well…maybe a better question is does one of the shocks give a rider more confidence and offer a more controlled ride? I’d put the Stoy in that bracket.
What stands out about the Stoy apart from its reliability, never had one fail, or its noise, yes it can huff and puff, is its ease of set up with only high and low compression and rebound to work through. More than that BOS say they will provide you with a shock to suit the suspension design and a rough idea of base settings. Yes you can match the Stoy in all of these things and yes I have no doubt that I could probably post the same time on all of the aforementioned shocks.
The BOS Stoy rear shock simply has that something extra even though it’s a very straightforward unit inside. Some people have commented that the compression can be hard but I believe the harder you ride this damper the more comfortable the ride becomes. If I had to choose one word to describe this product it would be ‘control’.
BOS Stoy £545
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