Visitors at this weekend’s Philly Bike Expo feasted their eyes on Digit’s rethought suspension concept — now adapted to a 29-inch bike for the first time.
No matter what suspension design bike builders opt for, they all face one glaring problem: it’s heavy.
Componentry adds up fast in the weight column on any full-suspension bike’s spec list. On top of that, maintaining and repairing the most complex setups can be painstaking and highly technical.
Digit Bikes seeks to solve both with one concept never before implemented in the bike world: strut suspension.
The fledgling company hit us in February with the Datum, its first offering. The brand gave its all-mountain mullet frame its proprietary Analog suspension methodology to cut weight, maintain a similar pedaling feel to traditional four-bar suspensions, add chassis stiffness, and increase reliability and repairability.
And at this weekend’s Philly Bike Expo, it unveiled a 29-inch prototype frame that seeks the same goals.
The Ring will offer 125mm of rear travel (±5mm pending finalized design) to go with a 140mm front fork.
Digit’s Integer strut uses an elongated air spring tuned to match the frame’s leverage profile. That means the damper holds significantly more oil, which performs two critical functions: it resists overheating (decreases fading) and supports higher flow rates throughout the travel, which improves control).
Speaking of control, Digit’s design also delivers more because there’s just less that can go wrong than in a traditional four-bar setup. Any machine with fewer moving parts is inherently more straightforward. With fewer components to rattle loose over time, jimmy around, wear out, or outright fail, the Analog suspension should give riders a reliable, consistent feel.
The only downside, if there is one — you still can’t get a Digit bike in carbon fiber. For now, at least, the company rolled out the Ring’s prototype in aluminum.
Digit said it expects to launch the Ring in early 2023. MSRP information was not available as of this writing.
