this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
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Bicycles
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See if you can turn the knob at the top of the front shock to lock it out, so that you don't lose power from it compressing.
It does have a lockout. Does the shock give no benefits on rough sidewalks/pavement?
You can have better traction and comfort from using the shock or you can have better efficiency and speed from not having it absorb some of your pedaling force, but you can't have both at the same time.
There's a reason the only bikes you'll find with suspension are MTBs, hybrids marketed to newbies who don't know any better (sorry), and high-end e-cargo bikes that have excess power budget to spend on jostling the cargo less.
Also, keep in mind that your arms and legs (if you stand up on the pedals) act as shock absorbers, even if the bike itself is rigid. The tires and even the frame flex a little bit, too, and that's basically considered good enough on paved surfaces up to and including cobblestone streets.
So the shocks don't really keep anything from breaking, they're purely for comfort.
Well, shocks can also keep the wheels touching the ground more often on bumpy terrain, for better traction. Think climbing a hill on rooty, rocky singletrack, without losing traction and therefore momentum.
But yeah, no: In order to get to the point where you actually need suspension to stop the frame snapping in half or something like that, you've gotta be doing some real X-Games shit. And at that point you need full suspension anyway, not just a hardtail.
(Either that, or your frame was defective and unsafe to begin with.)