2021 Meta Power 29 rear travel.

[Stuckthrottle]

Can someone with one of these please measure actual rear travel ?

Thank you.

 

[Troeyler]

147MM.
7:48 in this clip

 

[Stuckthrottle]

That's what brought that question up. Just wanted to confirm it from an actual owner.

 

[Stuckthrottle]

If someone could actually measure the travel their bike has, it would be immensely helpful. Thanks in advance.

 

[rb.]

If someone could actually measure the travel their bike has, it would be immensely helpful. Thanks in advance.

View attachment 52637

How do you measure the “actual” travel of a bike?

 

[Stuckthrottle]

You would have to let the air out of the shock and measure the axle point at full droop to full full compression. I know it's not as simple as just grabbing a tape measure but i would be very grateful if you could.

 

[Stuckthrottle]

I got off the phone with Commencal USA and they explained the discrepancy with MBR's travel claim, Nicco from Commencal also emailed me the explanation which is below:

Hey Victor!
This is a great question with a lengthy answer. I will give it my best shot.
From MBR’s claim it appears that they measured actual rear wheel travel by letting all of the air out of the shock, keeping the bike level, and measuring axle height before and after cycling the bike through its travel. They then took the difference of these two measurements.
This equation with give you ~147mm of rear wheel travel. However, there is one factor that isn’t taken in to consideration - the DPX2’s bottom out bumper and the forces it takes to use the entirety of the shock’s stroke.
Any suspension manufacturer's (Fox, Rockshox, DVO, etc.) specification of shock stroke is based on the entirety of its stroke. This includes the shock cycling into its bottom out bumper - a limit that is extremely hard to measure without pushing the bike and shock through larger loads than one can measure by hand.
Therefore, in other words, MBR’s method of measuring actual rear wheel travel is partly inaccurate due to the fact that they did not cycle the shock through the segment of stroke that progresses into the bottom out bumper. They can get close to an accurate reading using their method, however they can not recreate forces that push a shock to the entirety of its designed stroke. This creates an actual rear wheel travel number that appears to be less than our specifications.
Please let me know if you you want me to expand on any of the above points or if you have any further questions.
Cheers,

 

[Stuckthrottle]

To back up the above, I found the following:

Fox X2 Bottom Out Point
Question: @sihotaman asks in the Bikes, Parts and Gear Forum: Trying to figure out if my X2 is bottoming out. Should it go right to end of the shaft/stanchion, or is it a few mm before, or does it vary between stroke lengths?

RockShox have a patent on printing shock information on the shaft, which means other shock manufacturers can’t make it that easy. But most bike companies give you the specs for your bike including the shock length and stroke. Taking that and measuring your shock would give you your bottom out point on your X2. Another way would be to measure the eye to eye of your shock, and go check the Fox website to see what stroke is available for that shock length. Then you can do a quick measure on your shock to see where the max stroke is. On a lot of the imperial length shocks, the end of travel was easier to line up as the end of the shaft. But with metric shocks it’s not always as clear, since some shock lengths have multiple strokes. You can also let the air out of the shock (record your air pressure first), then compress the shock to see exactly where the bottom is. On the X2, there's a generous bottom out bumper that saves those last few millimeters of travel for really big hits. Always trying to get the O-ring to the end of the shaft might result in you compromising your setup for a bigger chunk of your riding, and getting full travel every ride shouldn't be a priority. The Fox website is really helpful for the information you’re after. And grabbing a measuring tape too will help implement that knowledge for your specific bike.

SOURCE

 

[rb.]

I’m not sure I believe the simple answer of “bottom out bumper” is correct.

I’d guess it has to do more with their method for measuring the perceived amount of travel. Measuring vertical axle path while in a stand is fine, but depending on the bike under full compression the axle path may not be directly above where it started. And I would think that some companies would try to take this into account to get their travel numbers to look “better”.

Here is a 2019 Stumpy Evo and an Orange.

And to be fair, I really have no idea what I’m talking about. Only thing I do know is that at least one big bike company I know “tweaks” the numbers to what they feel will be marketed the best due to the fact that there is no standardized method for measuring travel and that no one can prove they are/aren’t posting false info.

 

[rb.]

And to answer your first question, I am not going to take the time to try and measure this on my bike because I simply do not care myself if I have a full 160mm or not.

 

[Stuckthrottle]

Yeah, i agree with what you said. It's kind of like "usable travel", I'm not sure if that's a term.
I was mainly concerned with the numbers they were claiming. I'll dig more into kinematics.

 

[Fuch]

I’ve done hours of research on this.......enough?