I've spent the last year fiddling with suspension and slowly but surely trying to teach myself beyond a simple re-build and maintenance. I have good relationships with local and national tuners, no complaints on their work most of the time, I just enjoy learning and tinkering. I have built my own little app for notes and tracking changes etc. Trying to move towards more of the translation of feeling to real data. By playing with Restackor and making suggestions for adding a face shim, did real world data support my feeling/estimate or was it actually pointing to an issue elsewhere etc.
I see Motoklik makes a more affordable product and BYB tech has a more professional grade device with higher sampling although it seems like the pro model if the only one that provides raw data output. Has anyone used these types of products? Did you think it ended up being a waste of time and money, you got more value from sending them to a dyno service etc. Just looking for general feedback and experience.
Getting good data isn't easy, but it's certainly possible. The real question is: once you have the data, what are you going to do with it? Many people see data loggers on the pro bikes and jump to the conclusion that they can just take that data and use it to tune the suspension. You can't just feed the data into a program and out pops a shim stack or something.
Position vs time is what you're going to end up with. Of course you can do some differentiation and end up with velocity and acceleration pretty easily, but what will you do with that? How do you use that data to make informed changes to your setup? You can sync up the data with video from the rider to give some insight into what's what, but that's still pretty limiting. Keep in mind that this data will be enormous for any significant amount of time logging as you need a high sample rate to capture all that's going on. So you'll need a robust way to process it.
Getting good data isn't trivial. But if you can manage that, I'd suggest starting with something simple: Log a lap and output a histogram of suspension position. You'll be able to see general trends of whether the bike is too hard or too soft based on that. But knowing what to adjust from there can get tricky quick.
Getting good data, processing it, and coming up with revised settings is a full time job for someone with a lot of experience and significant computational power and budget. Not trying to dissuade you from trying, just giving some insight to how hard it actually is.
Thank you, I appreciate it and all fair questions and insights. I work in the data science space and deal with very large data daily, so processing the data isn't what I'm worried about BUT being able to use it, I am. I was trying to dig and find some sample data somewhere but haven't seen anything yet. Some of your call outs are exactly what I'm a bit hesitant about taking the plunge with it and in my gut I believe you are right. The motoklik offering is in a price range I would be comfortable paying to play with, but I wasn't sure if it would let me have the raw data and if it did, was it actually actionable to your point.
Position vs time is what you're going to end up with. Of course you can do some differentiation and end up with velocity and acceleration pretty easily, but what will you do with that? How do you use that data to make informed changes to your setup? You can sync up the data with video from the rider to give some insight into what's what, but that's still pretty limiting. Keep in mind that this data will be enormous for any significant amount of time logging as you need a high sample rate to capture all that's going on. So you'll need a robust way to process it.
I think this what I need to chew on more. It's completely fair and my little homemade react app has some estimates and calculations, and basically was trying to find data to help marry up to for speed and stroke depth etc; which to your point doesn't really help with the translation of what's happening internally with the fluids and pressure etc. It would just be expensive data points to supplement something which I was already doing (logging loops and settings, making a shim change at a time etc.) I have a good home base for an all around setting; but have moved more and more to the enduro and sprint enduro side; and have been basically trying apply some educated guessing with data towards how to do that more smoothly via shims etc. For example, if I'm wanting a less lively front wheel and more traction/less deflection; I know which end of the clicker spectrum gets me closer to there; but that is far away from my homebase so that tells me I need to make some shim adjustments, if I do that; how does that change any relationship or balance to the other valving etc. Restackor has definitely helped with this and it's using some pretty complicated formulas and FEA modeling.
Side note, really enjoying the new nexus bar mounts and they have held up to some abuse from doing a few of the ANEC races this year, normally run the mako's.
Restackor is great, it can get you in the ballpark and identify trends, but it certainly has its limitations.
The nice thing about a dyno is that you can look at a single and controlled event without all the noise present on the track/trail telemetry. You control the input and you can see the output from your suspension settings. But you need to know what that input should be in the first place.
Telemetry and synced video can be useful there to find out what that event may be in terms of shaft speed, travel, etc. to get the dyno setting to replicate it. With that, you can simulate corner entry, g-outs, whoops, jump takeoff, etc. on the dyno.
So basically, to do it right, you need everything! 😂
Glad to hear the Nexus bar mounts are working well for you! We're pretty excited about them and have had a lot of positive feedback.
I've had the motoklik for a couple years and it has not served useful for me. It's interesting, it has potential, but at the end of the day i've got nothing to show for it besides answering some questions for myself on the practical utility of such equipment, which ties to Billy's comments about you only get as good of answers as the questions you ask. Unfortunately I just never felt like I had consistent enough functionality to get to that point of asking good questions.
The first major hurdle was lack of component/build quality. My system fell apart while trying to install it the first time, and every other time after that. Wires pulling/falling out of their connectors, components failing altogether, other comonents not designed or paired correctly to be able to collect accutate data. I think over 2 years and 25-30 testing attempts I have about 5 somewhat useful data sets. I no longer go testing with hopes of having useful data, I go testing with other goals, then if the motoklik happens to work, it's a cherry on top. Anymore i've basically abandoned it, as the setup time isnt worth the maybe of having some data that ends up not being all that useful anyway.
The data: The phone app is geared more towards someone who has no idea how to achieve bike balance or make adjustments on their bike. I found that if you were way off, it would definitely get you closer, but it's basing the AI generated setting off of a data pool from previous users. Presumably that AI generated setting should get better over time as a result of a larger data pool (asuming the data going in is good). But again, beyond the general setup benchmark getting springrate and basic valving package that's appropriate for the bike/rider, size, ability and discipline, beyond that, where the real "magic" happens it then comes down to personal preference which is less about a data sheet and more about the process of discovery. It just requires work, that is the "black art" in suspension, trying things to discover what you do or don't like, to get that last percentage of performance. I dont need an app/telemetry to tell me that a stock KTM 300 XCW is not going to work well for a 220lb A class MX rider. But some people do need that. The Motolik will do that, but it will not tell give me any useful input for the two 195lb Vet A riders who are going the same speed but prefer very different feel. One likes more choppered balance, stiffer fork, slackened rear, the other more rear holdup, plusher fork. At a certain point the motklik app just has you going around in circles. When I do the hard work of testing and giving a rider different iterations that overshoot/undershoot and then eventually land on their ideal setting, the app doesn't necessarily agree. So again, it'll get close if you're way off, but it's not going to take my job as a tuner (enter AI is going to take my job meme here).
The potential: There is an online dashboard that has gone through several revisions. That has some serious potential as it is a collection of the raw data, however it has been a really steep learning curve to try to navigate and extract information so it could be useful. At first it would take a coupe days for the data to upload, so on-site changes based on a rapid feedback loop was not possible, which is a huge problem for me trying to work in those small percentages of performance gains. So many more enviromental variables begin to muddy the waters as time goes on, so for me, the information becomes more novelty, than practically applicable if it's a day later. I realized I had to just run through the testing event and record data to then analyze days later, however there were few instances where an entire tessting session would be sucessful without some component failing, so even then, it was a pretty imcomplete data set when I go to analyze. The dashboard has just been recently updated to fix the uploading delay, but the interface has changed a lot and seems more watered down and less powerful/in depth than before. I honestly haven't spent much time in it as it's feeling like a sunk cost at this point. I have to cut the chord at some point and realize that this system simply will not serve my needs, and focus effort elsewhere. But knowing the potential is there, i will probably revisit it if the workload ever lets up.
With that said, I've been in fairy constat communication with it's creator and have voiced my frustrations and he continues to try to improve it. He seems pretty genuinely interested in making it work and for that I respect the effort. Unfortunately the time i've invested trying to get something useful far outweighs the money I spent on it so I am much more skeptical moving forwards in regards to getting any real useful value out of it, for my particular situation: primarily offroad/enduro suspension tuning.
Obligatory plug: Pease visit my website dejamoto.com for good quality suspension tools made by me right here in Montana, USA. Cheers!
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Thank you for taking the time to provide a detailed response and share your direct experience you had with it. Love your clamps and spanner. They have been extremely useful for me on both the ravens and the 7548's. Will probably pickup the shock tool soon. (Trying to get my own vac pump setup working so I can move past the DRC cup)
Similar experience for me, I have basically moved to offroad focused and just doing moto for training/cardio/coaching. I race more on the national enduro style courses and occasional local hare scramble/gp style race. So getting consistent and clean data is a real concern, especially for testing. Where I live, there is so much variability in the terrain: hard-pack, slate, loose rocks, deep clay, loam, deep sand, etc. I have a setting that works well enough across the board that I'm happy with but I was just experimenting and slowly transitioning things to a more pure enduro/gp valving. Trying to do one change at a time, do some laps/testing and see if I can feel a difference on my butt or not. I have a local place that I go and within reason for real life control, I have a small loop with what I would typically encounter and do the testing on it. The shock dyno was the first thing I thought of but of course, 10-20K+ is a bit out of my range for a hobby nerd. I did foolishly reach out to a few people to see about testing with my current setup and getting the raw data but it doesn't do any good because I'm not the one asking the questions or really have the ability to repeat and test. So my thought process transitioned to: well what about telemetry data for getting stroke depth/speed etc; but similar concerns to what you experience and to what Luxon pointed out. I have a good idea of what I need to change now from the past year of taking notes and trial and error; but was just simply trying to find some data to correlate my feelings.
I have my own locally hosted react based app which has shim settings and estimation for stuff I've built and played around with modeling from my DS work day to day; but it more importantly has my own notes/settings/GPS data for laps and things like that. So I was really wanting to build something to help parse that out in comparison with my overlay for laps/loops. Can I parse out velocity/stroke depth and compare it changes across the same loop and look at changes in stroke depth/velocity in relation to speed differences etc. To what you described, is it going to maybe help be a window in that fine tuning for spots that are hard to communicate.
I think your direct experience with the durability of components is what I have been really chewing on and trying to think through. I talked to someone else that pointed me to a MTB space is building similar tools to DIY. I have a 3d printer, I've built guitar pedals (simple breadboards/proto's etc) so my mind drifted towards building a simple logger and storage for the sensors but I keep coming to the same conclusion of how will that actually work? You machine a mount for the fork, use a string pot that feeds up the fork; wire runs to the box stored somewhere on the bike and will it actually stay and transmit data throughout a rough loop etc. Will it cause more headaches? I i2m and other businesses sell individual potentiometers but they are designed for road courses which are smooth, predictable and repeatable. I think I will likely just spend more time riding and keep with th e approach I've been using for testing one at a time, logging gps data and feelings/lap times etc. Maybe start a small fund for saving towards a shock dyno in the case that one ever pops up for a price worth biting on.
Have you looked at this? https://bybtech.it/
Something to consider in terms of data is video. Specifically slow mo video. I thought I had a good setup back when I first got my bike and noticed when really rough the back end was kicking my ass into braking bumps. Had someone video me going into that section and when reviewing the slow mo I was able to see the rear suspension packing. Two clicks out on rebound changed the whole bike and follow up video confirmed the change was correct. If you could overlay video with the graph data it would help a lot.
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