I am intrested in geting some elka frount shocks for my cannondale. But I have a couple questions about them, what is the difference between the piggy back and remote resivors (cant spell it) and which one is better, What is the difference between tripple dual and single rate? And what does the SSD do and is it worth it?

Thanks

 

not much diff in remote and piggy back reservoirs. Piggy back reservoirs are mounted DIRECTLY to the shock, usually at the top off to one side. remote reservoirs have steel braided lines in various lengths that attach the reservoirs to the shocks, basically so you can mount them in a remot location where they wont be damaged, or get in the way. spring rates the way you are describing...single double and triple relates to the # of springs on the shock. triple rate shocks have 3 springs the upper most controls ride height and the lower 2 are progressive dampening. I am going to paste shock description, as my suspension builder describes them on EXriders forum

 

Let me tell you a little about the shocks.

Shafts...
Our shafts our 5/8 inch diameter. This has become pretty standard now among the high-end shocks. I don't know of anyone who is using a 7/8 inch shaft. This is huge. There really is no need to have a shaft that big. Besides, it would be very heavy.

Bodies...
Like the rest of our parts, Our bodies were designed by us from scratch for ATV racing. They are (like all our parts) manufactured by us on state of the art CNC machines right here in the USA. Our bodies are threaded from one end to the other with "Stub Acme" threads for durability and longevity.

Preload...
Preload confuses a lot of people. Although "Zero-Preload" is a big buzz word these days, most people are a little confused about what it means. Zero-Preload would mean that the spring on a shock is not compressed at all when the shock is extended. If this were really true, the spring would be loose, and even rattle. In reality, set-ups that are called Zero-Preload are really just multiple rate shocks that start with a very soft initial spring that has a lot of sag, and "very little pre-load". Our shocks also run this way, but do have a threaded pre-load adjuster so that should you choose to add pre-load to them, you always have that choice. There are circumstances where adding pre-load will really improve your ride.

Hoses...
We get a lot of questions about these. First let me explain the average steel braides hose. Steel braided hoses are simply steel braided strands around a plastic hose. If this hose is bent too tight, the inner plastic hose can kink, and the remain kinked even when the hose is straightened out again. Because of the external steel braids, you would probably never notice this. Our hose is made of two layers of rubber, and two layers of steel strands. All this is covered by a "textile" braid (blue). This is the same type of hose used on expensive off-road race cars. It's used for a reason. It's very tough. This is really a secondary reason why we use this hose though. You may already know this part, but I'll explain it anyway. The volume of oil that must travel from a shock to a reservoir is the exact same volume as the shaft that enters the shock. Anothe way to say it is this... A shock is already full of oil, so when you hit a bump, and the shaft goes into the shock, it must force out that much oil to make room for the shaft. In the old days, shafts were small, and short. (We now have much longer travel). This all means that much more oil must tavel from the shock to the reservoir. Well, oil can only travel through a small hose so fast, so at times when you hit a high speed bump, the shaft can only enter the shock as fast as the oil can get through the hose. This means that hour hose diameter can start to limit your shaft speed, and your shocks can't move fast enough to absorb fast hits. That's why we went to a larger hose so that we can control shaft speed with the shock valving like it's intended to.

Cross-overs...
When building multi spring shocks, you must control how much each spring can work. Most companies do this with cross-over spacers. If you place a spacer between two spring guides, the spring can only compress to the size of the spacer. This works pretty well. By replacing the spacer with a shorter spacer, the spring can compress further. This is the MOST effective adjustment you can make to the feel of your shocks. The problem is that you must take your shocks off your bike, then springs off the shocks to change this spacer. Then you also have to ahve the right size spacer. We have improved this area by replacing the spacers with threaded lock rings. In order to change the amount a "tender" spring can compress, you simply adjust the threaded cross-over rings the way you would a threaded pre-load ring. Just few turns really makes a difference you can feel. The top set of cross-over rings mostly affects the ride height. The lower set will control how soft you want your ride.

Over-all design. many of the ATV shocks today were designed for something else. Many of the shocks that have been around a while were originally designed for motorcycles when they used two in the back. Other new companies are selling snow-mobile shocks as ATV shocks, Others are using shocks or parts of shocks that were designed for Nascar or Indy Cars. We set out to design and build shocks that are for ATVs.

As you can probably see, a lot of time and testing went into making these shocks what they are. Aside from building a shock that is better, we originally wanted to also make a shock that was a little less expensive. I admit it. We failed there. Because myself and my partner have such intimate knowledge of the industry, and we invested in the right technology, and equipment in the beginning, our production costs are lower than most, but because we use such quality materials and build such an advanced and complex product, it is no possible to do so at a lower price. We do realize that our shocks are nearly $100 more per shock than Axis or Elka, but we feel that the performance gain will be well worth the difference, and just to make sure you get your money worth, we are commited to backing up every customer with excellent customer service.

see pics of the shocks at www.motowoz.com

 

Hey thanks a lot for posting that information. That relly helped me understand shocks better and i might give them a call.

Thunder