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DrBagg wrote:Have not ridden the laud, but know a couple of people have to warranty theirs, because the carbon delaminated. Have been riding the shockstop since the landrun 100, this past March. Only negative thing I can think of, is it's square shape, can't put my gps/phone/?? on the stem. Other than that....i love it
jmcgukin wrote:Curious if anyone has ridden both the redshift shockstop stem and the lauf Grit fork and could compare and contrast them? \n \nI like the idea of the Grit, but the shockstop stem costs way less and looks a lot more normal\nIt's not so much that the shockstop looks normal so much as the Lauf Grit looks plain ugly. Aesthetics are important as well as function.
Volsung wrote:Has anyone tried both simultaneously? I'm curious if they died of comfort.
DerekJ_MI wrote:I have the 30-degree ShockStop and the Lauf Grit fork on my Lynskey GR 250. I just finished DK 200 this past Saturday. Get them both. They both work but in different ways. You will need to tweak the ShockStop to get the feel just right but when tweaked it's great!
Dwillis wrote:I'll take a stab at your question. I ride with a Redshift Shocktop stem, but have never ridden a Lauf. The Lauf is a suspension fork and as part of a suspension system, its primary function is to keep the wheel/tire combo in touch with the ground as much as possible. Comfort is a nice by-product. The Shockstop, on the other hand, is more of a comfort item to relieve fatigue and "buzziness" associate with a long gravel ride. It think it's a bit much to ask a stem to act as a suspension piece to improve traction. So, I don't think they can be directly compared as I do not believe they were designed to solve the same problem.
Riding Dirty Kanza caused temporary paralysis ("cyclist palsy") in my right hand at mile 85 and required me to shift gears with my left hand. So far the Shocktop has prevented that from reoccurring. Hope this helps.
clarksonxc wrote:
Derek - curious as to how you tweaked your ShockStop? I just set one up on my girlfriend's bike, and figured to err on the side of caution (i.e. more stiff) because she we coming from a rigid fork/stem on her Jamis Renegade. She hasn't ridden any gravel with it yet, but what did you need to adjust? Preload? Stiffer/softer? Thanks!
DerekJ_MI wrote:
Tweak? well, poor choice of words. Adjust it so that the correct amount of stiffeners are installed that provide good shock resistance yet are not too bouncy. Much of this depends on your weight.
clarksonxc wrote:
I gotcha, but did you find you needed to go stiff or lighter than what they recommended for your weight? Not that I'm going to make any changes before she has some substantial miles on it, but I'm just wondering how close their factory recommendations were for you and others.
I don't have any experience with the Lauf GRIT, but I do have experience with the Lauf that I had on my Lynskey that I used quite a lot on gravel. I guess the real difference was the 30mm extra of travel and obviously mtb tires but also 40c MSO's. I also have used the RedShift Briefly only because I spotted on someone else's bike and rode around for a few minutes.
I believe its fair to echo that they're objectively different. So the Lauf on my MTB was really good as long as I was in the saddle. It actually tracked better than some of the best air forks on the market. Out of the saddle meant most of the travel was consumed under my weight. The only time I found this to be good was climbing, it climbed really good and you could feel the bike surging every pedal stroke without the lag of fork squat.
To me, the RedShift stem really felt like it was meant to isolate the bars/hands as a contact point. When the bike hit a bump or really anything that wasn't smooth, you'd still feel it in the rest of the bike, but it was a bit more muted in the handlebars. The Lauf would actually absorb bumps entirely until that bump made it to the rear wheel.
One of the biggest differences which for some reason people don't consider, and maybe its more of a problem where I am with the constant coastal winds on open unprotected terrain is aero. For some reason, the fork seemed to catch more wind than even the SID team fork. I don't know if the GRIT is different/better in that regard.
What I do know is that Lauf just released the True Grit bike which has a "GRIT LS" fork that's shaped different and suppose to be lighter and laterally stiffer. Lighter is always better, going to a Lauf fork meant adding about 1lb of weight to the bike, the RedShift stem....slightly less than half that.
chunkyhugo wrote: It's not so much that the shockstop looks normal so much as the Lauf Grit looks plain ugly. Aesthetics are important as well as function.
frontrangegravel wrote:
I'm really opposite of this opinion. Function over aesthetics all day every day.