Ask The Editors: Let’s Talk About Linkage

What’s all this down there?

This is a surprisingly complex question that would normally demand a pretty good grasp of the laws of physics to fully appreciate but we can do our best to break it down into easily digestible bits.

In short a linkage is a series of pivots used to fine tune to relationship between how much your wheels move and how much the shock moves in response. So far so good, right?

Let’s imagine a single pivot system – to best visualize this, picture a pair of scissors opened wide and a shock wedged between the two metal blades. As you tried to close the scissors, every ounce of strength you enter into the formula has to go through the shock. This would work if we rode on perfectly smooth asphalt all day.

We’re off-roaders, though, and we want our suspension to pick up that stick across the trail, and that mound of dirt but also to stay high in its travel when we take a hard corner then soften again for that roller but stiffen up enough to take the hard landing from that jump.

We achieve part of this through the shocks itself (which you already know). We can valve them to perform many traits and even choose springs that favor the conditions at hand. However, smart engineering takes some of the burden off the shocks. A good linkage will fine tune exactly how much input from the wheel travel will reach the shock. This is known as the leverage ratio.

Leverage ratios allow the machine’s engineers more precise management of lateral forces enacted upon the chassis and to cancel out body roll without needing shocks to be stiff as boards.

While nothing is technically stopping a confident tuner from messing around with the linkage, it’s one of those things where the manufacturers did a lot of expensive homework to make sure it works. We’re usually better off fine tuning our suspension needs first through the on-board adjusters and by rebuilding / revalving the shocks. And if all that’s still not enough, there are some amazing aftermarket shocks out there as well.

We get the feeling you’re still going to experiment anyway, so take comfort knowing there are aftermarket companies that offer their own linkages.

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