John and Patrick both have new mountain bikes. And both of them feature designs from suspension savant Dave Weigle. They discuss their experiences and impressions without completely falling down a techie rabbit hole.
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Dave Weagle has some exceptional suspension designs. I’ve ridden nearly all of them save the Orion on assorted bikes over the years. The DW-link is excellent and I believe the best iteration of this comes from Ibis. Hover-bike incarnated. However, IMHO Dave’s most unique and actually most simple design is the DELTA system from Evil bikes. It is simply a single pivot bike with a link driving the shock to alter it’s spring rate through it’s travel. There are many versions of this concept in use (Kona, Commencal, etc.) and more obvious antecedents were DH bikes from Sunn in the late 90’s and Santa Cruz’s APP bikes from the 10’s. I never rode a Sunn, but I did have a Butcher which was a phenomenal pedaling bike. Evil’s take that and turn it way up. I personally have ridden Evil’s since ’17 and like Patrick says they ride like nothing else. What is rather amazing is how well they excel in multiple riding situations. I ride a Wreckoning and have ridden it on everything from coaching days for our NICA team on mellower XC jaunts to all day crushers and of course bike park shenanigans and have never felt over or under biked. It does it all with aplomb. Evil calls the Wreckoning “the mistake eraser” as it will allow you to get into all kinds of trouble, but then get you out of it. Party.