*These are all going to be black only when they start shipping*
Our MX eyelet for the DHX2 with the addition of a patent pending spherical igus insert! There's restricted space on the DHX2 because the spring retainer has to be able to slide over the shock eyelet. Instead of just saying "oh you can't fit an off the shelf spherical in there", we designed our own igus spherical insert to ride on a face machined directly into the eyelet to save space and allow a spherical to be used on the DHX2 with stock bushing hardware. Spherical eyelets help protect your shock from side loading and frame misalignment. If those are things you are worried about it can be a valuable addition.
Using igus material for the spherical insert also presents some advantages over off-the-shelf steel spherical bearings. igus and anodized aluminum do won't corrode and develop play like steel spherical bearings do. If you're riding somewhere rainy like Washington, steel sphericals corrode really quickly, especially on bikes like the Sentinel where the area around the bottom of the shock doesn't drain.
Like all our eyelets, this is designed to be a direct replacement of the eyelet that is already on your bike. No other parts have to be changed. It is compatible with all shock mounting hardware that you would use with the stock eyelet with the exception of the Fox roller bearing kit, so no need to get new mounting hardware either.
Removing the stock eyelet and installing our eyelet is quick and easy. All that's required is a set of 9.5mm shaft clamps (these can be made quickly by drilling a 3/8" hole in a piece of aluminum and then cutting it in half across the hole) and a 1/2" open end wrench or crescent wrench. The shock does not have to be serviced, bled, or anything like that.
Please note that, while this eyelet will fit all 2021 to current DHX2 shocks, not every frame has clearance to be set up as an MX with it and some bikes that have clearance to use it should not have a spherical installed. Please check out this video for a quick walk through on how to determine if your bike has enough clearance.
Examples of bikes that have clearance for this:
- Transition Sentinel
- V2 Hightower (if you can clear a DHX2)
Examples of bikes that don't have enough clearance are:
- Specialized Stumpjumper (all years)
- In general if your bike has a shock yoke like the ones above, there's likely not enough space between it and the seat tube.
Examples of bikes that should not have a spherical installed on the shaft end:
- Specialized Enduro
- Specialized Stumpjumper
- Norco Range
- Anything with a shock extender where the shock needs to be rigidly connected to the extender.
Bikes that we don't have a definitive answer for yet and we're sure you're wondering about:
- Transition Spire
- Yeti SB150
- Santa Cruz Megatower
A not about functionality. The interface between the spherical igus insert and the aluminum eyelet is fairly stiff. This ensures that there is no play at all. The spherical insert is there to compensate for shock misalignment and is not intended to be the main pivot point for the shock. The stock hardware that goes into the eyelet is still the primary point of rotation. The spherical only rotates side to side a small amount as the shock cycles through its stroke if there is misalignment between each of its mounting points.
While installing this is not something that's intended to be done for kinematics changes, it will have some impact, albeit small. Generally, travel will increase by around 5mm and you may find yourself needing to increase air pressure/spring rate by 3-5%. Some bikes will become ever so slightly more progressive with this installed while others well be essentially the same as before.
One rare case we would like to highlight is V1 Sentinel. If you install this with the stock link, it will make the initial leverage ratio lower. This decreases the amount of progression to an abysmal 3%. We highly recommend you use our link for this frame if you MX it because the amount of progression will be 20%, which rides way better.
