![]() ![]() ![]() This year, the ongoing pandemic dashed any standard NYE plans for most as the festivals and club shows that dominate the landscape of the scene have been put on pause, but true to form Kaskade has concocted something special. Whether he’s graced the stage in San Francisco for multiple nights of fun or jetted off to New York City, he’s been a perennial force on New Year’s Eve wherever he plays. One of the many things Kaskade has become renowned for helping dance music lovers say goodbye to the previous year and welcoming in the new. Definite points earned for end of stroke performance.Miss out on the Road Trip tour that Kaskade embarked on earlier this year? He’s heading to SoCal for a show on New Year’s Eve you won’t want to miss! I could still bottom out once a ride but, I could barely notice the shock reaching the end of its stroke. I hate to use the term “bottomless” as it is really overplayed today, BUT the Cascade Components link gave the end of the stroke a much smoother transition. With the increased mid stroke support I was able to drop the bladder pressure adding even more of a smooth feeling to the stroke, this is unique to DVO shocks and may not apply to your set up. This always decreased my traction and tended to give the bike a bit of a rougher feel, specifically on initial impacts. I have always sacrificed a bit of that small bump compliance to prevent those harsh bottom outs. This gave me the perfect balance of brake bump eating compliance and plenty of smooth ramp on big hits. What this link allowed me to do was rely on the linkage and air pressure to get my desired feel vs reducers. Since I tend to go “gas-to-flat” multiple times a ride, having a good amount of end stroke ramp is super important to me. The entire curve felt “smoother” and there was a decent increase in bottom out support. In the first parking lot bounce test after Jimmy installed the link the change was immediately noticeable. I ended up running 223psi in the main can and 175psi in the bladder with the same volume reducer set up for the majority of my rides. After the first few test rides with the same settings and an increase of 10psi to the main can I found that I could still use a bit more pressure. My DVO Topaz was set at 205psi in the main can and 185 in the bladder with two positive reducers and zero negative reducers prior to the link install (170lb rider weight). I will need to do some testing to really report back on how it performs with a coil shock. On the coil side of things, the link would smooth out the initial part of the stroke getting back the small bump compliance while also adding some increased mid/end stroke support. It was surprising to hear that I would need to run around 5% more air pressure to achieve the same amount of sag and coil riders would also need to up their spring rate. ![]() All testing has been on a DVO Topaz T3 air shock. Unfortunately, I have not been able to test this link with a coil yet as DVO has not had a replacement for me since incurring some damage to the trunnion mount on my Jade X. This caused a dramatic loss in small bump compliance that we all expect from coil sprung shocks. Prior to installing the Cascade Components Norco Sight linkage, I had my Sight equipped with a coil shock running a spring 100lbs heavier than what I should have been on to keep from constantly bottoming out. After a great report on the Cascade Components V4 Nomad linkage, we were confident the Norco Sight linkage would perform well. Cascade Components Sight Linkage system is one of their latest additions to the line up and one we were excited to test. While custom suspension is widely accepted, even expected in the off road motorcycle world, it’s a topic rarely discussed in mountain biking. Cascade Components was born out of a desire to tune and compliment a bike if you’re an outlier. And while today’s modern trail and enduro mountain bikes are absolute weapons when put in the right hands, there is no denying that there are compromises made so the bikes perform best for those in the biggest part of the bell curve. Larger bike companies must design a bike that can work for both beginner and advanced riders, while making the least amount of compromises. Every inch of the frame is optimized to perform day in and day out through a wide variety of terrain under riders of various skills and weight ranges. Mountain bikes have hundreds of hours of R&D put into them by some seriously smart bike nerds. ![]()
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