Unanswered A question about lockout

[Beekeeper]

Do most full sus bikes have lockout on the rear suspension?
and assuming lockout was on, how would the performance and range compare to an equivalent hardtail with same capacity battery?

 

[Slowroller]

No full suspension bikes actually fully lock out the rear shock. Rear shocks have a high, high speed compression setting, which means they won't move under slow movements like you'd make when pedaling, but if you hit an object at speed beyond the threshold of whatever valve system they're using it will blow off and allow the shock to move. Anyone who has ever forgotten and left it "locked out" after a climb will tell you it feels very firm on the descent, but still moves if you hit things hard enough. Sort of hardtail-ish, but not the same.

I can't imagine it would make much of a difference in range.

 

[Zimmerframe]

A few weeks back the weather was so crap the trails were pretty much unrideable, so I did two laps of the lake using mainly fire roads, muddy tracks and sandy paths with a few road sections thrown in.

Both 30k laps were ridden as hard as possible.

First one with the suspension full open.

Second one with the suspension locked (set to hard).

Times and battery usage were virtually identical. A couple of climbs I was slightly quicker with the suspension locked out, a couple I was faster with it open.

I think it makes a lot less difference to performance with an e-bike than it would to perceived effort on a normal bike. Plus suspension design is a quite efficient these days.

 

[RickBullotta]

Short version: don't do it. With modern suspension designs, there's almost no need to use lockout off-road. Even though most current shocks don't fully lockout (older ones did), it does place extra stress on shock mount points if you're hitting stuff hard with it locked out. Not nearly with the same issues that early designs faced (lots of cracked shock mounts).

 

[Binhill1]

Short version: don't do it. With modern suspension designs, there's almost no need to use lockout off-road. Even though most current shocks don't fully lockout (older ones did), it does place extra stress on shock mount points if you're hitting stuff hard with it locked out. Not nearly with the same issues that early designs faced (lots of cracked shock mounts).

Personally I don't know the difference as I often forget. So really probably paying a fair bit more for something we don't really need eh