Real World Product Evaluations - Suspension

Is there really a difference between Ohlins, Penske, and Traxxion? What about the GP Suspension?

It's difficult to find honest evaluations. Therefore our desire is to provide solid evaluations of products by actually using the products week in and week out "in the trenches" and then providing detailed descriptions of our personal experiences with the products. In our opinion, nothing reveals a product's strengths and weaknesses as well as beating the crap out of a product in the real world!

Our focus for the evaluation

Rather than give an overly technical comparison of the various suspension products, our focus is to speak to the differences simply from a rider's perspective.

As we all know, suspension components and proper setup is without question one of the most important ingredients to make sport bikes perform well. At Hix Racing, we have participated in countless track days and race events using various suspension components. Components we have used in the past include: Penske's 20mil fork cartridges and various models of rear shocks, Traxxion AK-20 and gas-charged fork cartridges, as well as GP Suspension's 25 mil fork cartridges. We have recently made the move to the Ohlin's 25mil fork cartridges and Ohlin's TTX shocks.

From our "seat of the pants" perspective, we have found that any of the aftermarket suspension setups feel better than stock suspension or even revalved / resprung stock suspension. We have also found that in order to get the most out of each of the aftermarket setups, correct spring rates matched to appropriate damping components are essential.

Our Findings - Superior Ride and Feel

For years, I ran Penske shocks. In my opinion, Penske makes a very good product. I have also used the Penske fork cartridges, as well fork cartridges from GP and Traxxion. Truthfully, all of them are good products. But one of the differences I personally noticed with our current Ohlin's components is that the suspension action front and rear just feels silky smooth. In know that doesn't sound overly technical, but that is the best way I can describe it, a real silky,smooth stroke and plush feel. It's not that the other forks and shocks are necessarily harsh, it is just that the Ohlins is really silky feeling in comparison.

For instance, at Blackhawk there is a patch of concrete that creates a bump going into a tight right hander we lovingly call "the bus stop". At race pace, it is necessary to trail brake right across this bump as we dive hard into this tight right hand corner. In our opinion, the ability of the Ohlin's forks to smoothly keep the front tire connected to the ground while trail braking hard at high lean angles is one of the things that allowed Robert Jensen to recently set the overall lap record at Blackhawk and for Dan Ortega to set the 600 track record. It is hard to argue with such proven success.

A year or so ago, my team mate Brian Blume was telling me that he had a better feel for the rear of the bike with his Ohlins TTX shock. When he originally joined the team, we had moved him off the Ohlins shock and on to the Penske shock in order to standardize the team's bike setups. After moving over to the Ohlins TTX shock myself recently, I think I get what Brian was talking about. For whatever reason, the Ohlins shock does provide a very real feeling of connectedness with the rear tire. For me, this connected feeling really inspires confidence to aggressively get on the throttle early until the rear starts to step out a bit on the exits.

Of course, to get the most out of any tire it is necessary to have suspension components that successfully keep the tire in contact with the pavement as well provide the rider with a feeling of connectedness to the ever-changing level of traction. Without this combination, it is difficult for any rider to have the confidence needed to push harder each lap.

Our Findings - Superior Range of Operation

One of the surprising differences we have discovered with the new Ohlins setup is its ability to work well within a broad range of lap times. Since we do a lot of instructing on our bikes, we run at various pace levels throughout a given track day event. While almost all suspension setups will work at slower speeds, we have found that we can really push these Ohlins components hard before the bike becomes unsettled and starts to protest..

With other setups for instance, once we had the bike setup and went racing the lap times would naturally drop during the race. As this happened and we dropped the lap times we would quickly find ourselves fighting with the bike. To continue to progress, had would have to do some pretty significant dialing to the suspension before moving the lap times down any further. If we didn't make the adjustments, we found it very hard to go any faster because we were just riding "around the issues" with the bike.

Of course, all suspension is like this to a certain degree. However, the Ohlins setup seems to allow us to grow further in our pace before forcing us to make big changes. The only exception to this was the GP Suspension 25 mil fork cartridge kit which we found to be very comparable to the Ohlins 25 mil forks in their range of operation.

Conversely, we found the Ohlins setup to be very forgiving. The Ohlins stuff seems to work pretty well even when we "missed" the suspension setup. For example, if the springs were too soft or the geometry was a bit skewed the bike still handled pretty well. This encouraged us to tweak the setup without fear of completely screwing up everything.

In other words, with the Ohlins setup it is pretty hard to get the bike to really "come unglued". The real world result is that the bike is just begging you to beat the crap out of it. We like that - A LOT.

It is common sense that in order to aggressively drop your current lap times, you need a suspension setup that will allow some significant room for growth.

Our Findings - Suspension Tuning Support

Over the years we have learned a lot about suspension tuning through the slow combination of self-study, at the track testing and expensive "trial and error". But, there are times when we all can find ourselves in over our head. Allow me to share an interesting story that happened during our first AMA event.

During the Road America AMA event, we were struggling to dial out some suspension issues and painfully realized that we needed some suspension help that was beyond our current dialing abilities. Out of desperation, we walked over to the Yoshimura Makita Suzuki team and asked their tuner for some pointers. He was surprisingly helpful.

During our dialog, I mentioned sag numbers and he was quite amused by this. He jokingly told me that Mladin would have to weigh 800 lbs to get the "correct" sag numbers from his current setup. In retrospect, it does make sense to factor in a rider's pace and bike choice into the setup equation, not just the rider's weight.

To be honest, it was a frustrating experience to watch bike after bike come by me, absolutely planted on the brakes going into the corners and driving hard off the apexes with no drama whatsoever. Was my suspension crap? Not at all. Then what was the difference? I believe it was the potent combination of high quality suspension components + highly experienced suspension tuning.

Fast forward to the recent Blackhawk CCS round where I was able to drop over a second and a half off my best times and get within a second of the lap record. The difference? Quite a few things, actually. But one of the most important was a set of Ohlin's 25 mil fork cartridges, an Ohlin's TTX shock AND some suspension tuning from Mike "Thermosman" Fitzgerald.

Having not only high quality components but also professional level suspension support to help you get the most out of those suspension components is critical to having a bike that will allow you to continue to progress your skill level safely.

Bottom Line

Based on our experience, we are very pleased with the new Ohlins suspension components and our partnership with Mike Fitzgerald at Ohlins USA. This is not a blind endorsement based on the receipt of some free product nor is it a slam of Penske, Traxxion or GP Suspensions. Rather, it is simply an honest evaluation based on the fact that our current setup works very, very well.

Some Helpful Links

Ohlins USA
Penske
Traxxion
GP Suspension