EXT Suspension founder Franco Fratton is a wealth of information when it comes to all things suspension, and in the third installment of our deep dive on suspension series, Franco and I cover everything from the tradeoffs between air and coil springs to the history of coil springs being used on wheeled vehicles; EXT’s new Aria air shock; inverted vs. conventional forks; and Franco teases an upcoming EXT project as well.
TOPICS & TIMES:
Air vs. coil springs & their historical uses (1:28)
EXT’s Storia vs. Aria (13:39)
Packaging limitations & the modularity of bikes as a double-edged sword (22:15)
Why EXT started with coils, and the lessons learned to get to building an air shock (32:55)
EXT’s upcoming dual-crown fork (38:59)
Inverted vs. conventional forks (39:29)
The future of MTB suspension (41:42)
Active suspension & how we could get there (52:42)
As always, a wonderful story to listen to. I really appreciate that Franco doesn’t claim ‘this design is the best’.
I also appreciate his history lessons in suspension. Cool to know.
Defintely my favorite podcast episodes ever.
Is the audio dropping in and out for anyone else on this? It seems choppy and I have tried on 2 different phones.