the linkage moves the shock.

anyway.. back on topic.....

In regards to being fast.............Hell no. If it is yor only priority then i think your riding for the wrong reasons.

Me? First and foremost i ride for fun. Being quick and pinned comes with practise. If i didnt ride for fun i wouldnt ride at all. If you have fun,look pinned feel rapid, then thats just an added bonus to smile about after a rather quick run.

Rich

I would say a little bit, theres alot of marketing hype for certain designs and what not but theye are made for a reason, weather they make you faster is a totally different kettle of fish IMO. Like i disagree with some statements about riding a HT will make you faster, it does make you appreciate the smoother lines and pick your lines more carefully but then your learning yourself how to ride a hardtail on a downhill. You get back on a Full bounce and you seem to be taking these uber smooth lines that you have practiced on a HT yet who said the smoothest line on a HT was the fastest maybe that gnarler line that was too rough to hit on your HT is actually alot faster on a bounce? In which case you would have to re-learn yourself to let go of that chicken s**t HT stuff and let the bike do the work and not worry about whats smooth to hit yes/no? And thats my opinion on why 1. buying a full sus to start DH on is totally fine and 2. why the bike you buy has a tried and tested good trusty design.

I think it's fair to say that suspension designs are better than they used to be, e.g. looking over a ten year period or whatever. So, it stands to reason that since part of this progression has been evolving designs then they must, on average, improve on previous iterations - even if year on year advances could be construed as marketing BS.

I also think the fact that there isn't a single best proven design is partially down to marketing and companies trying to differentiate themselves. But I also think that if the core stuff is present in the design (e.g a wheel that can move up and down, with damping to control the rebound and consideration of chain growth etc) then the human body just adapts to it.

Our legs are basically infinitely adjustable shock absorbers, I'm sure they automatically compensate for vagaries in suspension design. Like, for me, I've got used to riding my demo which feels like riding a stable platform that just runs parallel to the ground. Riding my mates single pivot Orange I can feel the difference immediately. But the feedback through the pedals means although it feels less stable, I kind of feel like the kickback through the pedals is helping drive me on. Could I learn to ride this faster than the demo? I dunno, maybe, maybe not.

I reckon pro/decent riders just automatically learn how to make the most out of whatever design they're riding to get the most out of it. No track/line/rider is the same, hence no clear winner as to the best system.

So the long and the short of it is I reckon *all* decent proven designs are essentially equal. And which is the best/fastest comes down to your preference as a rider, how you learn to use it and probably the track your riding too.