081 – Behind the curtain: DVO Suspension (Ronnie Dillon, DVO Suspension) - Mountain Cog

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dane (00:12):
okay, what's forrest gump's password?
Jenny, no, that's a good guess,like if you're hacking.
I just felt like running.
No, that's a good guess, likeif you're hacking.

Josh (00:24):
I just felt like running.

Dane (00:26):
No, it's a one forest one.
Oh gosh, that's nice.
Wait, I got one more.
Oh my God.

Josh (00:36):
We're going for a twofer tonight.
Twofer, yeah, just because.

Dane (00:38):
I just looked them up and I don't want to waste that time.
Okay, perfect, wait, you're notwriting these no.
I that time.

Josh (00:45):
Okay, perfect, perfect.
Uh, wait, you're not writingthese.
No, I thought you wrote allthese we made up, one did we
make.
Oh well, yeah, I mean justinmade up one, just like carlos in
the bathroom.

Dane (00:49):
Yeah, shout out to carlos.
What is?
What is a funny mountain calleda funny mountain?

Josh (00:56):
yeah, I don't know, ronnie , you know what a funny mountain
is I, I was gonna say whistler,but oh.
That's actually not bad Goingthere yeah that's not bad.

Dane (01:06):
It's called Hilarious.

Josh (01:08):
Hill.

Dane (01:09):
Aries, oh nice, it's all on the delivery there.
That's enough torture.

Josh (01:13):
All right, so it's Wednesday night here on the MCP
man, it's been a long weekalready.
I am just wiped, I'm ready forthe weekend, I'm ready to ride
my bike and drink some whiskey.

Dane (01:25):
I'm really ready because we tried to go to Sunrise, which
is a bike park.

Josh (01:29):
Yeah, in Northern Arizona, in Northern Arizona and it got
rained out.

Dane (01:32):
We hung out camping and roasting marshmallows, but it
was raining the whole time, andso now-.

Josh (01:40):
But you didn't tell the whole story.
Blue bike balls.
We woke up at 3.30 to leave at4 to drive five hours to Sunrise
, to sit in the parking lot foreight hours to turn around and
drive five hours home?

Dane (01:51):
Yes, exactly.

Josh (01:52):
So that felt like two days .
It was awful.

Dane (01:55):
I actually had a good time .

Josh (01:56):
No, we did too.
It was fun.

Dane (01:58):
I just didn't get to ride my bike, yeah that happens, man
it.

Ronnie Dillon (02:06):
Yeah, that happens, man, it's, it's.
It's kind of like going to someraces where it gets, uh, rained
out, but they still race anyway.
But you know, I'm, I'm the guystuck at the trailer yeah,
you're always yeah, but what doyou complain?
Yours is enclosed, you knowlike you're not getting sloppy,
you know oh, but every now andthen you get that sloppy bike
and you're like dude, this isthe one, this is the one guy who
really I've been really in arace like so do they.

Dane (02:27):
So they usually pull the stuff off outside the trailer
and bring it in.
From what I've seen like atbootleg it depends man.

Um, if, uh, if you ever go into the, into the
trailer, you'll notice I hide,uh, I hide, a bike rack in there
and you got the one in the backfor driving, right?

Dane (02:46):
Oh, you mean a workstand, so I have a workstand in the in
the trailer.

Yeah, um, dude, I'll just I stand that thing
back as far back as I can and Iwork so that nobody knows every
now and then somebody will hearme drop the tool.
I drop a lot of tools, but uh,and they'll look in and they're
like, oh, you are working, likeyeah, yeah, I'm working.
What do you want, man?

Dane (03:09):
I, I haven't been able to hang out with you in the trailer
I'm usually I used to see rob,you know, yeah, and then uh,
during the series I'd go hangout with him and we would just
bs, I'd be dropping somethingoff or picking something up and
right and uh, go in and hang outwith him.
But I haven't seen you at thetrailer in a long time.

So yeah, dude, there was a lot of uh, there was
a lot of traveling, a lot of uh, um, basically preparing for,
for the new stuff, man, yeah, soum, we should introduce.

Dane (03:37):
I was gonna say like before we get too deep like who
are we talking to?

Josh (03:41):
so, like in, like, what the hell he taught?
What trailers are you guystalking?
Oh yeah, that well, let's let'sstart with.

Dane (03:44):
Who are we talking to and what the hell he taught?
What trailers are you guystalking about?
Oh, yeah, well, yeah, let'sstart with who are we talking?
To All right, so I'm going tolet Ronnie it's Ronnie from DVO.
I'm going to let you introduceyourself.
Maybe tell us what your role isat DVO.

Yeah, so I'm Ronnie Dillon from DVO
Suspension.
I've worked with those guys.
I've worked Worked at DVO forabout, I want to say, 11, maybe
12 years.

Josh (04:05):
Is that since the beginning?

Dane (04:06):
So yeah, I mean, what do you mean?
Worked after.
You helped start it Like itdidn't exist without you.

You've been there since I always say worked at
because, because you're humble,it's always a work in progress.
I worked with those guys atMarzocchi.
Before that, I worked withthose guys at Marzocchi before
that and at like 2011, whenthings kind of started getting
funky.
At the other place, which youcan see, that bomber sign I

(04:34):
stole that one I see it, that'spretty bitching, that's a good
looking sign.

Dane (04:39):
I'm not going to lie.
I want that.

Hey dude, I've had some outlandish offers for
that piece of media.
I totally believe it gonna lie.
I want that.

Dane (04:43):
So hey dude I've had some outlandish offers for that piece
of me.
I totally believe it yeah, thatwas the one that used to sit at
the um at the espresso bar atinterbike yeah, where the girls
would sign yeah the bomber girlswould sign the posters, yeah,
so make you one of thoselife-saving espressos so, yeah,
we've known each other since Idon't even remember what year,

(05:03):
sea otter, you guys had a flattire trying to think of that
because, honestly, um, anytime Ithink of you, I just think of
no breaks, yep.
Yeah.

Yeah, that was like immediately, like I
remember it had to be.

Dane (05:19):
I don't even remember.
I was like, oh two, yeah,that's probably right.

Josh (05:23):
You guys have known each other that long, oh yeah.

I didn remember it was like oh two, yeah, that's
probably right.
Oh, you guys have known eachother that long.
Oh yeah, I didn't know that.
Yeah, 2001, 2002, yeah, um, wasit had to be a sea otter?
Yeah, and I remember gettinglike just getting my ass handed
to me, man, because I did notexpect that crowd.

Dane (05:40):
Yeah, well, so we, we pulled, you guys were pulled
over changing a tire.

Oh dude.

Josh (05:45):
That's funny On the side side of the road and we stopped
and helped.

Dane (05:48):
You know the whole team.
We have a big van and a bigtrailer full of bikes and we see
the Marzocchi.
I think you had a traveltrailer and a truck, or maybe it
was your, your box.

I think that was just the uh, the fun mover.
Yeah, oh, dude.
No, that was the big ass one.

Dane (06:04):
Yeah, you're right, yeah, so, and we all stopped to help
out, you know so that was likethe first time we kind of
connected.
I think no breaks was still a,sponsored by Marzocchi, but
that's the time when we shookhands and actually saw faces,
you know, and it wasn't justpieces of paper.

Josh (06:19):
It wasn't about Instagram social posts.
Oh God, this is way before that, man.

Dane (06:23):
I mean, I'm only 29, but I was like two when this happened
, yeah, and.

I'm 26 next week.
Yeah, exactly.

Josh (06:30):
You guys, you guys in your age.
I don't know why you're soashamed of it.

Dane (06:33):
Like cause, we're never going to grow up.

Josh (06:35):
Just let it go.
We're men that ride kids toys.

Exactly looking in the background that I'm
seeing rc cars, so I know youguys, yeah, there's rc cars and
guitars and yeah, it's uhhorrible things I'm addicted to
very true, very true.

Dane (06:48):
We were just talking about that.

Josh (06:49):
So yeah, it's awesome.
So what's your?
So I don't think you said youyou've worked at dvo since it
started.
You helped him start it.
What's your role today at dvo?

uh, so I still do a lot of the, the tech service.
Um, there's a lot of rnd that,uh, that I take part of, and
then there's uh like a wholelike educating and training the
staff.
In taiwan, we have a we have areally small staff out there and
, um, and everything is handbuilt.
So, um, we, we try to get overthere as much as we can, yeah,

(07:20):
throughout the year, whichusually ends up being somewhere
around.
Uh, we can throughout the year,which usually ends up being
somewhere around uh, seven oreight long trips.
Sometimes it could be more, Idon't know, I don't.
I stopped counting.
Um, the traveling doesn't,doesn't bother me, um, but uh,
yeah, dude, you go over thereand obviously there's a language
barrier.
I can understand, uh like alittle bit of Mandarin now, but

(07:42):
I'm dude, I'm super rookie.
They talk so fast.
You're not actuallyunderstanding it.
You're just kind of figuringout little, just real small
snippets and blips.
Man, and kudos to the guys inthe bike industry that I run
into that can actuallycommunicate perfectly, because
I'm like I'm envious of that guy.
I'd love to be able to do that.

(08:03):
And then, when you really lookat how the language works, it's,
it's complicated.
And then there's the tonesinside of the product is a whole
other language, that they mightnot even know the names of
those parts.
If, if you knew the part, you'dlike the name of the part, it
probably wouldn't know what thepart is.

Josh (08:25):
So I always have a translator.
Wow, it's one of the engineersthat probably helps so so none
of the crew over there speakslike english with you guys, or
is it kind of like a mix ofmandarin and english together.

A lot of them speak english now, so it's, it's
pretty cool, but um, as of uh,I want to say 20 like 2016, we
hired a kick-ass um employeenamed melody and dude she, she
handles business.

(08:56):
She can speak three differentlanguages.
Um, dude, she's cool.
She's like every.
Everything that needs to getdone, she's doing.
She's like an assassin dude,isn't technology great?

Dane (09:09):
ronnie's like walking around his house, we're like
recording this podcast and itsounds fine I'm stoked because I
got to see your garage and wegot to see your, your car, which
and I got to see the bombersign yes, the bomber sign.

Josh (09:20):
And the video games video games, yeah so it's got a
serious man cave.

Dane (09:24):
So dude, I spend most of my time out there so, uh, so, um
, while while you wereexplaining, uh, taiwan and the
barriers of language, which joshis a, was a translator in the
military, not mandarin, but yeah, how many?

Josh (09:38):
just arabic and albanian yeah.

Dane (09:39):
so he called me something the other day in another
language and it's frustratingbecause I have no idea what it
was.
It could have been awesome.
I have no idea so donkey kick,but yeah, so, like so, couple of
questions I don't want to diveright into like the deep talk
you know at some point.

Josh (09:56):
I want to talk about the prime stuff today, since they
just announced that last week, Ithink.

Dane (10:01):
So there's so much I want to talk about, okay, so let's
make sure that we talk about thenew products as well, okay, so,
first of all, just a little bit.
Ronnie's like the magicianquite literally, he does magic
tricks.

so I'm sitting in front of a pile of a deck of
cards right now can you do atrick for us, just to put you on
the spot?
No, that would be hilarioususually, yeah, I'm a rough I
hear to grab the cards okaysecond, second, like whenever
you see their tech videos it'susually him doing them, okay, so
he's usually the one figuringout when shit goes wrong.

Dane (10:37):
You know, um, he's teaching us.
So, like when I went to santaclarita and got trained, he's
there, you know, teaching us.
And then you're teachingeverybody in taiwan, right?
Uh, like you're doing r and d.
Do you even ride your bikeseriously, do you?

ride dude?
Hardly, man, it's.
I'm embarrassed to say that andI'm trying to get better about
it.
Um, but uh, for a while, every,every, every city or you state
or country we would go to.
Yeah, we were spending a lot oftime on the bikes.

Dane (11:08):
Yeah.

Yeah.
And then it just turns intodude.
I just want to go back to theroom and and chill.
Yep, yeah, You're like dude.
I'm like I'm miserable becauseI want to go ride, but I'm so
cooked right now.

Josh (11:20):
You're trying to maximize the time while you're there,
right?
Because it's such a long way toget there.
You want to get every minuteyou can in.

Do you bring a bike?

Josh (11:26):
with you or do you have bikes over there?
You guys can ride.

Yeah, we have bikes there.
We used to travel with ourbikes all the time.
It's actually, I mean, it'skind of a pain in the ass, but
it's worth it, dude, becausethere's nothing worse than a
rental bike.

Dane (11:40):
Yeah.

Is there on a rental bike yeah, is there sweet
trails over there near thefactory.
You know what it's gettingbetter?
Yeah, because we actually, weactually live there.
We have, we have our own placethere.
Man bryson bryson's prettygenerous with how he, uh, he
keeps us comfortable while we'reout there.
So we, we don't have to stay ata hotel.
We have, um, we have anapartment and you can basically
sink in while you're there.
Yeah, that's you just, you canchill, dude.

(12:07):
You can cook food at home,which we never do, but, um, a
lot of ramen, a lot of a lot oflike ramen at home.
If we cook, but, um, and youcan leave stuff there, imagine,
so you don't have to.
we can leave tools, whatever weneed to to live, and we, we
alternate the staff.

(12:28):
So, um, you know it's, it'sBryson, bryson jr, yeah, jp, um,
myself, I mean, we've, we'veworked together for dude, it's
like 25 years.
It's dude, it's like 25 years.
Scary isn't it?
It's a long time.
I know it's.
It's none of us, none of ushave killed each other.

Josh (12:48):
Yeah, that's cool that you guys are still together and
you're still getting along andyou guys are putting out some
crazy man and um, dude.

I, honestly, when I when I I started working for
marzocchi in 98 and I was beforethat, I was working at a window
tent shop and my buddy Rick wasworking with me at the shop, at
the window tent shop, and he'slike dude, I can't do this
anymore.

Dane (13:10):
It's so stressful, like we break door panels inside like a
oh, just trying to get into thewindows and get.

Yeah, you had to remove the door panels because
you didn't want to wet that.
You know dude elephant skin.
I don't know, dude like thecrazy ass leather that yeah, you
didn't want to wet it, so youpulled it off.
And then you're pulling it offand you're breaking clips and
yeah, dude those, those arethey're technical.

Dane (13:35):
Yeah, you're like you got little pry bars and certain some
of them, you got to push alittle button to get them to
release and like just crazinessyeah, they're little little, det
little detents little, you know, like German mechanisms all
over the lift here there likecar, car car stereos, and it was
the same thing to get the doorpanels off for putting in
speakers.

Josh (13:55):
Is it like a prerequisite for anyone in the bike industry
to have worked on cars leadingit?

Dane (13:59):
I think it's a mechanically inclined thing.
So you end up being like youknow you nuts and bolts, you
know what tools are.
You kind of get an idea oftorques, you know all that stuff
.
So yeah, if you were likeweaving baskets, you probably
didn't get into bikes.

So right now just just yeah, you're, you know
you're, you're gonna, you'regonna be the one in the uh in
the office getting picked on.
If you were the basket, we were.

Josh (14:18):
Yeah, exactly that would be me.
I built guitars.
Does that count?

Dane (14:21):
yeah, I mean, if you use tools, mean I've seen your
garage Like you definitely usetools, yeah.

Josh (14:27):
Maybe not correctly though .
And I don't have the correcttools.

Dane (14:30):
I'll give you a personal experience.
My daughter doesn't touch tools.
Okay, doesn't go near thegarage.

Josh (14:35):
Are you comparing me to your 12 year old daughter?
Not at all Not at all.

Dane (14:38):
But but my son, you know, as as soon as he could touch a
tool, he went after tools.
He's in the garage, he'sgetting in my drawers.
I'm yelling at him.
You know, get out of my space,you know, and you stop that.
You little bastard.
You know stuff like that.

Josh (14:52):
Um, but we're just kidding , turner, you're not a bastard
but um, but you know what I mean.
Like the two different peoplelike, like he is going to be
somebody who wants to turn stuffand I didn't do that.
I didn't go in, push him intothe garage, he did it himself.
Yeah, naturally, is your sonronnie, is your son, uh,
mechanic?
I?

would love to say that he has never ended up with
half of my tool collection inhis bedroom.
But, uh, yeah, dude, he, he isevery bit of like the best and
worst part of me, and just theway that his, his brain, thinks
is is actually pretty cool man,it's frustrating.

(15:30):
I love it, but it's it's.
It's frustrating because I'llcome home from from work and,
like I'll be, I will get off theplane.
It's a it's a 14 hour flighthome from Taiwan and I drive
home from LAX and it'll be like10 o'clock at night and he's
like Dad.
Guess what I did?

Josh (15:52):
You're like oh shit, here it comes.

I don't even want to know, man, how many parts
were left over.

Dane (15:56):
That's what I want to know , yeah.

He's bringing his latest project in, which is
right now it's it's carburetors,because he's he's the one
restoring the little honda Ishowed you out in the really.
That's cool at 12 years old.
Yeah, he's been doing that onesince he was playing with that
one since he was nine, wow wow,that's pretty cool yeah it, yes,
it terrifies me, man, becausethat's the one thing, like it's
the one thing in the garage thatum can spit gas all over the

(16:24):
floor and I've seen it.
I've seen him do it.
I've I've been in the garageand I just hear screaming.
What is up?
I go over there.
He didn't know how to turn thepetcock off on the fuel tank
yeah yeah, fuel line off and the, and it's just yeah, it was on
go.
and he, he's screaming, he he'scovered in gas.

(16:44):
And I'm like, dude, this is whyyou're trying not to like laugh
or yell at him, but you want todo both right?
I'm like why I don't want youplaying with anything that
actually has fuel in it, becauseyou're flammable right now.

Josh (16:59):
Like if something happened .

you're toast Like literally you are toast.

Dane (17:07):
He's still advanced man because the the other day we
were roasting marshmallows andand my son caught his
marshmallow on fire and decidedto wave it to get the the flame
off towards his face and itflung off and hit him in the eye
.
The flaming marshmallow landedon his eye.
He's screaming, my wife'sscreaming, everybody's screaming
.
Like I'm kind of laughing butI'm very concerned, like I don't

(17:29):
want.
I don't want anyone to think Ididn't care.
I did, I knew he'd be okay andbut there was a little bit of me
that was like kind of like youknow, jesus man, like poking fun
at them.
But um, you know, the nicething is is you know he's fine,
there's nothing wrong.

Josh (17:43):
But it was.
I'm gonna call him marshmallow.

Dane (17:44):
I'm gonna call him marshmallow for the rest of
ronnie's ronnie's kid at nine islike rebuilding carburetors and
mine at nine is getting burntlike s'mores.

Josh (17:53):
It just cracks me up so you got a ton of questions for
ronnie okay, yeah.

Dane (17:58):
So, um, I got all.
I'm gonna be like totallysquirreled um.
There's a bunch that were're.
I'm trying to find them on ourwebsite.

Josh (18:06):
Okay, can we just start with like for our listeners, can
you just give us like a quickoverview of like your offerings,
like DVO offerings?
Well yeah, what is it that youguys offer?
Yeah, oh, man.

All the goods.
So we really like to dealdirectly with our customers, and
by customers I mean either youknow the end user, which
eventually anybody, I meananybody who works in the in the
bike industry.
That's kind of one of thethings you you hide from is is
not that you hide, but you, youget to, you're on the backside
right.

Josh (18:37):
Yep.

You don't always get to deal with people, but
I've I've always enjoyed that.
I think even in the beginning,when I first started working at
Marzocchi, the guys would getkind of frustrated because a
customer would walk in and youhave insurance policies in place
that are like, hey, nocustomers in the workshop.
But I'm like dude, you got tosee how bad the inside of your

(18:58):
fork was.
It smelled like chow mein, itwas miserable.
You have to see what it lookslike in here, because I need you
to know that this has to beserviced all the time.
Yeah right, I would alwaysbring customers back.
Um, so, like, customerrelations are important for us.
Um, like end user at the youknow distribute distributors.

(19:21):
Um, the bike shops like bikeshops are my favorite place to
visit, especially nowadays,where it's it's mostly service
centers yeah, right I have awhole other appreciation for the
way the bike shops have shiftedas far as being able to focus
more on the the service side,and service for me I mean
suspension and the guys that arespecializing in like break,

(19:44):
rebuilds and stuff like that.
It's an art now.
So dealing with those guys isactually becoming more of a
critical thing in our office,because if you pay attention to
how that part of the industry isshifting, it's actually it's
separating.
So those service centersthere's almost as many service
centers in an area now, um, asthere are bike shops.

Josh (20:08):
Is that because of the rise of, uh like, direct to
consumer?
Is that why you do?
You think that's why it'sshifted that way?
Or is it just the complexity ofthe products that become so
intense that we we just as asconsumers which is what I am we
need more help from the shops tokeep our stuff running?

Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both.
I mean the direct-to-consumerthing.
I actually like it kind ofhelps the shops and service
centers that have those heavyconsumable items oil seals, the
rebuild kits those consumableitems are getting used by the
shop.
Some of them are getting usedby the tinkerers at home, are
getting used by by the, thetinkerers at home that have a

(20:47):
service bench on their mother'skitchen counter.
Um, dude, I, I see everything Ido.
I do a lot of FaceTime meetingswith just random people
struggling to get stuff built.

Josh (20:57):
So I've seen, I've seen it full on, like someone working
in a bathtub, just out ofcuriosity.

Have you ever seen?

Josh (21:04):
someone working in a bathtub.

Just out of curiosity.
Yeah, man, okay, we have acenter in New Zealand and Jesse
runs that place.
Is that Patel?
Yeah, awesome, he's a cool guy.
He's awesome dude.
That guy, he's a lot of fun andyeah, he'll send me photos of
his setups and it's like abathtub or like I don't know how

(21:25):
.
To look back at my phone, itwas like a dry toilet or
something man Oil properly.
He's not flushing it as far aseverybody is is worried about,
but yeah man.
So I mean back to DVO and thestuff that we do we.
We really enjoy the customtuning side of everything.
It's not.
It's not as easy as just tuningsomething for somebody now.

Josh (21:51):
Right.

Or just blindly tuning.
There's a lot that goes into it.
There's a lot of time that goesinto it, especially and I'd
love to say that we nail it 100%of the times but we don't, man.
There's always that onecustomer who ends up unhappy.
I don't know if it's becausethey're just overly critical of

(22:14):
like they're analyzing it somuch because you pay to get
something done and you're likedude, I'm only fast on like six
sections of this trail, not noteight yeah why aren't you making
my kom like dude?
I want all eight of those koyou're like dude, it's like 90
technique.

Josh (22:31):
So so I gotta, I gotta tell you.

Dane (22:34):
so when I started guru, I talked to ronnie yeah, I talked
to bobby, uh, who now work atthe same place.
At the time they were separatewhere.
Where was Bobby before?
Uh, manitou, okay, and I'mtrying to think somebody else at
RockShox?
Uh, I don't think it was Idon't think it was.
Troy, but it was somebody atRockShox and.

Josh (22:57):
I asked you guys for advice opening this service
center.
Cause guru started suspension.

Dane (22:59):
Yeah, guru, suspension started in the 13.
Started in the 13th.
It's one of the last years itwas in Vegas and I talked to you
guys and and one of the lastyears that inner bike was in
Vegas.
Yeah, and uh, the advice thatyou all gave me separately is
don't tune.
Like, if you can do it, don'ttune.
And what they what?
What all of them collectivelysaid was no matter how good a

(23:22):
job you do, somebody it's goingto be pissed off, is not gonna.
They're there it's.
It's hard for people toarticulate what they want and
then for you to translate thatdo it and um.
And so I took that, you know,to heart and I don't tune very
much.
I tune for friends and I tunefor people.
I know, you know I'll do alittle bit, yeah, um, but I

(23:43):
always warn people and and Idon't know about you guys, but
with me I always tell peopleyou're not paying, uh, me to for
the result, you're paying forthe labor to do it, because if
you need it done again, you'regonna have to pay again.
And and I warn them because, youknow, sometimes people get they
read an article, they watchyoutube, whatever, yeah, and
they get it in their heads thatthey have to have a custom tune,

(24:05):
when a lot of this stuff isvery adjustable, right, and then
they ask for it and then it,like ronnie said, sometimes
they're not happy and then theywant it redone and I'm like
that's ours, you know, and um, Ialways I actually use ronnie as
a example I go, ronnie is paid,you know, by dvo, the same
amount if he does four tunes orthree tunes or 10 tunes, it

(24:28):
doesn't matter if he's in therace trailer and he's doing
tunes for pro riders and they'recoming down saying what they
want.
He gets the same amount ofmoney every single time.
But for me, it costs me moneyevery single one and so it's a
little different so but okay, sowe missed this.

Josh (24:43):
I just want to make sure, because we have a a spectrum
audience that has like you know,from beginners all the way to
advanced riders.
But DVO is a company thatoffers, like, some of the best
suspension products for mountainbikes, both forks and shocks
for everything from like crosscountry all the way up to

(25:04):
downhill.
So do I have that right?

close.
We don't.
We don't really I don't want tosay we don't do cross-country,
because we do have.
Well, we had at one point a 32millimeter fork, the sapphire,
yep, um, and then, uh, westepped up to a 34 millimeter
just to kind of keep up witheverything.
But um.

Josh (25:25):
So is it kind of trail like started trail, like light
trail, and go up light lighttrail.

Dane (25:30):
They're not trying to focus on the lightweight.
What's the lowest travel?

Josh (25:34):
that you got.

Dane (25:38):
Right now One one, well, no one.
I mean yeah, yeah.

I forgot about everything last year.
Man, I'm focused on the future.
Now We'll get to the new stuff,because I want to ask you about
that.

Dane (25:47):
I think what Josh is trying to do is who is DVO?
Where do you come from Stufflike that?
Just a quick synopsis, if I cando it Marzocchi guys worked at
Marzocchi, a lot of them.
Marzocchi was a historic one ofthe bad ass, the bomber was
infamous back in the 90s late90s or early 2000s yeah, bomber

(26:10):
meant that, it, it it lasted itwas durable, they were supple,
they were like plush like, butthey never focused on weight,
they were never the lightweightoption.
Okay, and then, uh, and thensomething changed.
I think ownership changed andthe mentality of ownership.
I could be wrong on this, butI'm always….
You're pretty accurate.

(26:30):
They focused more on dollars.
They changed manufacturing.
There became problems where theproduct wasn't consistent,
because it used to be Italy, itwas pretty basic but it worked.
And then, when they started tochange production, it started to
get looser tolerances, lessquality, lower quality standards
and and people were gettingupset.

(26:51):
These guys, you know, who arethe U S distributor for this
company, don't have completecontrol over what's happening.
They really just have to dealwith what's given to them.
They get frustrated.
They see things that could bechanging, they see innovations
that could be made and theownership of Marzocchi wasn't
really into it and thatfrustration led to pretty much a

(27:12):
mass exodus of employees.

Josh (27:15):
So multiple of the suspension subject matter
experts, yourself included, leftMarzocchi, us, under this new
ownership.
I think it was an Asianownership at that point.

Dane (27:24):
Is it?

Josh (27:24):
that Tenneco.

Tenneco.
As far as I know, they were anAmerican company based out of
Chicago, but they owned a lot ofsmall or really large
automotive brands like Walker,exhaust systems, thrust Is it
Thrush or Thrust?
Exhaust Okay, yeah, I, or is itthrush or thrust?

Dane (27:45):
exhaust.
Okay yeah, I've seen that ontrucks Monroe.
Oh yeah, wow Okay.

Josh (27:50):
And they were just focused on dollars and cents and bottom
line.

Dane (27:53):
I don't think they really knew the business and they
really kind of let go of some ofthe the things that made bomber
wasn't just the name of one ofthe shocks, it was or forks.
It was kind of an attitude likethese things would take a
beating, they would last, theywould smooth, they would.
You know, that was that, thatmentality that this is if you
wanted a product to last, yougot it was bomber, you know, and

(28:15):
that was kind of what marzocchiwas, and they took it out of
that and made it way less, wayless reliable.
Thank you, yeah, that was it.
That was just so sorry, youguys left, you started dvo.

Josh (28:27):
And just just to complete the story for our listeners,
like if you were to buy amarzocchi today, you're actually
buying a fox product, becausefox yeah, yeah eventually
essentially bought the name.

Dane (28:36):
It's kind of like the low-end version of fox, yeah
it's, it's honestly, I thinkit's a way for them to have
lower end product and not affecttheir brand.

Okay, you know so and, honestly, the Marzocchi is
not bad.

Dane (28:47):
I I'll tell you some of the Marzocchi stuff's pretty
good I've done.
The grip damper came inMarzocchi first.
So, if I remember correctly, soyeah, okay, so, um, okay.
So that catches us up to sowhat's so?

Josh (29:00):
just like, what's different about DVO products
versus the other products thatare on the market today?
Why am I stoked that I'm goingto try an Onyx?
What's going to be awesomeabout that Onyx compared to like
?

Dane (29:12):
And keep in mind, this is the OTT, onyx 36.

Oh, the OTT Good stuff, man.
So I mean, just with that rightthere, the OTT, that was a
feature that was engineered by,or thought of and engineered by,
tom Rogers.
So my introduction to the OTTwas my very first day at DVO, so

(29:39):
I started there about 20.
2012 and, um, I had still I, Iwas still working at morizoki,
but I I was, I was on my out.
So, uh, they took me upstairsand you know, they all had these

(30:01):
crazy smiles on their face andtom was like dude, check this
out, like what's up?
He's like I have an adjustablelike negative spring.
I'm like, okay, whatever he'slike no, no, dude it's
externally adjustable, and I waslike shut the front door yeah
this is actually really coolbecause if you're a really light

(30:22):
rider like you don't run anyott and you still have this
awesome amount of sensitivityoff the top.
Because the OTT spring isbasically like it's an eight
inch long spring that when thefork is under pressure it's it's
compressed.
So it's compressed down toabout, let's say, 90 millimeters

(30:42):
and when the fork is at fullextension, that spring is
compressed.
But when the fork iscompressing, the spring is
extending, so it's kind ofassisting, or not, kind of it is
it's assisting that fork intothe stroke.
So there's that, that initialtravel and sensitivity that you
get out of that system.
That is is beautiful and thatwas that was mind blowing to me.

(31:03):
And then to see that come tolife and the Emerald the Emerald
was our first fork.
I I think I still have thephoto of me holding I was
hugging that thing.
It was like we all looked ateach other.
It's cool, it's kind of like anemotional thing.
You're, you're stoked on andyou're like dude, holy shit, we.
We just made a downhill fork.
You know an inverted fork thatwe wanted to do somewhere else,

(31:27):
but it actually benefited uswhen the way that it happened
then.
So it was the ott.
That was the first innovationtop loader, uh yeah.
And then we had um.
It was actually a bottom loaderon the same fork that the, the
emerald um and that was what'sthe bottom loader, it's the uh,

(31:47):
it was, it's.
It's the ability to quicklyremove a like a compression
feature from the fork and andI'm not going to say retune it
on the fly, but the ability toretune that thing quickly or
just drop another one in.
I mean, you would have to havethe bike upside down so you're
not dumping you know 315 cc's ofoil on the on the ground.

(32:07):
But right, yeah, you could popthat loader out and just change
everything about the way thatthat fork handled, yeah, you
could.

Dane (32:15):
So most forks you got to pull the whole guts out like
pretty much take the whole thingapart to to get to some of the
compression settings and reboundsettings and what have you and
this top loader.
You could flip the bike over.
I had a emerald on one of myfirst one of my, one of my
downhill bikes.
You could flip the bike over.
I had a Emerald on one of myfirst one of my, one of my
downhill bikes and you couldflip it over, you could pull it
out and, like Ronnie said, ifyou had different valving set up

(32:35):
, you could just pop another onein right, just screw it down,
flip the bike over and go hitthe runs again.
And it was that quick, you know, and there was.
I mean, it was easy, like as amechanic, and then if you're at
a shop level and somebody wantedto tune it, you could again
pull it out, tune it, put itback in and you weren't
disassembling the entire fork,which was awesome, like a time

(32:55):
saver, it was just really cool,really cool.

Josh (32:58):
So Right on.

Dane (32:59):
And it was innovative, you know, and that, and the OTT set
them apart.
You know the carbon crown, youknow.

Yeah, the carbon CTA.
Yeah you know, yeah, the thecarbon cta, yeah, um, that that
was uh, that was probably one ofthe hardest things to uh to
make and to to maintain during,um, that manufacturing process
it was.
It was one of the hardestthings, I guess.
I mean you would actually haveto ask bryson about it.
I didn't get to see that inperson, I just got to hear about

(33:28):
the struggles of, of keepingthat consistent, yeah, and so,
unlike a frame, it's not likejust the uh, every part is
handmade on on that cta, justlike the frames.
Yeah, the mold is reallydifficult to keep.
Wow, that's what.
That fork does not existanymore no, no, that fork.

Dane (33:50):
So what was that?
2500 when it came out yeah, itwas 2500 bucks, yeah, and it had
.
It was inverted, which means thestanchions were on the bottom
at the axle and then in order tomake that interface, which is
notoriously kind of wandering,like your wheel will wander and
flex quite a bit, uh, so theymade this carbon fiber arch that

(34:10):
would bolt to the lower, uhdropouts and and was so stiff
that it would control that flexand it would kind of arch up
over the tire.
So you still got the ability tohave a light.
Um, so inverted forks allow thewheel to have all a lot less
weight and so they just floatover stuff better, right and so,
like, unlike a boxer or a fox40 where the mass of the parts

(34:34):
and the oil and and the lowersthemselves are at the bottom,
every time that wheel has to hita bump it has to lift all that
weight.

Josh (34:40):
So like a lot of motorcycles are set up that way,
the old track maverick setupwas that way and the new push,
yeah, the dorados there's pushesdoing it, and it's always a how
do you make it stiff enough towhere the wheel's not wandering
right?

Dane (34:55):
and so their their idea, and I remember a couple people
would run theirs without thatarch you know they would take it
off, man, I uh.

So cta stands for a carbon torsion arch.
Yeah, yeah and um I I startedto get these images from people
of them cutting them, cutting itoff, and I'm like dude it's
there for a reason.
I'm like you, you, you can, butit it really benefits you man,

(35:26):
yeah, they.
Nah, it's way better withoutthat.
You're like, ah, dude, okay,I'm not going to argue with you,
but I'd like to see that thingput back together.
And then, yeah, I mean thatthing, it was, it was great.
I keep one stuffed under mydesk that belonged to a writer
of mine, and then I have a.
I have one of the very few29-inch emeralds, so there were

(35:53):
two or three of those made andtwo of them are completely
vanished.
I wish I could say, hey, I knowthis guy has it, but they do
not exist anymore.

Dane (36:03):
Yeah, I'm starting a vintage wall at the shop and I
wish I had my emerald back.
I sold it a long time ago and Iknow the guy who has it, so I
could maybe maybe get it back atsome point, but he loves that
thing.

So he doesn't want to give it up.

Dane (36:17):
So okay, so we went through uh, dvo, kind of the two
biggest things that they did.
For the most part, the ott'sset them apart, right um their
damping systems.

There's the bladder too.
Yeah, that's later the newerforks which the bladder is.
Uh, it's, it's like a reversebladder.
Yeah, so there's some prettyheavy patents on um the
oil-filled bladders like some ofour competitors and where they
got that technology, which wasactually some of the early

(36:48):
marzocchi moto stuff.
Oh really, oh, that'sinteresting.

Josh (36:51):
I didn't know that.
So like a fit four has got abladder right.

Dane (36:53):
Yep, the original fit fours had bladders.
Then there's a some of thechargers had bladders, yep, and
a lot, almost everything, isstarting to move away from the
bladders.
Yep, uh is reverse.
So all of those have oil filledcartridges with oil in the
bladder and then, as the plungeris, is uh pushed into the

(37:15):
cartridge, it displaces oil andthen the bladder can expand and
that's how that works and itallows it to be running with no
air, so you don't create thiscavitation and air bubbles which
create inconsistency andprobably heat buildup and all
kinds of bad stuff build up, andit it actually.

It ends up being a lot more sensitive when you're
not trying to, like, force abladder or force that material
out.
That rubber has to expand undercompression.
Yeah, to where?
Under compression, our bladderis actually compressed, so it
just sinks into itself and then,as the fork extends, the
bladder is is filling back upyeah, yeah, so so like as a

(37:53):
suspension, neophyte ronnie anddane here like what I keep
hearing about.

Josh (37:56):
Dvo is like small bump compliance, small bump
compliance well.

Dane (38:01):
So that's a.
That's because you're readinginto a lot of that.
I've already told you in thispodcast.
We haven't even talked aboutthe, the small bump, compliance
at the ott.
We we just said that really,what DVO is is very different,
very different from everybodyelse.
Like when I pull apart a Fox ora RockShox, they look the same
inside.
Like I swear to God, they'reswapping engineers and they're

(38:22):
using the same stuff.
I'm not kidding Like I'm notkidding, like I see it.
I see the stuff how it works init.
You know DVOs are so differenton the inside and, yes, small
bump compliance is the biggest,I guess, side effect to the OTT.
And that's what I hear fromlike riders.

Josh (38:39):
Yes, cause Dane's got like this whole.
Like if you I don't know if youknow this, ronnie, but if you
ride in Tucson you see a greenfork.
Yeah.
You you see a green fork, yeah,you drive, you go up.
You're like Dane has beenaround here and they're like yes
, we know, dane, like he is,like your biggest advocate, so
like, so much.
Like I think there's a higherpercentage of DBO suspension on
bikes in Tucson than anywhereelse I've seen in the country.

Dane (38:59):
Honestly Well, because of bootleg.

Josh (39:04):
I see a lot in california, so I'm sure there's a lot in
you guys area but, here intucson, because of your
influence, there's a hugepercentage of people that are
riding it and they all tell methe same thing like you'll never
have better small bumpcompliance yeah, that's the dvo,
that's the kind of theseparator.

Dane (39:18):
You know that you can talk about cartridges and dampers
and compression and rebound.
You can talk about weight, youcan talk about stiffness of
chassis, but honestly, that'sthe differentiators, is the
suppleness are we reading thatright, ronnie?

Josh (39:30):
is that you guys agree with this?
Yeah?

exactly.
And it's funny that you guyssaid different.
Because when I I get confrontedand I do mean confronted by
customers and they're like whyshould I buy this?
What makes this?
What makes dbo so much better?
And I'm like, what if I toldyou it was just different?
And then they look at you andthey're like, oh, well, tell me
more, I'm like it is.
It's actually just, it's it'sdifferent.

(39:53):
Suspension, and yeah, I, I mean, when it really comes down to
it, I'm going to tell you thatit is better, but I usually, you
know, break the ice with it.
It's, it's different.
So what are you actuallylooking for, like?
What kind of adjustment?
Adjustability, what?
What are you lacking?
Right now?
I notice you're a 225 to 35pound man who rides mountain

(40:17):
bikes and I think I know whereyou're suffering, and it's
probably at that air pressureyou have to run in your fork and
the lack of ability to adjustinto that small bump yep, and
what about 250 to 260?
right like that's me I mean, fora while I was getting some some
pretty heavy riders that were,I mean they would tell me what

(40:39):
their setups were and I like Iwas kind of chuckling to myself
and I'm like dude, but this guyloves it.
So you take notes and you, youjust start paying attention to
how everything is actuallycoming back, all your feedback,
and you find ways to startmanipulating the shim stack, oil
volumes, the material of thatbladder.

(41:00):
We do a lot of things quietly.
Something we're actually tryingto get better at in the company
is we've made some really,really cool changes to a lot of
our, our dampers, um and and andour chassis period, and we did
it quietly and it kind of bit usin the ass maybe not the best
marketing strategy.

(41:23):
Yeah, we have a guy working withus right now and, um, I mean,
he's worked with us for a while.
Yeah, um, it's uh, his name iskevin dana and he's been in the
bike industry for a long time.
I like him already, dude.
He's he's cool as hell.
And he was like why do you?
Like I was telling him all thechanges?
And he's like, why haven't weadvertised this?

(41:43):
Yeah, I'm like I don't know,because in my mind, this is just
us.

Josh (41:47):
It's intellectual property too right, you don't want to
tell the world what you're doing.

Kind of yes and no.
You want to tell them whatyou're doing.
You don't want them to knowthat you're possibly trying to
fix a mistake or just makesomething better.

Dane (42:00):
Yeah.

In that process of making it better, it starts
to kind of slip your mind, andthe way that I always look at it
and think is oh, we're justgoing to do this, they're not
going to see it, but they'regoing to feel it.
We're going to change thedesign of this piston slightly,
and they're going to feel it,but they're not going to be able
to see it.
So Kevin's trying to push us ina different direction where we
actually start utilizing all ofthe changes that we make for

(42:25):
marketing and I mean it's cool.
It makes you look at things alittle bit differently.
He has an outside view of ofwhat that should look like to
where me and maybe one or two orthree or four of the other guys
that work at dvo just kind ofmaking things, because I'm not
an engineer, dude, I'm a butcherlike I.

(42:47):
I just get done.

Josh (42:49):
I'm calling bullshit on that I totally relate to him.
You say the same thing.
You guys are both engineers,you get into it.

Dane (42:56):
You understand how it works, which makes you think
that we have engineering, butit's really we just understand
how the stuff works and then youmanipulate it.
It's like a garage engineer.

Josh (43:08):
What the hell do you think an engineer does?

Dane (43:10):
I totally get that.
I work with 30 000 engineers.
The problem is ronnie, you guysare.
You guys are engineers youmight be in the wrong industry
if you want to make money, yeah,yeah but you guys are
definitely engineers.

Josh (43:20):
Sorry, I just gotta throw that out there and that's true,
though.

Dane (43:22):
You know like we, you know I, I know ronnie, so I learned
a lot from ronnie, like theyears from Marzocchi, from DVO.
He kind of sets the standard,not to put you on a pedestal or
anything, but some of theattitudes that he has which are

(43:43):
I'm working on a Marzocchi andI'm doing something and I'm like
, yeah, what do I do with this?
And he's like, ah, you don'tneed that, just throw it out.
I'm thinking something.

And I'm like, yeah, what do I do with this?
And he's like, ah, you don'tneed that, just throw it out.
It's like, oh my God, I'mthinking better than you.

Dane (43:56):
And it's that kind of attitude that it's like he's
like look, that doesn't reallydo anything, you know, get rid
of it, you don't need it, youknow?
And what are those little wavywashers in the dampers?
Little wavy washers in thedamper?
Oh man, the kink shims.
Yeah, the kink shims, and theybreak.
And he's like just get rid ofthat, you don't need it.
And it's, it's because it wasengineered actually to be in

(44:16):
there for a reason, butfunctionality, it's not really
doing anything and it's causingmore problems than it's that's
the best kind of engineer, theones that takes like practical
application and like applies itin reality to the design and
says hey, that kink shit youguys did.

Josh (44:30):
That was hard to manufacture and more expensive
and added more weight yep, wedon't even need it.

Dane (44:34):
Yep yeah take it out yeah, and so, uh, the little.
I love that the kits are comingwith the little one millimeter.

Uh, o-ring oh yeah, all of the kits are a lot
more detailed now, yep yeah, andso what kind of kits you guys
get?

Josh (44:48):
you guys are suspension experts, yeah, so remember, our
listeners are not that?

Dane (44:51):
Yeah, we're geeking out.
What kits are you talking about?
These are just the service kitsservice kits for.
DVO suspension products.
So I'm doing another brand's ashock.
Right now.
It's on the bench and I go tothe service manual and there's
zero pictures and it's just text.
It looks like like somebody inhigh school just wrote a paper
on on how to take it apart andput it back together.

(45:13):
And I'm okay with that.
Right, you know, I, I canidentify the parts, I can
identify what's going on, I canfuddle through it, but, man, you
know, the average consumer cannever do that.
And so pictures help.
The pictures help like big timeand real pictures not not like
Ikea pictures.
Ikea pictures suck, but uh, butlike you know, uh, tutorials,

(45:38):
even at our level, like we'retraining somebody, and when they
go through some of the videosthey still have questions.
I have to call.
I called him on one one day.
I was, I think it was the Jadeheight, and it was just weird.
I called him on one one day.
I was, I think it was the Jadeheight and it was just weird
setting the depth on a Jade, andI'm like this is just weird,
you know, and he's like, yeah,don't worry about it.
So you know, and Jade, jade's acoil over it's, it's the yeah,

(46:01):
it's the grandfather to yourJade X and it's the downhill
version.
High speed, low speed,compression adjustment low speed
compression Really nice.
The one version high speed lowspeed compression adjustment
high speed, low speedcompression really nice.
The one thing that I did.
Yeah, I like the bladdercapture on that I.

I think that's smart you know, that that thing
is cool that it is I mean yourealize that thing is 10 years
old, I know, and it's still.

Dane (46:22):
I'll put it on a bike, by the way.
Okay.
So we've talked about dvo.
We talked about how they'redifferent um, their philosophies
, youies.
You know, I I have a couple ofquestions.
Um, cause, guys on the, I putthis out on our Facebook page to
to ask you know.
So, one of the um, one of thethings, uh, okay, so, justin,

(46:43):
you surveyed?
Our listeners and said what doyou?

Josh (46:44):
want to know about DVO.

Dane (46:45):
So Justin brought this up and I would say it's an issue
that we have and this fallssquarely on ronnie's shoulder.
It's all his fault.
So, uh, the setting I.
I would say the number oneproblem that I see with dvo is
people have a hard time settingthem up.

(47:06):
Just complex it's it's barelycomplicated one extra dial with
ott.
It's not even that, it's, it'san order thing.
What order you do it in?
It's uh.
There's one part of the ottthat bugs the shit out of me
what I wish they'd fix, uh whichis you have to let the air out
in most cases to adjust it,which is just drives me insane.

(47:26):
My old one, my, my, my bestdiamond ever I just sold uh, it
was on my enduro race bike and Icould adjust that at full
pressure, uh, adjust the ott,and I was like it was, it was
the best, and since then I'vehaven't found one that I can
really do at full pressure, eventhough I try.
Um, we can get into that laterwhen r explains himself.

(47:48):
But uh, but really what?
The biggest complaint that Ihave is that people have a hard
time setting them up correctly,and that's something we do at
the shop and you knowunderstanding the OTT and what's
going on, and it's reallyconfusing.
I think there's a coupledifferent manuals when you
Google this stuff and they popup and then sometimes they have

(48:09):
the wrong air starting air.
There's different versions ofdiamonds, there's different
versions of of stuff.

You know that causes problems and so I'd say
that's the number one thing thatpeople were asking about yeah,
that's, that's one of the thingswe we are actually trying to
get a lot better at, because ifyou, uh, if you look at some of
the old manuals there's there'sthe original diamond, yeah, and
like non-boost diamond and notlike a non-boost diamond, right,
and that, that fork, you canhave 3000 psi in it and you were

(48:39):
still able to adjust your ott.
Yep, yeah, yeah.
And next version of the diamondyou were still able to adjust
the ott under pressure.
Yep, yeah, um what changed?

Dane (48:50):
what?
Because, because that's whatold blue was and my and this,
you know this, um onyx and I itit doesn't do it.
What did you guys change?
The uh?

the actual pressure on the ott mechanism
changes when you uh, when we,when we grew in in stanchion
tube diameter.
Okay, so the mechanism isactually identical and it it was
a.

Dane (49:13):
It was slightly mind-boggling to us on how the
system was binding, so so, likean onyx, which is no longer in
that air tube, is the samemechanism as a um as a diamond
yes, the only the only one ofthe forks that had um, I mean,

(49:36):
obviously it was, it wasinverted was was the emerald.

Yeah, it had an inverted ott system.
Yeah, yeah, so that oneadjusted from the top of the
left leg, not not the bottom ofthe left leg, like like it is
now.
So there, there were a coupleof small things and I wish I
could.
I wish I could fix all of those.

(49:59):
Uh, some of them worked greatwith, uh, with the pressure in
there.
But there, to save people a lotof time, yep and money on a
repair, yeah, actually justdecided to tell everybody to
just start letting the airpressure out of the system to
adjust it.

Dane (50:18):
It was a lot easier, yeah, that's, that's what I tell
people, actually, yeah I mean,this is 30 seconds worth of work
.

Josh (50:23):
I can imagine why it's so painful what?

Dane (50:25):
no, no, no, no, so so I, I , I it's what it is is, every
time you want to adjust the ott,you have to depress the shock,
then adjust it and then air itback up, so 60 seconds it's not
so much that it's just a, it'slike a, it's not a, it's not a
smooth process, first worldproblems.

Josh (50:43):
Yeah, they have okay.
So if so, I just have.

Dane (50:45):
I have a suggestion you're gonna get to do this later
tonight by the I will.

Josh (50:48):
I won't do it because we're putting the Sonics on my
power play.

So, I have a suggestion though.

Josh (50:53):
So we've got.
We've got a podcast scheduledwith Norco coming up, and I've
been doing some research onNorco and listen and kind of
kind of researching, and I did abunch of research on you guys
as well, Ronnie.
But they said, hey, they gotsick and tired of giving their
bikes to testers who would setthem up all wrong and then bitch
about how they performed.

And then when?

Josh (51:14):
they dig into the details, it'd be like you bastards set
that thing up like way wrong,yeah, and so they came out with
they've got on their website Ican't remember what it's called.
It's called like ride play orsomething like that, or live
ride or something like that.
But they have this reallysimple configurator that, even

(51:35):
like I can understand yep, right, yeah, and you put in your
weight, put in the type ofriding, you do that kind of
stuff and it gives you like astep-by-step.
This is how to set it up andthey've had amazing success with
their reviews ride a line ridea line, there you go.

Yeah, well, let me.

Josh (51:43):
Let me get this dog before oh hey, no worries, yeah, he's
got, he's got a dog runningaround going crazy, so the the
ride line is is pretty amazing.

Dane (51:51):
Uh, I don't remember if it does.
It makes you pick a bike,though, doesn't it?
Yeah, you pick a bike, but it'sa norco.

Josh (51:58):
It's a norco but I'm just saying like it's an idea.

Yeah, if, if, if setup is the problem.

Dane (52:03):
Yes, then create a simple app, that that that walks us
through how to set it up, yeah,and that, and so I I'm on the
forums all the time and I'mhelping DVO people all the time,
and the biggest thing that Iwould say is just that order of
operations.
Yeah, like you know.
So we're talking about how toset these things up.

Josh (52:24):
Well.
I'm suggesting if, if, if, youguys are good.

Dane (52:27):
DV.
I'm suggesting, if you guys aregood, dvo needs an app.

Josh (52:29):
I'm suggesting like the ride-align just made it as a
consumer, made a ton of sense tome on a process that was a
little beyond my understanding.

It made it simple .

Josh (52:38):
Yeah, so if we got this amazing product and people
aren't setting it up, right?

Dane (52:42):
I think that's probably the biggest complaints that I
see are usually that.

Josh (52:47):
All right.
So I'm suggesting you guyssteal Narco's Ride-A-Line
concept for setup of yourproducts.

Dane (52:53):
I don't know how they did it.
That's the key.

Josh (52:55):
It's not hard to do.

It's not hard to do but there's a lot of
variables.
What they commented on ofsending something to a test
rider.

Dane (53:09):
You going to talk about Pinkbike bike you guys love pink
bike right?

Josh (53:13):
those guys are awesome and you know what uh those?

guys they're I.
I just go in there with to readthe comments.
I, I, I don't have any problemswith any of them, but it's,
it's just a.
It's a frustrating place to notpink bike, but just the way the
way things happen, and thencomment section with pink bike.

(53:36):
Well, it's not crazy.

Dane (53:39):
It's not just pink bike Cause, so I I have been diving
in.
So, on this podcast, Ronnie,I've kind of expressed my dismay
with YouTube and the fact thateverybody gets all their
knowledge off YouTube and theykind of you know and I'm I'm.
My kids are getting into bikesand I'm trying to figure out
ways to get them motivated andactually watching videos on
YouTube has been working andwe're watching some beginner

(54:02):
stuff to get them ideas andevery time we do this they want
to go ride, which is great.
Um, but it's the hype up up.
I've noticed that a lot of theadvice on youtube, some of it's
really solid and some of it'sjust garbage awful, yeah, like
podcasts pretty much, andsomebody's saying that right now
about whatever I've said yeah,you know, and for sure that guy

(54:22):
doesn't know what the hell he'stalking about um, so like when I
read the pink bike thing, I'mpretty sure it was pink bike
that just had a scathing reviewon.
Was it the onyx?

uh, and that sucked dude.
Yeah, they did.
They threw us so far under,yeah under the bus, dude.
So they, they did that.
They I forget the the guy'sname mike like he was reviewing
a three-year-old.
No, it wasn't casimir um dude,he reviewed a three-year-old

(54:53):
fork.

Dane (54:54):
Oh really, yeah, we released the 38 yeah, and he's
releasing and he's reviewing theold one he's reviewing
something that like, yeah, wehaven't built in a year and a
half.

Yeah, we sent it to him and then we saw the
review come out and I'm likewhat, what is this?
Yeah, yeah it's I.
I understand that, you know, areview is still relevant because
the product is still for sale,brand new, in a shop somewhere.
But it's like, wow, that washorrible timing and just just an
unfortunate thing for us tohave to deal with.
And then uh, okay, so.

Dane (55:28):
So we talked about the ott setting up.
That's one of the barriers Ihave as a dealer.

Josh (55:33):
All right well let me just so, before you go there, let me
just I want to make sure thatwe get this I want your opinion
right like okay, so it might bea little tougher to set up, it's
fucking worth it figure likefigure it out, dude, it's on the
side of I tell people justfigure it out.

Dane (55:48):
It's on my van.
Like I wouldn't put dvosplattered across my van if I
didn't like.

Josh (55:54):
You're an adult human, yeah figure out how to set this
fork up.

Dane (55:57):
So that hard, okay, so so justin's comment was on ott and
and that complexity, and sothat's, that's one thing that he
wants to see, because we askedyou know, what should we ask
ronnie about?
The second thing that came upis and again, this is all
Ronnie's fault.

I'm sorry man.

Josh (56:18):
I didn't realize this was going to be an inquisition,
totally.
Dane didn't tell me this aheadof time.

Dane (56:22):
I told him I had a bunch of shit.
You said you had a bunch ofquestions.
I think it was going to bethese are the two hard ones.
Okay, everything after this isall soft.
So we're going to end all likepositive.
Oh yeah, perfect, seriously.
Okay, bushing tight becausebecause the the pink bike
article.
If you read it, it sounds likethey had a tight bushing fork,

(56:43):
like because I've had those andand for people that don't know
what we're talking about, thisis a this is an old problem,
though, right.
Well, okay.
It's not happening on yourcurrent products, right?
Well, like Ronnie said, thereare still older… there's still
product that's not brandspanking new.
And also there's reputation thathappens, and my issue is that

(57:04):
this tight bushing….
Whenever I hear somebody hashad a bad experience with a DVO,
it's usually either they don'thave it set up correctly or it's
this tight bushing issue.
Which the tight bushing issue?
I'm not sure what causes it,like I didn't know if it was a

(57:25):
quality control issue, I didn'tknow if it was a temperature
issue.
I don't know what's causing it.
Yeah, what causes?

Josh (57:28):
it, ronnie, quality control issue.

Dane (57:29):
I didn't know if it was a temperature issue.

I don't know what's causing it.
Yeah, what causes it, ronnie?
Yeah, um, so I'll, I'll, I willget into that, okay, good, good
, because it was, if it's toosensitive, we'll just back off
that was.
It was frustrating.
Okay, all right for a lot ofpeople yeah yeah, and I, I.
I just want to say that we hadto spend a lot of time doing
research to end up where wherewe are right now.

(57:52):
Okay, Right.
So which is which is total, likethe other end of of um, how
that, how that was for us, causeit was actually.
We're like dude, one fork feelsreally good, yep, um, this fork
is the same production batch.
What is wrong?
We had to change quite a fewthings internally, just in the

(58:18):
company.
And then, as you guys know, webuild a lot of our stuff at SR
Suntour.
We do have a heavy horsepowerengine that can help us get
stuff done, but there's there'ssome things that we actually
have to handle on our own whenit comes up to the development.

(58:39):
So some center can help us withproduction.

Dane (58:42):
They've got big machines.

Dude, they are insane.
Um, there's like there's acouple of people that have
visited our factory.
Uh, I think uh Mo and Hannah,they did a really good job, dude
, and you know they almostdidn't put that video out
because, uh, they were worriedthat some tour would hurt.
They thought it, they thoughtit was going to suck.

(59:05):
Oh really, it'd be like reallyboring it.
Dude, it looks so boring whenyou see it, but nobody really
gets to see some of those, no.

Josh (59:14):
Yeah, we to see some of those.
No, yeah, we'll put a link,assuming it's still out there.

Dane (59:18):
We'll put a link to that in the show notes here.
Yeah, it's a good video.
It basically showcases themanufacturing process.
I mean Suntour makes forks formany brands.

Josh (59:30):
So, just like Giant, that makes frames for a huge
percentage of the industry.

Dane (59:34):
Yeah, they have the machines.
Really, honestly, you needcertain specialty machines to
make a lot of this stuff and butit's your design, they build it
.
It's not even that.
Like, like ronnie said, theyhave people right there
assembling it, so dvo has theirown room right and yeah, and qc
process and stuff like that.
So what happened with it?
And can you tell me whathappened with the type bushing?

(59:56):
Or did you guys figure out whatwas going on, or we had to.

Ronnie Dillon (01:00:00):
We had to change a lot of the process, so I mean
everything down to the way thatthe, the, the casting is sealed
from the inside out.
Okay, so there's a, there's aprocess that, for the magnesium
that you actually like, youcan't just have a magnesium
casting.

Dane (01:00:17):
They oxidize, yeah Well, it's going to.
It's going to leak, yeah yeah,they have to have a special
paint, if that's right.

Yeah, it has a coating on the inside and if
that coating isn't perfect, thenyou're going to have weird
issues.
Yeah, leaking, mostly leakingoxidation, which the oxidation
will start to eat the bushings,the stanchion tube.
I mean, I think everybody'sopened up a fox or a rock shock
and it's just full of water andall kinds of shit and you see

(01:00:45):
that white yep, the chalk, thechalk, and that's, that's the
magnesium, basically eating,eating itself which just a psa
is why you're supposed to beservicing your public service.

Dane (01:00:57):
Suspension like around every hundred hours, depending
on the.

The manufacturer like you buy into that 200 hours
, ronnie sometimes, sometimesfaster, depending on what you're
doing dude you're, you're gonnaspend a week or two weeks in
whistler.
Dude your, your suspension isjunk.

Dane (01:01:15):
Oh, wait until you see the pictures of the uh fork you're
putting on your bike.

Josh (01:01:18):
Oh yeah.

Dane (01:01:19):
I took pictures of the inside.
That's been on my altitude foryears and at most of the Western
, you know hemisphere bike parksand I opened it up and I was so
disappointed in myself, You'relike wait, I have a suspension
company.

Josh (01:01:36):
Why did I let this get this bad?
It was like the oil was theblackest darkest in myself.
You're like wait, I have asuspension company.

Dane (01:01:37):
Why did I let this get this back?
It was like the oil was theblackest, darkest, like I'm
pretty sure you could see, likethe devil in how black this oil
was dude, you'll see him inthere hanging out.

You're just kind of laughing.

Dane (01:01:47):
He's like I got you, dude, I got you now granted, when I
got done with it, it's like new.
So, uh, but I was prettydisappointed and this is just
goes to show you that peopleneed to do fork service because
of some of the things that thatis going on that you can't see,
and so we had.

Josh (01:02:04):
We had a certain percentage of the the fork
products from dvo that had thisstiction problem yeah, it's
related to the bushings, yeahyou guys got that figured out
now and are you seeing it in newproducts?

Dane (01:02:16):
yeah, we so.
Are you guys fixing it with thesizing tools?

that's what I'm doing, so uh, yeah, so you can,
you, you can, and then some ofthem you actually just end up
replacing the casting just to beon the safe side of that
customer.
Uh, only calling you back withpositive yeah, salts man,
there's, there's a lot of a lotof the guys out there that just
don't.
Some people they could havetheir fork could be locked and

(01:02:42):
they never, they'll never,they'll never notice that it's
like horrible and you're like,hey, this thing feels bad.
Let me help you, dude, let me,let me make this right for you.
Well, so I've had a suffering.

Dane (01:02:53):
I've had a couple new ones come in and then the customer
comes back with feedback likethis does not feel like you said
it would feel, and then I rideit around.
I'm like this has got stuckbushings, and so then I'll pull
the lowers off, I'll size themand put them back on and sizing
the bushings, sizing thebushings?
yeah, in fact the guy that I gotthe tool from is ronnie's

(01:03:13):
hookup.
Like he hooked me up with theguy and I have certain degrees
of larger.
They go up small.
What is it?
Two-tenths of a millimeter orwhatever.

It's just enough to push it out.

Dane (01:03:30):
It just kind of deforms it in a uniform way to the right
size, and then I'll put themback on and they'll come back
and they're just like.
It is amazing, like it's it's.
The difference is like nightand day.
And so I'll read these forums.
I'm on the forums all the time,like given my two cents when I
can and when it's going to help,and, and I'll hear somebody

(01:03:51):
have the same kind of symptomslike the fork.
I can't get it adjusted right,it's always notchy, it's like
super stiff, it's like, you know, I'll go off a curb and dive,
but you know, I run throughsmall bump and it like feels
like rigid, you know, and it'susually usually tight bushings.
And even most, most people thatare on these forums are
starting to realize you know,hey, send it to DVO or get it to

(01:04:14):
a service center or something.
You know, a lot of these peopleare in new zealand, guys, you
know, it's all over the world,so but, uh, it's been an issue
that I've been trying to figureout because it's hurt their
reputation, in my opinion youknow right uh, because you get
somebody, like when I'm gettingsomebody on a on dvo a lot of
times because fox is such aforce as far as marketing and oe

(01:04:37):
product and RockShox is hugefor OE and marketing DVO comes
on and people kind of have likea side eye if they don't know
like they're like what is that?
You know?
Like, is that?
Like what are you trying tosell me?
Like the copy fork you knowlike that is this like.
You know what is this?
Is this a Amazon?

Josh (01:04:56):
fork.
What is this?
Is this an Amazon fork?
But you guys are, I mean, likeDVO is offering on Intense Norco
Focus, fizari or Ari.
Cube and Merida right now.

Yes, right On OEM bikes yes, that's a big stable
of companies, there's a lothappening.
Yes, it's still funny to mewhen I get somebody and and you
know they, you're wearing theshirt and then they see your
fork and they're like what isthat?
Yeah, it's an Onyx.

(01:05:26):
They're like who makes that?

Dane (01:05:29):
Yep, yeah, dvo, I just I can't laugh.

You're like, yeah , do we've been.
We've been in business for along time.
They're like crazy, I've neverheard of you, I've never heard
of you guys.

Josh (01:05:40):
And it's like it's okay, that's cool so like if I go buy
a dvo for today, am I assuredthat it's not going to have this
issue?

Dane (01:05:48):
so I will tell you this I want ronnie to answer question
okay all right go ahead,absolutely yeah absolutely yeah,
they'll

Josh (01:05:56):
tell why are we talking about old shit?
Well, okay, so all right, sothat's the that's.

Dane (01:06:01):
That's it for the, that's the tight bushings.
The ott, that's the old shitsetup issue yeah, let's talk.

Josh (01:06:06):
Sorry for all the old people, you got an old one.
Talk to dane, talk to dvo,they'll fix it.
Otherwise, let's talk about newshit all right.

Dane (01:06:12):
So currently I'm running 36 SL, uh, diamond.
So what's different?
In that I have a, I don't haveOTT.

You do not have OTT.
You now you have the, uh, theSL system.

Dane (01:06:33):
Yes, which, which I hate to say this and and no, no
offense to DVO, but it's justlike everybody else's, like it's
, it's, uh, it's, it's verysimilar man there's.

There's some small changes with uh, with the
stuff that we did, but, um, theidea was to make it familiar.

Dane (01:06:46):
Yes, it's definitely that is it what I mean?

it's an sl2, so it's light like they're making
the 38 with the ott and an slversion, so you can pick which
one you can pick, you know, andI think that was 36 or 38 no,
the 38 is uh sl or ott right umwell, let's talk about 2024
let's talk about 2024, because Idon't know what you guys are

(01:07:11):
doing for 2025 we, uh, we willno longer offer many of the OTT
forks so that the OTT system,because of the complications of
setup, there's very few of themthat were actually being
produced.

Dane (01:07:26):
Okay.
So with this new 36 that I'mriding, the first thing I
noticed because my fear is so myPivot Shuttle SL came with Fox
Factory on it.
I rode it for two months, uh,and I gave it a good shot, like
I'm like you know what this is,top of the line fox shit.
Like everybody comes in wantingfox, fox, fox.

(01:07:47):
You know it's gold, it's got allthe the stuff got the bells and
whistles, I'm gonna ride thisstuff and and I'm gonna ride it.
And I've been on dvo sincealmost day one, like no joke.
You know, I've been riding dvoforever and, um, I could not
stand it.
I could not stand the the foxstuff.
I don't know how to explain how.

(01:08:08):
It just felt harsh.
It didn't feel like I call itcarpet ride.
You know, when I ride dvo, itfeels like you're riding on
carpet, like it just has thissuper smooth feel.
I never bottom it out unlessI'm really doing something
stupid and uh, it's just.
You know, I barely even usecompression dampening and I'm,
I'm, I'm over 200 pounds and Irarely even use compression

(01:08:30):
damping and I'm racing downhill,I'm racing Enduro, like it.
I'm not riding around fantasyisland on on the bike path, you
know just for the record, that'sthe first time you've come
close to admitting how much youweigh.

Josh (01:08:40):
Oh yeah, on the podcast.

Dane (01:08:41):
Well it's, it's way more than I expect.
So it's about like my age butso my biggest fear with this new
system is that it would be likethe fox, like it would have
that.
You know no longer carpet feel.
It still feels good and it'sconfident.
I'm people riding Foxes Aren'tdumb, like they're good forks,

(01:09:02):
but it just what didn't feel thesame, like you get hooked on
the feel.

Josh (01:09:06):
So did it you know it did.

Dane (01:09:07):
And in fact this, this 36 SL diamond, I put on my e-bike
to make it lighter.
You know um, it's the firsttime I've ever had to adjust the
low speed compression on adamper because it dived a little
bit.
It was so supple so are you?

did you, did you change any of your your volume,
space or no?
I?

Dane (01:09:31):
didn't do that because, honest and honestly, I've railed
that bike um.

Josh (01:09:35):
I haven't bottomed it out yet, so it still feels supple is
what you're saying, it stillfelt supple, almost More supple,
almost more, more supple than aFox.

Dane (01:09:45):
Oh, absolutely.

Josh (01:09:46):
So how the hell did you all do that?

Dane (01:09:47):
Yeah, so what is so?
Here's my fear.
Right, because the OTT allowedfor everyone to enjoy that feel,
from somebody who's a hundredpounds up to somebody who's two,
60, you know, or?

Josh (01:09:58):
whatever.

Dane (01:10:00):
And that was the beauty of is it let cause the old system
that they used is what Fox usedway back in the day, and the
biggest problem was it fit themiddle but it didn't fit the
ends you know light or heavymiddle of the weight spectrum?
Yeah, exactly, and so how?
How is your?
So you guys are using volumespacers, so we're back to tuning
the end of the stroke insteadof the beginning.

(01:10:20):
Yep, is that right?
And so?
So when I'm setting that up,I'm familiar, like you said now,
and I just set it up like likeany other fork on the market,
for the most part so, yeah, andand you and you should be able
to that was the main goal.

I mean, I'll be very honest with you.
We hired two really smartengineers and a lot changed yeah
, a lot of stuff changed.
And these guys were kind of notkind of.
They were really green tomountain bikes and one of them I
guarantee you he had neverreally even seen a mountain bike

(01:10:59):
.
Um, he was working for a reallylarge company in in taiwan and
he was brought on in like uh,like a critical time of
development, and this kid killedit yeah, sometimes having
someone that's not biased by allthe the past you, that's how
you generate new ideas and newconcepts, right?

(01:11:21):
I mean, is that kind of whathappened here Absolutely?
Because it's an outside view ofhow that system works, and for
him that outside view was math.

Dane (01:11:30):
Yeah.

Josh (01:11:31):
So, yeah, he was… he just brought in the math brought in
his calculator and said you guysare fucking this up.
Let me show you how to do this.

Yeah, he was mathing around, man Dude, he
nailed it the very first versionof that air system that we made
.
Hey, dude, stop eating my books.

Josh (01:11:54):
What's your dog's name, man?

Dude, that Gasket , gasket, that gasket, that's
funny nice is he?
A puppy yeah, she's about fourmonths old and she's eating
everything.

Dane (01:12:05):
Oh, yeah, yeah I, we both have that and uh puppies around
here man.
Oh yeah, I've lost a lot ofsocks, so okay so what's
different on the the damper side?
Uh, has he fiddled with that,or anybody fiddled with?
I haven't pulled my sl apart tolook at the inside oh man, you
have to take a look, dude.

So the, the, the bladder that you are familiar
with is, is changed.
Um, I think it might be alittle bit longer.
The 36 actually has, uh, just alittle bit of stuff that
changed in that mid valve,uh-huh.
So on the, on the rebound sideof the of the damper, it changed
yeah um, I think you wouldnotice more changes to the

(01:12:49):
bladder in the 38.

Dane (01:12:51):
Okay, that's my next, next one, that's going on the next
bike, so I haven't.
I haven't figured out that bikeyet.
Maybe the altitude I'm testing,so I'm testing other suspension
.

Sorry, I'm cheating on dvo oh, dude, I, I,
I promote that.
I tell people I'm like hey,dude, you know, I mean you can,
you can look you can.
You can look online, you can.

Dane (01:13:13):
You can see our riders that have chosen to go with
other brands and some of themare back now yeah, yeah that
says something you know I I'vetold you guys I've been doing
the youtube thing with my kidsand who's the remy guy?

Josh (01:13:28):
the remy oh man metallier, yeah you're asking, you're
actually asking who remymetallier?

Dane (01:13:33):
so you, guys gotta remember I'm not like I told you
?

Josh (01:13:36):
I don't know.

Dane (01:13:37):
I'm assuming that's you are a very handsome man yeah
that's what I said.
But uh, remy is one of myfavorites and I was like I
didn't even notice until liketwo videos in he's on dvo and
like I'm trying to google whatcamera he's using because his
angle is awesome and I'm like Iwant that kind of view, yeah.

(01:13:57):
But uh, then I look down andI'm like, oh, he's on dvo and uh
, and so he's one of myfavorites.
You know he's he's fun, youknow to watch him, so I'm just
learning youtube and and so Idon't know all the celebrities,
sorry about that.

so that guy, that guy's entire program is
actually he's pretty pretty neat.
Yeah, uh, easy to deal with.
No, because he's pretty prettyneat, yeah, easy to deal with.
No, because he's really precise, yeah, I don't have a hard time
dealing with him.
But when the first couple oftimes that you work with him
you're like, oh dude, thisdude's fucking tearing me up.

Dane (01:14:32):
Like so it's friends dude.
Is he like you know, hey man,this doesn't feel right and
sending stuff back, or did?
Does he come into DVO and getstuff done?
Like like how, what level doyou guys have with him?
Do you just send them productand he plays with it?
Or is he a sponsored writer?

I'm not even sure I will set a bass tune which is
, um, pretty similar to factory.
Yeah, I just I know that he'sgoing to be a hell of a lot more
aggressive dude, he's, I thinkhe's five, nine, about a buck 45
.
And, um, dude, he's ballistic.
Yeah, it's, it's incredible.
Like those are some of thevideos that you like.

Dane (01:15:09):
You're like ah, dude, I gotta I gotta go from after this
coffee.
I need a good eight minute killright now.

Oh yeah, some of the stuff that he does on on, I
guess canada uh, he's not sure.
He lives in um in squamish ornear it so pretty incredible.
Yeah, well, just hold thatwhole.
You know the, you've been thereyeah well, so I'm going there.

Dane (01:15:36):
I haven't been to squamish , I've been to whistler and I'm
gonna hit bellingham on the wayup and I'm excited because it's
a very different ride from whatwe're used to you know, um and
man, I was watching one video Idon't some kids doing it with,
uh, skinnies and I don't knowwhere they were.
It was like a place, skinnysend it, or something like that.
It was the trail yeah I, mykids and I are all watching this

(01:15:57):
on the couch and I'm like hell,no like never doing that oh no,
I can't do them.
I can't, I can barely do fatties, uh, let alone stockies and
skinnies are out, so so I wantto be respectful to ronnie's
time, okay, because?
We've been going about hour 15oh shit, I got like, see I told
you, I got like two quickquestions the first one's like
my little.

Josh (01:16:16):
At seattle I talked to gas gas, okay and they were telling
me about, you know, I saw adevio fork on the front of their
, their new you know, at leastsome of their new e-bike lines.
They were talking about whatyou guys did with them in this
cup and cone design.
Were you involved in that all?
Can you tell me anything aboutlike what you guys did there?

yeah, man, I mean so you can.
I was there the whole time withwith bryson bryson jr jp.
Uh did we had a, we had a blast, we got to go.
We got to go to austria.
Uh, work with the guys at at wp.

Josh (01:16:44):
That's incredible wp is the is the company that owns gas
gas husky marna.

Dane (01:16:49):
No, I think they're a suspension company, aren't they?

yeah, wp is just the, just the suspension brand.

Josh (01:16:54):
Yep, yeah.

Kate, ktm owns everything.
Okay yeah.
So that is one of the largestplaces I've ever like seen in my
life.
I like beautiful workbenches.
Um, you know my makes.
My workbench at my officelooked like part of the bathroom
scenery.
Every tech has two massivedinos.

(01:17:19):
Yeah, there was shit there weweren't supposed to take
pictures of, that I already tookpictures of and they're like
don't take pictures of that.
And I'm like, oh shit I won't.

Josh (01:17:29):
I won't send to anyone, I promise I'm sorry um, you have
really cool experience.

um, you can look at the fork.
You went to the booth, you sawit.
Um, if you take a quick glimpseat it, um, it everything about
it says DVO, other than the bigWP.
Yeah, step on it.
Um.
And when you look inside, yeah,they called out for their own
tune.
They did a lot of testing.
Um, we were there for amajority of the testing, uh,

(01:17:57):
testing which is not exactly newto us, but it was we again one
more time, we hid that part ofit when we were advertising that
because we're like you don'twant anybody, you don't want
anybody to know these darklittle secrets, right?
Yeah, then Fox releases theirnew stuff.

Josh (01:18:17):
Pressure balance Pressure balance everything and you're
like, damn right, yeah, then foxreleases their new stuff
pressure balance, pressurebalanced everything, and you're
like damn, yeah, yeah, oh, it'strue like and we were working on
that, that wp stuff, that'sdude.

That wasn't like.
That didn't happen in six weeks, dude, that was two years oh,
oh wow.
So, covid, that was, that wasour project.

Dane (01:18:38):
So is that just on the fork and the rear is just a
prime?

No, it's actually .
Or is it the opposite?
It's a cone valve in each one.

Dane (01:18:47):
It really I didn't know that, okay.

The difference between the moto cone valve and
this cone valve is this one isactually externally adjustable
to where, with their um conevalve set up for the dirt bikes,
it is not externally adjustableto where.
With their um cone valve setupfor the dirt bikes, it is not
externally adjustable.
So this is actually it's afirst.
I think that's a.
That's the confusion.
And, man, I do read, I creepinto a lot of the forums.
Yeah, I'm not gonna say whichone, but there's a.

(01:19:12):
There's a certain uh tuner outthere who loves to talk crap.
He's like I can look at thisand it looks like wp sent, uh,
sent dvo a handful of piecesthat they installed incorrectly.
You have to laugh.
You're like, come on, man, likedude it.
You haven't even seen it andthen they're taking these, these

(01:19:32):
screenshots of the moto systemand I'm like that's not even
what's, it's not in there yeah,close, but it's.
It's completely different.
Yeah, that is one of the morecomplicated projects that that
we've been, that we've been partof it's.
It's so cool but absolutelylike the most time-consuming
thing that that we've done willwe see that stuff on other other

(01:19:57):
bikes, or is it?

Josh (01:19:58):
is it uniquely specific to gas gas?

Dane (01:20:00):
oh, he put his he put his, like he put his eyebrows up.
Just know that.

That look was kind of like I can't talk about
this, can't talk about it.
Yeah, sorry, man that stuff.
That tune is specific to thatbike, so you can probably get
away with using the cone valveon your on your onyx, okay.
But, it's an entirely differentsystem, so it is pressure

(01:20:27):
balanced for that damper.
So you would need the entiredamper or at least the damper
tune and a couple of other smallthings that they called out for
.
The shock that is based aroundthat bike, least the damper tune
and a couple of other smallthings that they called out for,
uh, the shock that is basedaround that bike okay, I kind of
feel like we need to buy oneand tear it apart.

Dane (01:20:45):
Well, yeah, that'll probably happen um okay last
last questions, because wedidn't get this one out was
prime, so yeah, tell us aboutprime man, so jade x prime and
topaz prime.
Uh, one are you.
Are you gonna have a upgrade?

uh, because that was talked about, where, oh, you
mean like a, okay, so the, theretro, retrofittable uh
component, yeah, a lot easier todo on the jade or the jade x,
because you can actually justunbolt the entire reservoir,
yeah, and then put a freshreservoir bladder, okay, all the
goods on and it's good to go.
It's it's, it's, it's expensivebut it, you know, if somebody

(01:21:26):
wants it, they can do it.
Okay, on the topaz, it gets alittle deeper because you're
actually replacing the entirehousing.
Okay, so, for you, you're,you're 100 capable.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, somebody ontheir you know their
grandmother's you know gasburning stove, it's going to be
a little bit, a little bitharder, but in their bathtub,
yeah, you can do it.
But at that point in time, um, Imean there's there's probably a

(01:21:50):
lot of guys that are just goingto end up sending stuff back to
me, back to you, and you'regoing to be like, hey, dude,
you're about 180 bucks away fromjust having a brand new shock.
Okay, instead of paying me mylabor and let's say they they
have like a nibbled up shaft ora burned out shaft or just it
can be, it can be costly, soyou're better off just just buy

(01:22:12):
the new shock or trade it inbecause I thought that I X, you
know, that plug at the back.

Dane (01:22:18):
I thought that was like something you'd pull out and
then just pop in like a toploader was what I was
envisioning, you know, and sothat's not what it is.
You have to pull off thereservoir.
To do that.

Yeah, it's a sealed reservoir.
So if you look at the Jade X,you have that lock, the three
position lever for compressionor lockout.
Um yeah, that thing would just,it would bleed straight through
.

Dane (01:22:41):
Well, it's funny because it's like if you look at the two
, it's like the space for thelever is still there, like they
use the same casting, they justdidn't drill.

It is and and we had, we had ideas of, of having
that configuration, yeah, butbecause of another project that
we started working on, whichwhich is WP, it consumed a lot
of our development time and weended up in a, in a position
where, um, we were like dude,we're going to make this thing

(01:23:10):
even better later and we'rewe're in, we're in that position
right now.
So, like 25 and 26 developmentum is happening right now.

Josh (01:23:21):
Oh yeah, so big things coming.

Well, I mean, it sounds like a long time right.

Josh (01:23:27):
Like you'll blink your eyes and it'll be here, yeah.

It's you know, my kid's going to be wrecking one
of my cars, driving it around.

Dane (01:23:33):
It's like you never know.
Spilling car is driving itaround.
It's like you never knowspilling gas.

So, uh, did you kill the the?
Big x2 can looking one is that,um, we still have the cans.
Yeah, yeah, the big ones.

Dane (01:23:46):
No, no, remember that there was a, a prototype that
looked like an x2, like a fox.
Uh, remember that thing and Ihave pictures of it.
I'll send them to you.
So I know, know it was there,but did that get killed?
Cause I know the Opal is kindof on the back burner, uh, yeah,
yeah, we we produced the OpalUm.

We we sold a few of them in the aftermarket.
Yeah, We've got a rider.

Dane (01:24:11):
We got a rider on one.
Yeah, that's a bad-ass shockman.
He loves it, loves it.

you know, I think he wants shock I think he'd
like a lockout on it becauseit's just a rebound at this
point.

Dane (01:24:25):
Oh, he has the r.
Yeah, yeah, so and uh, yeah, Imean, I I think there's a market
for it because there are peoplethat are just like hey, I like
dvo, I just want to run dvo, Idon't care that it's not the
lightest, you know.
Shock, you know.
So did you keep bringing thatup?
Like it's not that much heavy?
Uh, it's.
It's a philosophy, you know,there's some.
Like we built a fork in 2010.

(01:24:46):
I think it was.
That was.
Uh, we took the guts out of it.
It only had air in one on oneside and had a sticker over the
top where the damper used to beon a sid, I think to make it
stupid light on a mountain bikethat we built for interbike.
Uh, I say we.
This is when I was at fairweeland it was.
I forgot.
I mean, it was a carbon fibersticker, but it was just a

(01:25:08):
sticker over the damper, it hadno damping in it and just to
make it lighter and it wasstupid light but it didn't ride
worth crap, you know yeah and sodvo and and coming from the
marzocchi side and then into thedvo, their philosophy has never
been like, hey, we're going tobe the lightest.
They're always about how itfeels, you know, and how it
rides.
It's not about how light it is.

(01:25:30):
And so they don't really.
They kind of didn't put anyresources towards that side of
the market, and so there's a lotof people that is that true,
because he's speaking for you,right?

we're.
We're always entertained withhow light our competitors are
able to get their product, andwe, we, we reach for that, and
then we start to figure out someother things that we can change
in the chassis.
So a lot of that weight willcome from the chassis and the
performance of that chassis willultimately affect everything.
So that thing's flexy, it's.

(01:26:02):
It's going to bend a little toomuch, it's going to bind during
the stroke, right, and there'sa.
There's a lot of stuff thatwent down with the development
of the, of the 38 and forwhatever reason, that the 36 is
a ridiculous, ridiculously goodfeeling.
Fork we, we, we thought the 38was like mind blowing and then,

(01:26:22):
um, you know, we changed somethings on the 36 and people were
like dude, okay, this is, thisis what I wanted from you guys.
Like, this was a plug and plate, fork, dude I.
However, you guys had to set upout of the box, which is the
funniest shit to hear slapped iton, I went and wrote it.
I'm like no man, dude, you knowwhat.

(01:26:43):
It might be right, because youget that guy.
He comes by the booth andyou're like, oh shit, it was
like two clicks, two clicks awayfrom perfect, right.
But you don't, you don't reallywant to hear that, but at the
same time it's, it's acompliment.
You're're like, holy shit, he'shappy, we're happy.
Okay, cool, one less thing towork on at a race.
One last thing to adjust.
This is great.
So that was the idea of the SL,and then a bunch of development

(01:27:07):
on the casting, and then thatwas a five or six-year project.

Dane (01:27:16):
Yeah, oh, wow, yeah, it was not wow, yeah, it's so.

it was not unrecognized.
We, we heard all the cries andthere was just it was a slow
process, cause you can do onething and then the other, and
then the other, and then theother and next thing, you know,
you go from like a you know yournumber one sample or your first
sample, to your 10th sample,and a mold is a lot of money and
if you want to modify a mold Imean you're looking at you know

(01:27:42):
400 grand to play and if youmess that up, you're starting
from square one.

Josh (01:27:48):
Yeah, that's a huge investment.
It is a huge investment.

They don't last forever, they wear out.

Josh (01:27:54):
So, ronnie, I want to thank you like so much for your
time today yeah, you broke outtime and spent time with us.
It's been awesome.
I'm super excited to to get onthe onyx and I've been really
enjoying the jade it yeah it isuh turned a bike that I was
going to get rid of into a bikethat I'm going to keep in the
rocky mountain altitude.
I'm a heavy rider, I'm a tallrider and so, uh, I was

(01:28:15):
struggling, I was strugglingwith and and swapping out the X
two for, uh, for that Jade islike, changed that whole bike
for me.
So you've saved me like youknow, I don't know $8,000 on a
new bike, so thank you for that.

That's a nice chunk of cash to save.

Josh (01:28:32):
It is.
That's a huge chunk of cash toshave.
Um, what final thoughts do youhave for our listeners?
Man, Floor is yours.
Anything you want to say to ourlisteners?

Dude, just take your time.
Take your time when you're outthere getting ready to make
these massive changes to yoursuspension.
If you're thinking of tuningsomething yourself or having
someone tune it for you, justcheck them out.
Pay attention locally to theirreputation.
Um, I run in, I'm running intoa lot of guys right now that

(01:29:03):
call me and they're like hey,dude, I had I had this shop over
here work on stuff.
And um, I want to, I want tosend you photos because
something, something is wrong,like terribly wrong, and I know
some of these guys that that dothe work.
And, dude, it breaks my heartto have to call them and I'm
like hey, dude, you better callme If you ever see anything.

(01:29:24):
I've never received any.
Any complaints comments.
Yes, I had a guy that came by.
Um, I was telling you guysearlier that, um, my brother and
I own a bike shop and, um, Ihad a guy that came in there and
he just mentioned Southmountain, yeah yeah.
And I'm like, oh, that's cool,dude, I have a couple of buddies

(01:29:45):
out there that have uh bikeshops.
And he was like, yeah, I usedto work or, uh, hang out with uh
, I think it was fish fromcactus.
I'm like crazy Did I?
I used, I'm like crazy dude I Iused to.

Josh (01:30:00):
I love that guy.

He wore this horrible red marzocchi bomber
shirt everywhere, yeah, every,every inner bike.
And I'm like, dude, change thatshirt, dude, please.
It's all nibbled up.
He's like, nope, I'll wear ituntil it falls off.
And then, um, I mentioned, Imentioned you yeah, like I know
him.
I was like, oh, that's, that'sbitch.
And he was like, how do youknow him?
I'm like, dude, I don't knowbikes.

(01:30:20):
Dude, let's, let's, he ridebikes.
He, he used to race, um, he hadthat team, no brakes.
He was like, dude, that shit'scrazy.
He's like that's the weirdestshit to walk into a shop.
He, I guess he just moved intothe area.
Yeah, he was kind of scoping wehave a bunch of old, vintage
mountain bikes and he's he'strying to leave with this old
ass foes and I'm like, dude, youcould take that thing, please

(01:30:43):
take that out of the shop, man.

Josh (01:30:46):
But yeah, dude, just take down and hang it up in guru,
right, yeah?

Dane (01:30:49):
seriously, send it my way, I'll take it.

Yeah, I've got some monsters did I got?
I got one of the one of thevery first fat chances.

Dane (01:30:56):
Yeah, I've got a wicked light and got, I got one of the
one of the very first fatchances.
Yeah, I've got a wicked light,and then we, we just got a
second wicked light.
So, but I want to do, you got,you got any.
Any forks you can throw my way,I don't care what the insides
look like, I just want to putthem on the wall.

What do I have anymore?
Did I, dude?
I have some ridiculous I meanother than the neon sign that I
Funny-ass story, dude, aboutthat sign.
I was leaving my last day, dude.
I was emotional.
That was a cool-ass job, it wasa big part of my life, man, and
they knew I was quitting butthey didn't know where I was

(01:31:31):
going.
And I got interrogated two daysbefore I left by one of the big
guys at Marzocchi and Iremember I had my phone, I was
recording the conversationbecause I was like I'm gonna use
this shit in court other peopleto hear this.
And um, it was.
It was one of the one of themain guys of marzocchi, andrea
parentoni, and I I can tell thathe was bothered by what he was

(01:31:55):
doing, but he had to.
He had to stick to his shit,right, yeah?
And it was like Ronnie, how,what is this?
A company that Bryson is amaking?
And I was like, dude, I'm justgoing to tell you right now if,
if Bryson is making anothercompany, another suspension
company, it's to shut thiscompany down.

(01:32:16):
And the faces they were likeyou know something and I'm like
I don't know anything.
I'm just I'm being honest withyou.
That's how it's going to happen.
And then two days later I wasat the dvo office um and they
were showing me the ott and Iwas like, oh, hell, yeah, this,
this is a really good start,like yeah yeah, very cool we're

(01:32:39):
doing cool shit oh man

Josh (01:32:41):
yeah, ronnie, thank you so much for your time, brother,
really yeah, man, thank you guysit's been awesome.

Yeah, thank you for your time yeah, my, my
pleasure man and I'll send youguys some photos of my my
horrible vintage bike collection, bmx mostly.
That is awesome that's awesomebrother but yeah, you guys have
a good night.
Thank you for considering mefor this and um, I don't know, I
don't know how you guys work asfar as uh people you want to

(01:33:08):
use, oh for sure.

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081 – Behind the curtain: DVO Suspension (Ronnie Dillon, DVO Suspension)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}081 – Behind the curtain: DVO Suspension (Ronnie Dillon, DVO Suspension)