Hope springs eternal. I was a coil spring guy for years. Back in the 1900s when chasing the lightest bits of kit for one’s bike was mandate, I broke everything one could break on my bikes. Air shocks were not immune to my wrath (more drunken bear riding style), and I blew up a bunch of them. Now coil shocks also got the poo beat out of them and I blew up the damping circuits on those too. However, even with no tuning ability, at the least I could finish a ride with my tail bouncing around like a pogo stick. However, eventually air shocks became more robust and that along with my decrease in weight and maybe slightly less destructive riding approach made me come back around to them.
Air shocks weigh less (tell us more we don’t know, Dr Sweets!), tend to fit a larger swath of frames, and are notably easier to tune. Sure, I’ve had custom tunes done on a bunch of them over the years, but anyone with rudimentary mechanical skills can set up an air shock. After being able to read a set up guide you will need a high-pressure shock pump. Every bicycle suspension manufacturer makes these and many of them are the same with just different company logos on them. I’ve found these to work reasonably well for maybe 3+ years, but the rubber hoses break down, and the valves get worn out. They will still kind of work like this but become increasingly less accurate.
An oft-argued point regarding accuracy is how much air loss occurs when the chuck is removed from the shock valve and how much this amount matters. Most sources say that either the air loss is negligible and/or it is not that important. I never really paid it too much mind figuring it was a horseshoes and hand grenades thing and okay would be good enough. I did notice that whenever I’d reconnect a pump the pressure would differ at least five pounds. I figured no big deal, maybe I’d top it off slightly higher or not worry about it.
However, the makers at Silca felt like it was important and having one’s pressure off even slightly resulted in worse performance. I never really thought much about Silca other than they seemed to make expensive floor and frame pumps that roadies fawned over. However, recently when my old shock pump was on its way out, I decided to see if anyone made a better design. Those aforementioned pumps certainly work, but they cannot be rebuilt in any reasonable (economic) way and the accuracy at best as mentioned was not ideal. Silca released their shock pump last year after putting ten years of design effort into it and there does not seem to be any part of the concept they did not try to improve. There are floor style high pressure pumps that might be slightly easier to use, but they really are not portable. The Silca Ultimate Shock Pump (USP) is fully rebuildable and comes with a seven-year warranty. There are no plastic parts and the whole thing is made from billet alloy; it has a built-in hand rest/grip to steady it while pumping things up as they found one of the biggest points of failure for shock pumps were users holding onto the gauge for anchorage, which wore out the seals. The analog (no batteries, baby!) gauge on the USP also rotates to make it viewable from any angle and the numbers are big enough for alter cockers like moi not to have to grab readers to see them. Its hose is made with braided Kevlar so that it won’t degrade like the rubber ones found on standard pumps. Silca put out a nice video on all the details you can watch here.
Those are all rather helpful and portends that I will have this doodad longer than usual, but the real coup de grâce is the zero air loss chuck. This two-piece chuck does not allow for any air escape when you engage or disengage the shock valve. It took me a couple of tries to get the hang of using it, but now it is one of those features I’d have a hard time doing without. Whatever pressure you pump your shock (or fork) up to, that is exactly the pressure it will be when you recheck it. In comparing to my old worn-out pump there was huge difference of ten pounds or more. The accuracy made an immediate difference on my ride quality. This accuracy paid dividends when more recently setting up a newer bike’s suspension*, which had been vexing me for my first half dozen rides. I went on to set up and recheck the pressure on all my forks and shocks, and upon returning to them they remain perfect.
*More on this in a forthcoming Ebullition/Doubt episode
The Silca USP is available for $125 which works out to 2.5 to 3 standard pumps. However, I hate stuff that ends up in a landfill and when you see how much better your ride is with the accuracy these have, you’ll realize how much those basic pumps blow. (Sorry.)