Electric Suspension — French-based Lapierre is making a big push into the U.S. market for 2014, and with that the brand has a unique race bike, the XR 929. The carbon-frame 29er is spec’d for elite competitions (with an elite $7,700 price tag to go with it!) but what caught our eye was the electronic suspension technology called e:i Shock (stands for “electronic intelligence”).
We rode the bike at the Dirt Demo event on rough trails outside of Las Vegas. The e-suspension, co-developed with RockShox, auto-adjusts its shock absorption characteristics in a fragment of a second as you ride. Input gained off measurements from accelerometer gauges in the stem cap and sensors in the fork as it rattles over rough terrain are translated and extrapolated into data used to instantly change the rear shock via a small servo motor for the fastest, smoothest ride. In our short test the Lapierre bike was indeed speedy, and the e-system was solid and seamless as we pedaled up and down on a rocky desert trail.
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