Test: It took a long time before the Quarq ShockWiz, which was eagerly awaited by many mountain bikers, went on sale. The suspension gadget has finally been available for a few weeks now. Can the little black box live up to the high expectations? Does the setup of fork and damper via smartphone really work as well as the inventors promise? We took a close look at the ShockWiz, which costs almost €420.
It's been almost two years since a small Australian suspension tuning company first made headlines with ShockWiz. At that time, Kickstarter was looking for supporters for what the inventors believed to be an almost revolutionary tool for ambitious mountain bikers. Because regardless of whether it's a fully or a hardtail, hardly any setting on the bike has a greater impact on the handling than the correct setup of the chassis - i.e. the damper and suspension fork. Component giant SRAM and its subsidiary Quarq, which bought the technology from the two Australians, also recognized the potential of ShockWiz.
A lot has happened in the field of MTB chassis over the last few years: the systems have become more sophisticated, the performance better and the setting options more diverse. A modern air suspension fork is full of sophisticated technology and is a bohemian village for the majority of its users from a technical point of view. High-speed compression, rebound, volume spacer, floodgate are just a few of the terms you have to deal with if you want to find the optimal setup for your own suspension - these are the times when you just set the air pressure to your body weight and get going over.
Now many may think: "I have my dealer for that" - that is partly true, because a well-trained dealer can help with the correct suspension setting, but you will hardly find much more than a solid basic setup. The reason is simple: every rider is different, every seating position is different, every riding style is different and everyone has different preferences for their favorite trails. However, these are all factors that have a significant impact on the correct chassis setup. So if you wanted to find the perfect setting for yourself, you couldn't avoid dealing with the complicated topic yourself - at least until now.
This is exactly where the ShockWiz comes into play. The small box is connected to the air chamber of the spring element, calibrated and immediately collects data on the performance of the fork or damper on every ride. In interaction with the smartphone app, which accesses the ShockWiz via Bluetooth, the collected data is analyzed and interpreted. Does the fork wobble? Does the shock kick too much? Do you rush through the Federwerg? The app provides answers to these questions and also gives tips on how to get any problems under control. We tested the Quarq ShockWiz extensively on various suspension elements for several weeks.
Quarq ShockWiz: assembly and setup
However, before the chassis analysis can begin, the small box must first be installed and adjusted to the spring element. The scope of delivery includes everything you need for assembly. First, the small plastic box is packed in a kind of rubber casing. This not only protects the ShockWiz itself, but also the suspension elements while riding. The air chamber is then connected with one of the two hoses supplied. Last but not least, the ShockWiz itself is attached to the fork crown or the damper using cable ties. This completes the assembly itself.
Next up is the calibration; this must be carried out for each spring element after assembly and takes a maximum of five minutes. The really extremely successful app, which is available for Android and iOS, supports you in the individual work steps. A setup wizard not only gives the instructions on what to do, but also directly checks whether the respective work step has been carried out correctly. First, the air has to be completely deflated via the second air valve on the ShockWiz and after a few compressions and pulling apart, you can pressurize the fork or damper again and you're ready to go.
A few more words about compatibility: The ShockWiz works with all air spring elements with a continuous positive air chamber, regardless of spring travel. So tuning from SID to Boxxer is not a problem. Logically, coil forks and dampers cannot be tuned, nor can forks with separate positive chambers: This applies, for example, to AWK, Manitous IRT and MRP’s Ramp Control. Adjustable-travel forks are a tricky subject; For example, while forks from FOX with the Talas system work with the ShockWiz as long as you don't change the travel, owners of a Rock Shox Dual Position Air (DPA) fork have to do without the ShockWiz.
Quarq ShockWiz: The App
So the hardware is 'ready to ride' – now you should spend a little time with the app before your first ride. As already mentioned, this is available for both Android and iOS and is of course free of charge. The visual presentation is extremely successful and the app is now also available completely in German. The start screen is clear and provides information about the air pressure, sag, charge level of the battery and the status of the calibration. You can also select the "voting type". Here the app offers four profiles, to which the tips for the correct setup are later geared.
The four voting types
Efficient: Purely geared towards pedaling efficiency. With
Efficient the wheel deflects less and spring movements caused by pedal forces are suppressed.
Efficient provides the stiffest suspension tuning.
Balanced: The middle setting, which is a compromise between traction, comfort and pedaling efficiency. Balanced is the default ShockWiz voting type.
sportliche: Similar to Balanced, but slightly more dynamic handling for more driving fun.
Aggressive: Designed for a comfortable and active driving behavior in which spring movements caused by pedal forces do not interfere. With Aggressive you use the entire suspension travel and get the softest suspension tuning.
If you choose a new voting type during use, all of the collected data will be deleted and you 'have' to start the trail again. The three other tabs - suggestions, diagnosis and statistics - are only filled with data after an extensive test drive. The additional information for almost all terms, tips and suggestions is nice: This way, even chassis novices can find their way around quite quickly, even if you still have to deal with the matter a little.
Quarq ShockWiz: practical test
As mentioned at the beginning, we tested the ShockWiz on various spring elements over a period of a few weeks. In addition to a Monarch+ and a Pike from Rock Shox, the tuning helper also had to prove itself on a "foreign" fork from DT Swiss. To get straight to the point: The ShockWiz worked without any problems on all tested forks and dampers and never caused any problems.
In most cases, we tested the ShockWiz on the Isartrails in the south of Munich and tried to tackle the most diverse terrain possible: From technical uphill sections to stumbling passages to flowing trails, stone fields, kickers and drops. Incidentally, when you're out and about with the ShockWiz, you don't always have to have your smartphone with you; the data is collected on the internal memory and then evaluated the next time it is connected to the smartphone. Nevertheless, it makes sense to plug in your cell phone when you're out and about with the ShockWiz in order to make direct adjustments and thus approach the optimal setup during a ride.
But how does it all work in detail? If you connect your smartphone to the ShockWiz after a few trails, a tuning value on the start page indicates how well the respective suspension element is already tuned. The value “reliability” is also important; If the device has not yet collected enough data, diagnosis and tips can deviate from the optimal value. But that's not all: The app also gives recommendations as to what type of terrain should be ridden next in order to be able to collect the required data. Our test rides showed that it takes quite a few different trails to get the ShockWiz to be reliable. This also shows that a large amount of data is collected and evaluated.
Then it's down to business. But before we go straight to the setup tips, a few words about the two tabs "Diagnostics" and "Statistics". Here you can find information about the areas in which the fork or the damper still cause problems and where they don't. Does the fork bottom out? Does the damper wobble? Does the wheel rock on fast hits? In addition, you even get information about the average sag, how long you are in the air when jumping and how often the spring element bottoms out. All quite interesting.
But now we finally come to the tips and suggestions: The ShockWiz knows six setting options here:
- Air pressure
- progression
- Rebound
- HS compression
- LS compression
- breakdown resistance
The app now makes recommendations for each setting option; When proceeding, it is crucial that you work through this list in exactly this order from top to bottom. However, once a change has been made, a new session must be started - ie the previous data is deleted and you start over. Depending on how many settings you want to change, the setup can take a few hours or days.
Not all forks and dampers offer the possibility to influence all factors: In the case of our DT Swiss OPM ODL fork, for example, there is no separate setting between HS and LS compression. In this case, Quarq advises that you ignore the relevant suggestion. For the future we would like it if there was the possibility to specify the adjustment options of the suspension element in the app. Overall, the use of the app is intuitive, the small help texts make it easier for beginners to get started. However, anyone who has not yet dealt with chassis at all could quickly be overwhelmed. A certain willingness to deal with the topic is also essential when using ShockWiz.
But now to the crucial question: what is the use of the ShockWiz analysis? Do the tips bring the desired result? We were initially quite pleased and felt confirmed in our biker pride when the ShockWiz found very little fault with the setup found in long sessions. We were still curious about how reproducible the results are, so we put it to the test: we made a note of all our settings and then turned all the conceivable controls like mad; Rebound as fast as possible, compression level too low, air pressure too low. We presented the ShockWiz with the problem of a poorly adjusted suspension fork. After that we continued on the same trails and slavishly followed the app's tips until all the controls were in the green zone. We endured this setup torture a total of three times and of course noted the settings we found after each run.
The result of our small field test was remarkable and, admittedly, not a bad surprise: The final setup was exactly the same in all three tests, with the exception of a few tiny deviations. The differences from our own starting setup were a little bigger, but by no means huge, and biker pride aside, we felt the fork performed better with the recommended ShockWiz settings. In plain language, this means: We could have found the fine-tuning of the suspension fork, which took several days with the help of ShockWiz, in one afternoon. Quite impressive.
However, one question plagued us: how does the Quarq ShockWiz cope with different conditions and trails? To determine this, we chose three very different trail sections; a flowy, mostly flat trail with a few root areas, some kickers and short counter climbs, a more technical, blocked and steep trail with a few drops and a flowy downhill trail where you can really let it rip. Each test lap also included a short uphill stretch to get back to the beginning of the trail. We started a new session and rode the trail until our app showed at least 90% reliability before making any changes.
Here we got some very different recommended setups, depending on the type of trail driven. On the one hand, this is logical, since the demands on the fork (or the damper) vary depending on the terrain. However, we find the app's reliability display somewhat misleading, as it suggests that the recommendations are - at least for the most part - independent of the type of terrain. The different results per se are not a point of criticism, but you have to keep this in mind when using the ShockWiz. If you want to find the best possible all-round setup, you should ride as many different trails as possible, regardless of the reliability display in the app, and make the adjustments accordingly. This fact could be positive for those who want to perfectly tune their chassis to a specific track or trail. Especially in racing this could be interesting for one or the other.
We haven't talked about the proverbial elephant on the trail yet: the ShockWiz is quite pricey with an RRP of €419, especially since most bikers hardly want to change their suspension setup every week. The purchase makes sense above all in a group, in a club/team or as a bike shop or rental. So you can share the high acquisition costs and still use the undeniable advantages of the ShockWiz.
David says
“For the future we would like it if there was the possibility to specify the setting options for the suspension element in the app. "
This option already existed back then, if you go to Edit, you can deselect the corresponding setting option. See it again here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U1R4tuzmIyQ