I would guess that much of the discrepancies in shock travel measurements (including OE) are down to how it is measured. Assembly travel of 95mm means that’s how far the shock will move with no spring fitted. Spring stroke means that is how far the spring (on its own) will travel before its coil-bound. Fit the spring to the shock body with the preload ring in its lowest setting and that all makes for about 85mm of travel.
Bear in mind most shocks require a minimum of 5-10mm preload which effectively robs some of the travel as the spring will become coil-bound earlier in its stroke. Some manufacturers allow that in their calculations, yet others quote the theoretical maximum travel. The more preload you add, the less travel the shock will have too. So the softly sprung OE shock may well have 85mm of theoretical travel, but with 25mm of preload added to maintain the correct sag (which I found it needed to have and I’m by no means heavy), its overall travel will actually only be 60mm. An aftermarket shock, let’s say the Wilbers for argument’s sake, correctly sprung to the rider’s weight should require next to no additional preload, so your “20mm less than stock” is actually irrelevant in real life.
I shouldn’t get too hung up on shock travel. Choosing the correct spring rate is a much more important factor in successful suspension setup. After all, you could have a shock with 100mm of travel, but if it’s fitted with low rate spring and needs 50mm of preload to make it work, all that extra travel is pointless. Just remember… any correctly sprung, properly damped aftermarket shock is going to be better than stock item.
You said it yourself...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Nener
So i did my homework and checked available options. Lots of them, and no surprise people are always happy when switching from a standard and tired shock to custom setup brand new aftermarket piece
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