And what is more, when I compared those solutions back to back I noticed another interesting thing. Redshift stem is much better in that scenario but also not perfect. In normal riding, this movement is not that noticeable but when climbing it is all you are thinking about. But for me, a much more irritating thing is the topping out when climbing or accelerating hard. Kinekt stem does not have any additional damping so it can bottom out. Future Shock 2.0 solved those issues by having additional damping added to the whole system. It was also not a great solution for climbing because this time you were feeling the hits at the end of upward movement. There was only a spring there and even when you were using the harshest one, you can still occasionally experience the bottoming out sensation. When you ride you constantly see the mechanism moving up and down to generate the great, floating suspension effect.įuture Shock 1.0 was great at improving comfort but the overall ride feel was not so great. With Kinekt you can feel great comfort improvement when riding on tops, which I really appreciate. And you don’t need to put much weight onto the handlebar to feel this effect so it works not only with every handlebar contact point but also with light riders or the ones that do not want to have a very aggressive, front forward position on the bike. I like to call this kind of design a “floating” suspension because (and this is also true for spring-based suspension seatpost like Redshift’s one), when you set it right, you are constantly in between the available suspension travel and you simply are hovering above the road imperfections. It, just like Future Shock 1.0, uses springs to improve the front end comfort. And this brings me nicely to the Kinekt suspension stem from Cirrus Cycles… Specialized Future Shock made this very clear to me because this spring based solution offers a great level of comfort regardless of the hand position. For me, the biggest flaw of Redshift’s stem is lack of real cushioning when you ride on tops (because this stem works the better the more weight you put on the handlebar, so it naturally excels when riding on hoods or, even better, on drops). Now I really enjoy using this stem because it offers a nice balance between comfort and ride feel. Then I realized that this comfort comes at a hefty price of big handlebar movements (up and down) so I switched to a much harsher set of elastomers. First I was using soft sets of elastomers because I wanted as much comfort as possible from it. More than a year ago I tested Shockstop suspension stem from Redshift and since then it is almost always on my bike helping me to feel more comfortable on bumpy roads.
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