Flight attendants don’t often bring salted peanuts to your seat or empty your ashtray these days, but they are the ones working to make long flights more comfortable and enjoyable. SRAM has a new Flight Attendant for your mountain bike’s suspension that will read your body and bike movements to adjust the squishy bits for maximum efficiency and grip.
Wireless electronic sensors in the crank, fork, and shock link up with the broader SRAM AXS systems and mobile app to sense and adjust to the trail and to your physical interaction with the bike. You can set the system to “automatic” and let it do the hard work of adjusting to your grip and sprint needs, or select from open, pedal, or lock modes with a wireless thumb control. If the battery happens to take a nap the system will default to the open mode for maximum suspension functionality on the way home.
Low-speed compression can be dialed in through the app, as can any fine-tuning adjustments you want across the different modes. The whole system uses the same SRAM AXS app that their wireless shifting system and dropper use, so all the info and adjustment remains centralized. The Flight Attendant technology will be available with the Pike, Lyric, and Zeb Ultimate forks, XX1 and X01 cranks, and Super Deluxe Ultimate shocks.
In addition to all of these new wireless bits, SRAM has added what they call Buttercups to these three Ultimate forks. The rubber pucks, seated at the end of the air spring and damper, are said to reduce trail chatter by 20% before it reaches your hands, which in turn should reduce hand and arm fatigue. In the middle of the fork lowers, a set of pressure-release valves have been added to all three fork models to equalize the air pressure as you change altitude.
Hit the SRAM site for additional information and pricing of these latest wireless bits.
