Vorsprung Telum
Adjustments: Rebound, high- and low-speed compression, hydraulic bottom-out, climb switch
Sizes offered:
- Metric:
- 210 x 47.5 / 50 / 52.5 / 55 mm
- 230 x 57.5 / 60 / 62.5 / 65 mm
- 250 x 67.5 / 70 / 72.5 / 75 mm
- Metric Trunnion:
- 185 x 47.5 / 50 / 52.5 / 55 mm
- 205 x 57.5 / 60 / 62.5 / 65 mm
- 225 x 67.5 / 70 / 72.5 / 75 mm
MSRP: $1,200 USD / $1,600 CAD (includes a Sprindex adjustable-rate coil spring)
Intro
Vorsprung hasn’t been shy about the fact that they’ve been working on a coil shock — their first full, standalone suspension product, after making a lot of very good upgrade parts for other manufacturers’ forks and shocks over the years. But they’ve kept a lot of the technical details more quiet, until now. And there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on here, so let’s get right to it.
Design
Vorsprung founder Steve Mathews laid out a lot of the high-level design of the Telum when we spoke on Bikes & Big Ideas early this year, and the stuff he divulged back then hasn’t changed. The Telum is coil sprung with a twin tube damper featuring adjustable hydraulic bottom out, high- and low-speed compression, a single rebound adjuster, and a climb switch. It’s available in metric eyelet and trunnion-mount sizes from 47.5 to 75 mm stroke (i.e., 210, 230, and 250 mm eyelet and 185, 205, and 225 mm trunnion lengths). The eyelet version uses spherical bearing hardware where applicable, but standard cylindrical ones are also available if needed (e.g., for bikes with a shock yoke) where spherical bearings aren’t viable.
[If you really want to nerd out on all that stuff, Vorsprung has published an excellent guide to shock mounting design for frame manufacturers that lays out the important criteria in general, and some Telum-specific compatibility details. The TLDR on the latter is that the total length of the shock plus any yoke used can’t exceed 315 mm for eyelet shocks or 290 mm for trunnion ones; yokes should clamp directly onto the shock eyelet, not any reducer hardware; and the yoke must use some sort of rolling element bearing (i.e., not a plain bearing / bushing) at its pivot.]
There are some interesting things going on with the Telum’s damper architecture, chiefly that it uses a solid main piston with no oil flow through it whatsoever. All the damping (in both compression and rebound) is generated in the bridge between the main body and the reservoir which in turn helps facilitate what Vorsprung calls “Rapid Revalve.”
The idea is that it’s possible to completely change the valving of the Telum in under five minutes, without any oil loss or need to re-bleed the shock. The details of how the system works aren’t stated (Vorsprung is pursuing a patent on the system) and they say it’s meant to be performed by a trained technician rather than being intended for at-home use, but shops can set up a dealer account with Vorsprung, buy one “inexpensive” tool, and take a 15 minute online training course to be up and running.
As per usual for Vorsprung, their case for why Rapid Revalve is valuable is both convincing and amusingly stated. As they put it: “Should you ever want a re-tune for any reason (different bike, different preferences, overdosed on ice cream, overdosed on Ozempic, moved to BC, moved away from BC etc), that’s also extremely cost-effective to do.”
Also unsurprisingly, given Vorsprung’s history of custom suspension tuning (check out Ep.60 of Bikes & Big Ideas for a lot more on that), the Telum comes custom valved for a given rider / bike combination — there’s no “stock” tune to be found. The ordering process involves filling out a questionnaire that covers the bike that the Telum is destined for and some questions about the rider, their typical terrain, and a few other details. The “Vorsprung Tuning Hub” then generates a damper tune and recommended spring rate based on all of that information. If the initial valving isn’t to the rider’s liking, Vorsprung will work with them to get it sorted out. And in a very neat additional touch, the Tuning Hub tracks all prior valving configurations based on the shock’s serial number, so you can easily keep track of what’s been tried already if you’re working through various options. The Telum also comes with a Sprindex adjustable-rate coil spring to make dialing in the spring rate a bit easier. Vorsprung doesn’t offer spring exchanges, but will sell an alternate one at a discount if the initial option winds up being off base.
The Telum is built by Vorsprung in their new home of Kamloops, BC.
Some Questions / Things We’re Curious About
(1) First and foremost, how does the Telum perform, and how does it compare to many of the other high-end coil shocks on the market?
(2) How does the Rapid Revalve system work? Vorsprung isn’t going into too much detail publicly, but we’re quite curious.
Bottom Line (For Now)
The Telum has been in development for over three years now, and Vorsprung hasn’t kept it much of a secret, but it’s finally getting a full release now (and some of the earliest pre-orders have already started shipping). We’ve got a Telum on the way for review (actually, scheduled to be delivered today, as of publication) so stay tuned for much more on it very soon.
I’m looking forward to hearing about this one.