DBAIR CS SHOCK

The industry-leading Double Barrel shocks get a Climb Switch.

Released 2013

Introduced in 2005, the Cane Creek Double Barrel shock brought game-changing motorsports technology to the bicycle market.  Initially targeted as a downhill-racing product, the market was clamoring for Double Barrel's adjustability and performance in a shock with a selectable "climbing mode".  Enter the Double Barrel "CS", or Climb Switch.

The brainchild of Cane Creek Director of Engineering Josh Coaplen (2006-2015), the CS technology added a second set of low-speed damping circuits that could be switched on or off via an easily accessible lever.  This allowed the rider to change the low-speed damping characteristics of compression and rebound to optimize them for climbing or descending.  At the time, all competitors' climbing features only adjusted the compression damping and amounted to essentially disabling the rear suspension, hardly an optimal solution.

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In mid 2012, I was tasked with packaging the technology from a leaky, unreliable proof-of-concept prototype into a sellable product in 6-months or less.  In early 2013, the DBAir CS was the result.  Over the years this shock would spawn a coil-sprung variant and would eventually replace the standard Double Barrel as Cane Creek's flagship rear suspension product.

Scroll down to view Cane Creek's official launch video featuring a much younger version of myself.

Or checkout the review from industry-leading website Pinkbike.com