Cane Creek Tigon
MSRP:
- Damper: $900 USD
- VALT Springs: $80 USD
- Hardware: $17 – $29 USD (size dependent)
Adjustments: Low speed rebound, high- and low-speed compression, climb switch, Ramp Tube pressure
Sizes Offered:
- Metric:
- 210 x 50 / 52.5 / 55 mm
- 230 x 60 / 62.5 / 65 mm
- Metric Trunnion:
- 185 x 50 / 52.5 / 55 mm
- 205 x 60 / 62.5 / 65 mm
Stated Weight: 441 g (210 x 55 mm, w/o spring)
Blister’s Measured Weight:
- Shock: 449 g (185 x 55 mm)
- 350 lb/in spring: 285 g
- 400 lb/in spring: 308 g
Reviewers:
- David Golay: 6′, 165 lb / 183 cm, 74.8 kg
- Zack Henderson: 6’, 165 lbs / 183 cm, 74.8 kg
Bolted To: Knolly Fugitive 140
Test Duration: 4 months
Test Locations: Washington
Intro
Cane Creek’s Double Barrel shocks have been around in various forms for quite a while now, and are a popular (usually aftermarket) option for US-made, highly tunable suspension. Well-versed in building both coil and air options, Cane Creek brought a little mad science into the mix and created the new Tigon as a hybrid shock promising the sensitivity of a coil-sprung design with the tunable mid- and end-stroke support of an air spring. The patent-pending Ramp Tube Technology also promises added lateral strength for use on bikes with yoke-driven designs that can create side loading issues for some coil shocks.
Paired with their highly tunable damper architecture, there’s a lot to unpack with the new Tigon. Let’s get into it. And if you want a lot more on the background of the Tigon and its development, check out Ep.223 of Bikes & Big Ideas with Will Hart from Cane Creek.
Design
We’ve seen air assists used in coil-sprung forks before (such as some Marzocchi forks of old, or PUSH’s ACS3 coil conversion kit), but the packaging constraints of rear shocks have meant that its typically a binary choice between coil or air. Using their patent-pending Ramp Tube Technology, Cane Creek has essentially packed a tiny air spring into the inner diameter of the coil spring, tackling that packaging issue to bring some interesting proposed benefits.
The Ramp Tube is a low-volume air chamber with very low operating pressures — Cane Creek advises a maximum pressure of 30 psi. The idea is that early in the stroke, Ramp Tube pressures remain low enough that most of the total combined spring rate is handled by the coil spring, which brings greater sensitivity than most air springs can provide. As the shock goes deeper into the stroke, pressure in the Ramp Tube builds to the point that it starts to contribute more substantially — Cane Creek claims that it can add 20–35% more progression to the spring curve relative to a traditional coil shock.
The air spring isn’t just there for bottom-out support — unlike Push’s air-sprung bump stop in their coil-sprung fork, for example, the Ramp Tube’s air spring acts throughout the entire stroke. Changing the air pressure has a subtle effect on sag / the initial spring rate as well, but the coil spring is doing most of the work until deep in the travel — hence Cane Creek referring to the Tigon as an “air-charged coil shock.”
For some coil-curious riders, particularly those on some mid-travel Trail bikes, that could be a very promising arrangement. While many bikes claim to have air and coil shock compatibility, some bikes still have insufficient progression later in the stroke, resulting in bottoming issues with coil shocks. The air sprung Ramp Tube also brings more fine-tuning potential than other shocks, whether it be a hydraulic bottom out-equipped coil shock or an air shock that relies on volume spacers.
As another benefit, Cane Creek also claims that the Tigon’s large diameter air shaft increases the strength of the shock, making it less susceptible to damage when installed on bikes that use a yoke-driven rear suspension layout. Yoke-driven suspension can transfer bending loads from the rear triangle to the shock, causing premature wear or in some more extreme cases, even breaking shock shafts. Those issues tend to be more pronounced on coil shocks, which generally have a much smaller diameter shaft than air-sprung ones (and thus less bushing support) but the Tigon’s main shaft is much more akin to that of most air shocks, sizing-wise. (There’s still a smaller damper shaft hidden inside, too, both on the Tigon and most air shocks, but it’s not a structural member in the way that it would be on a conventional coil shock.)
Cane Creek’s take is that the Tigon is best suited to mid-travel Trail bikes where the rider wants to run a coil shock for improved small bump sensitivity and grip, but can’t get enough bottom-out control from a more conventional coil shock and/or want to retain a bit more pop and energy from the rear suspension than you might get from a conventional coil shock. Cane Creek acknowledges that the Tigon’s lower oil volume and pared-back damper architecture as compared to their bigger Kitsuma shocks (in either the air or coil-sprung versions) make the Tigon less ideally suited for use on Enduro or DH bikes that are going to see a ton of really extended high-speed descending, but that the tradeoffs in weight savings and tunability from the spring will make up for that in the right applications. That seems fair enough — and, of course, suspension companies offering more compact mid-size Trail bike shocks alongside their bigger, more gravity-oriented siblings is nothing new.
Like Cane Creek’s other shocks, the Tigon is hand built in Fletcher, North Carolina. It also features nearly all of the typical adjustments we’ve come to expect with Cane Creek’s Double Barrel shocks: high speed and low speed compression, low speed rebound, and a climb switch are all there, though there’s no external high speed rebound adjustment. The low-speed compression and rebound adjusters use a 3 mm Allen key, but there’s one stowed on the Tigon itself, held in place with a magnet; the high-speed compression adjuster is tool-free.
FULL REVIEW
The Cane Creek Tigon caught a lot of attention when it was released earlier this year, and for good reason. While hydraulic bottom-out circuits have become increasingly common in high-end coil shocks, we aren’t aware of another shock on the market that merges a coil shock with an adjustable low-pressure air spring. The promise of coil spring sensitivity and linearity with tunable end-stroke support sounds compelling on paper, but how does it ride? We spent a few months finding out and are ready to weigh in.
Setup
Zack Henderson (6’, 165 lbs / 183 cm, 74.8 kg): We outlined the key design elements of the Tigon in our First Look (scroll up in this article for more on the full set of features if you’re curious), but suffice to say that there is a lot to consider in setting up the Tigon.
Cane Creek provides a helpful setup guide on their website that covers the basics, from spring selection to shock installation and initial setup. Like other Cane Creek shocks, the Tigon relies on the brand’s Double Barrel damper architecture, a twin tube layout with notably wide damping adjustment ranges. The Tigon has a whopping six adjustments to consider — RAMP Tube air pressure, spring preload, low-speed compression, high-speed compression, low-speed rebound, and the two-position climb switch.
We’ll start with the most unique feature here: the RAMP Tube. Cane Creek has essentially packed a tiny air chamber within the coil spring’s inner diameter. Cane Creek advises starting with the RAMP Tube set to 0 psi, then increasing air pressure to find the desired amount of ramp-up support, up to a maximum pressure of 30 psi. In my experience playing with different pressures, the air pressure makes a very significant difference in the end-stroke ramp-up of the shock, making itself most apparent in the final third of the travel. Sticking with Cane Creek’s suggestion of 5 psi adjustment increments worked well for me, and for our Knolly Fugitive 140 test bike, I ended up running about 15 psi.
Another merit of the RAMP Tube is its ability to compensate slightly for being in between spring rates. I also found that while the 350 lb/in spring I was running felt ever so slightly soft for my preferences, the next level up (400 lb/in) was a bit too stiff and put me well under my sag target. The RAMP Tube system meant that I could simply run a little bit more pressure and still end up with a pretty good setup that offered enough support later in the travel.
David Golay (6’, 165 lbs / 183 cm, 74.8 kg): I’m in full agreement with Zack on the general merits of the dual-spring design, but even though we’re about the same size, we wound up setting the Tigon up a bit differently. To be clear, even at the maximum 30 psi in the RAMP Tube, the coil spring is making by far the bigger contribution to the total spring rate. The air spring does make a modest contribution throughout the entire stroke, but its impact is far greater in the last 25 or 30% of the stroke than when the bike is higher in its travel.
I wound up preferring the firmer 400 lb/in spring with a little less air pressure in the RAMP Tube than Zack wound up running (about 10 psi in my case). There’s undoubtedly a degree of personal preference at play — I just wanted a bit more midstroke support than I was getting from the 350 lb/in spring + higher RAMP Tube pressure — but the way we each chose to set up our Knolly Fugitive 140 test bike undoubtedly played a role, too. Check out our Full Review of the Fugitive for more detail there, but in short, I preferred to run the Fugitive in its lower geometry setting (which also makes the rear suspension a bit more progressive) while Zack mostly opted for the less progressive “Neutral” setting. Given that, it’s not a huge surprise that Zack wanted a bit more ramp-up from the shock itself than I did.
And that’s exactly what’s really compelling about the Tigon. It’s a mostly coil-sprung shock where you can add quite a bit of spring progression if you want to — and as Zack said, the difference between 0 and 30 psi in the RAMP Tube is not the least bit subtle. The Tigon can be quite progressive if you want it to be, or much more linear if that’s what you’re after. Zack’s right that the RAMP Tube pressure makes a little bit of a difference to the sag / overall spring rate earlier in the travel too, but the way it changes the end-stroke behavior is a lot more dramatic.
Zack: On the damper side of things, I’m of two minds about Cane Creek’s approach. On one hand, the Double Barrel architecture and valving allow for an impressive range of adjustment, and I’ve been able to get the support I’m looking for on pretty much every suspension design I’ve tried one on. On the other hand, the myriad adjustments and large adjustment range for each make it a daunting task to get the shock set up, and unlike some simpler shocks out there with bike-specific internal tunes, it is quite possible to dial in a very poor setup if you aren’t intentional about your knob-twisting. The Tigon foregoes the high-speed rebound adjustment found on Cane Creek’s more gravity-oriented shocks, the Kitsuma siblings, which makes things a bit simpler, but plenty of tweaking is still required to get things in the right place.
While the folks at Cane Creek offer a nicely constructed tuning guide and can provide recommended base settings based on your bike and rider weight, I ended up starting from the middle of each adjuster range and tuning from there. The Tigon does seem to have a slightly narrower adjustment range than Cane Creek’s more complex Kitsuma, and while the low-speed rebound and low-speed compression adjustments each have nice, clear clicks, the high-speed compression adjuster has no discernible clicks and requires a bit more attention to know where you are in the adjustment range. I’d like to see clicks used here to make keeping track of settings more straightforward.
The high-speed compression adjuster is a tool-free knob (which requires a bit of force to turn), while the low-speed compression and rebound adjusters each require a 3 mm Allen key. Cane Creek includes one nestled into the shock body and held in place by a magnet — even if you forget a multi-tool, Cane Creek has you covered. Otherwise, each adjuster has a very noticeable influence on the shock’s behavior, and the adjustment ranges feel well-balanced. Running any one adjustment fully open results in fairly minimal damping, and running them closed creates quite a bit of damping force — there’s a good bit of range on tap to cover different riding styles and weights. Within one or two rides I was able to get to a good place, running rebound fairly open and both compression adjusters between the middle and upper limits of the range. That’s where I often end up on other popular high-end shocks, and my sense is that Cane Creek has landed on a good usable range of adjustment without any notable quirks.
David: Yup. Zack and I are very much on the same page here. The range of damping adjustments offered on the Tigon is very, very wide, and that’s a bit of a double-edged sword. On the plus side, the Tigon feels like you should be able to achieve good settings on a pretty wide range of bikes without needing to get it re-valved. But if you’re not too keyed in to suspension setup and/or don’t want to take the time to really figure it out, it’s possible to end up with some pretty wonky settings.
I didn’t have too much trouble getting to a place I was happy with either, but my less-than-dialed initial baseline wound up being pretty far off, and I made fairly large-scale adjustments from there to get to a happy place.
Zack: While our Knolly Fugitive tester, fortunately, does not have a clevis-style shock mount, it’s worth mentioning quickly that Cane Creek expressly recommends the Tigon for those sorts of implementations. Clevis-style mounts can introduce a whole bunch of side load forces into the shock, and the narrower shafts of conventional coil shocks are more prone to undue wear or even breaking than the more substantial and better-supported stanchions of air shocks. I’ve personally seen two coil shock shafts snap on clevis-style suspension designs, so it’s absolutely an issue on certain bikes that can cause real (and costly) headaches. The Tigon’s RAMP Tube more effectively braces the shock against side loading, and Cane Creek has also added an oversized damper shaft to further beef up the Tigon — features that should bode well for longer-term reliability.
On the Trail
Zack: As novel as the Cane Creek Tigon is in its design, it largely disappears into the background on the trail — and I mean that as a high compliment. Given the hybrid spring design, I found myself wondering if there would be an obvious point at which the air spring starts to have an outsized influence on the feel, but the Tigon feels impressively normal, and it does what it says on the tin. The initial stroke of the shock is quite smooth, with the smooth touchdown and small bump compliance that makes coil shocks so appealing, while the RAMP Tube air spring can be set up to provide a bunch more ramp-up later in the stroke.
Our Knolly Fugitive 140 test bike seems to have a decent bit of progression (though Knolly doesn’t publish the exact figures), and I honestly think that a more conventional coil shock would have worked fine on that bike. That said, I came to very much appreciate the RAMP Tube’s adjustability, allowing me precise control over the feel of my rear suspension. As I mentioned briefly before, I found myself between spring rates for the Fugitive and ultimately settled on a very slightly too-soft 350 lb spring. My main concern was that I wouldn’t have adequate support later in the travel, but thanks to the RAMP Tube design, I was able to have a sensitive initial stroke afforded by the lighter spring while still getting ample support in the final portion of the stroke.
Of course, with adjustable hydraulic bottom-out circuits available on other coil shocks like the Vorsprung Telum and EXT Storia / Arma, I wondered whether the RAMP Tube would feel appreciably different — and it does. By design, a hydraulic bottom-out circuit is a damper, meaning that it’s designed to absorb kinetic energy. It yields a controlled feel, but typically only comes into play very late in the stroke, and doesn’t have an impact on the shock’s feel until you hit that position at which the HBO circuit is engaged. With the Tigon’s RAMP Tube design, adding more air pressure of course increases the bottom-out resistance, but it also increases the air spring’s perceived effect over the full stroke of the shock. Because springs inherently store and return energy, adding more air will also increase the “springy” feeling of the shock as it gets deeper into the travel. That may mean adding more rebound damping is needed at higher RAMP Tube pressures, but it also means that the RAMP Tube can be used to change the feeling of the Tigon throughout the stroke, despite its greatest impact being on bottom-out resistance. While I started with less pressure, I found that running 15 psi of RAMP Tube pressure on the Fugitive created an energetic and ramp-y feeling that brought a lot of life into the rear suspension.
David: I’m still on the same page as Zack here. The Tigon does a really interesting job of mostly feeling like a coil shock earlier in its stroke, with all the small-bump sensitivity and midstroke support benefits of those while adding a lot of room to add spring progressivity deep in the travel. That’s potentially very compelling for the right rider/bike combo. As Zack noted, adding bottom-out resistance via the RAMP Tube feels quite different from a coil shock with a robust HBO circuit. The simple distillation is that an effective HBO circuit makes a shock feel more planted and settled, particularly when blasting through fast, choppy sections of trail. The RAMP Tube, on the other hand, makes for a much more lively, poppy feel — I think precisely because the air spring is returning (most of) the energy that it absorbs on rebound, whereas an HBO circuit dissipates it as heat.
I think both approaches have their merits, depending on the bike, terrain, and rider preferences at play. For most longer-travel Enduro or DH bikes, and especially for folks who are primarily interested in going fast on rough, technical trails, the greater composure of an HBO circuit is likely the preferable way to bake in some extra bottom-out resistance. But for more all-rounder Trail bikes, where being lively and engaging on mellower, less game-on trails is a higher priority, the RAMP Tube layout makes a ton of sense. The RAMP Tube can also make a more dramatic increase in bottom-out resistance than any HBO-equipped shock I’ve tried to date. That’s likely to pair well with a lot of Trail bikes, which are often less progressive and more expressly designed for smaller-volume air shocks than their longer-travel brethren.
To Cane Creek’s credit, that’s exactly how they characterize the Tigon — a shock that’s best suited for all-rounder Trail bikes, especially those that aren’t progressive enough to make conventional coil shocks work that well. Cane Creek’s take is that the Tigon has its lane there, but that their Kitsuma shocks (which are offered in both air- and coil-sprung versions) are the better option for big gravity bikes — and I think that feels exactly right.
Zack: While the Tigon creates a clearer value proposition for folks who want the feel of a coil shock on a bike that’s less progressive or designed around an air shock, the adjustment range of the RAMP Tube is such that it doesn’t feel limited to only those applications. Running 0 psi still yields some limited end stroke support due to the ambient air being compressed in the RAMP Tube, but the effect is quite minimal, making the Tigon suitable for bikes with more progressive kinematics. I’m a big fan of forks like the Manitou Mezzer and Öhlins RXF 36 and 38, which use dual positive chambers in their air springs to allow for greater control over the air spring curve, and that’s sort of how I think about the RAMP Tube’s functionality as well.
On the damper side of things, the Tigon continued to perform admirably. The damper is rather quiet and generally goes about its business without a fuss. I never felt limited in any way by the adjustment range of any one damper setting, and I appreciated being able to get the higher amounts of compression support that I typically like without introducing any undue harshness.
While I subjected our Knolly Fugitive test bike to some fairly steep and rough trails, I didn’t fully open it up on long and steep descents in the way that I might with a full-fledged Enduro rig. On those trails, the Tigon didn’t exhibit unexpected damper fade or anything like that, but my sense was that it does not feel quite as composed as some bigger, more Downhill-inspired coil shocks on larger repeated hits — it’s an admittedly small difference, but noticeable. On the flip side, it can be tuned to offer a much more sprightly feel on more undulating trails thanks to the RAMP Tube design, and it feels well-targeted towards the Trail bike market in that regard.
I’ll also take this opportunity to shout out the climb switch — Cane Creek has always done climb switches well, with the switch firming up compression while also slowing down low-speed rebound. It does a great job of calming down the rear suspension during harder efforts, and I used it regularly on the Fugitive given its more-active-than-average rear suspension.
David: I did get the Tigon’s damper to fade a little once or twice, but I had to work pretty hard to make it happen. As Cane Creek’s Will Hart noted when I chatted with him about the Tigon back in Ep.223 of Bikes & Big Ideas, Cane Creek’s Kitsuma shocks have a substantially larger oil volume and an overall damper layout that’s more ideally suited for especially aggressive gravity use. But the Tigon’s damper works quite well overall and is totally up to the task for its actual intended use. If you’re routinely taking full pulls down multi-thousand-foot descents at pace, that might be pushing things a little. If you’re using the Tigon more within the bounds of normal Trail bike use, it works great.
I’ll also co-sign Zack’s praise of the Tigon’s climb switch. Cane Creek’s approach of also slowing down the low-speed rebound works really nicely. The Tigon gets a more conventional two-position switch rather than the three-position one on the Kitsuma shocks, but the firm mode is a nice middle ground of making a very real difference to pedaling efficiency while still being well short of a true lockout.
Who’s It For?
Zack: At first glance, the Tigon comes with a couple of clear target audiences: folks who want to run a coil on a bike with less progression than is ideal, or folks with clevis-style shock mounts that tend to wreak havoc on typical coil shocks that are more susceptible to damage from side loading. Cane Creek’s design delivers for those groups — it brings the benefits of a coil spring layout to those groups who otherwise might not be able to use one, while also offering commendable damper performance.
That said, I think there’s a broader appeal to the Tigon. Much like the EXT Aria’s dual chamber air spring design, the Tigon stands out for bringing another level of tunability to the rear shock’s spring characteristic. Where many coil shocks offer a more ground-hugging feel relative to their air-sprung partners, there are plenty of riders who might be tempted by the small bump sensitivity of a coil shock while still seeking a more lively and progressive feel. The Tigon unlocks that possibility with the RAMP Tube. While riders seeking the utmost performance for brutal descents may be better served by more Downhill-inspired coil shocks, the Tigon offers significantly differentiated performance benefits for riders seeking that unique combination of coil and air shock traits.
David: I’m in full agreement with Zack here. I think the Tigon is most obviously suited for folks on mid-travel Trail bikes who want to run a coil shock on a bike that’s not particularly well-suited for one, and/or who like the small-bump sensitivity and grip that a coil spring offers but would prefer a more lively, poppy feel than most coil shocks tend to offer.
[Not to get too far off into the weeds, but the Tigon’s approach to changing spring characteristics produces quite different results from the EXT Aria’s. In short, the Aria gives a lot more control over the midstroke support with some side effects when it comes to bottom-out resistance. The Tigon’s RAMP Tube has its most noticeable effects deep in the stroke.]
In any case, the Tigon is a bit more involved to set up than a lot of more conventional shocks, so is likely a better option for folks who feel somewhat confident in their ability to set a shock up, or who are willing to take the time to learn. But that additional adjustability also opens up some tuning possibilities that feel unlike any other shock I’ve ridden to date, so it’s not at all a case of requiring a more involved than average setup for no good reason. If the combination of traits that the Tigon offers appeals to you, I’m not aware of anything else quite like it.
Bottom Line
With the Tigon, Cane Creek has brought something truly unique to the rear shock market. While it promises to solve a problem for some, the adjustability of the hybrid spring design holds compelling appeal for folks who want to tightly control how their bike’s rear suspension feels. It’s not particularly cheap, and won’t be the ideal pairing for every bike and rider out there, but the Tigon is an impressive example of out-of-the-box thinking bringing real performance benefits.
Review soon?
Yup! Couple weeks out but we’re close.
Very helpful review. Thank you!