Downamics

World cup level data acquisition & analysis service available for every level of racer & rider who wants to go faster & find the optimum setup.

25/02/2026

Your suspension isn't just moving up and down. Every compression event, every rebound, every impact — it's all measurable. This is the kind of analysis that's been in motorsport for decades 🚙🏍️
Chapter 22 of the book breaks down exactly how to read it on your own bike. Part 6 (chapters 24, 25 & 26) also cover working with raw data and analysis methods outside of your systems software. This means you can look at suspension outside of position and speed and start to look at frequencies and energies 🤯

Pre-order link in bio with early bird price until 15th March.

datadrivendescents

22/02/2026

The System GG Diagrams:
Every single moment of a descent, plotted.
Each dot = one instant. Colour = speed. The further from centre, the harder the force.

Key numbers:
→ Front axle peak: 8.82 g longitudinal / 3.22 g lateral | 95th-pct: 9.31 g.
→ Frame peak: 3.84 g longitudinal / 2.41 g lateral | 95th-pct: 4.40 g
→ Rear axle peak: 5.91 g longitudinal / 2.95 g lateral | 95th-pct: 6.51 g

✅ Front axle to frame assembly is isolating 56% longitudinal and 25% lateral — more than half the trail forces never reach the rider
✅ Rear axle to frame assembly is isolating 35% longitudinal and 18% lateral — less prone to the same forces as the front.
🚲 The frame is subjected to around half the forces that the axles are.

This is as a combined result of the tyre compliance and deformation, spoke/wheel flex, fork stanchion and rear triangle flex, bearing and bushing play, frame flex and yes, some suspension contribution (mainly vertical, some longitudinal via dive/squat).

The tall, narrow shape means this trail is brake-heavy and steep — way more stopping forces than side-to-side cornering loads. Technical chunk, not flow.

17/02/2026

not only look after my head, eyes and limbs, but now I'm testing some of their parts too.

We've got flat pedals, clip pedals, grips and stems to plan into the testing programme now. I really enjoy product testing, feedback and development. it's just as rewarding as working on setup, chasing performance gains and optimising The System as Product testing plays into all these aspects.

Massive thanks to for the refresh on helmets and goggles and keen to see how these other bits stack up.

16/02/2026

Further development of an MTB equivalent of the GG plot used in Motorsport.
This tool also includes the ability to do comparisons between two different runs.
Part of this analysis also includes impact and force comparisons to understand what The System is being subjected to. It also gives a preventive warning about possible component points of failure as a result.

Do you feel this kind of analysis could prove beneficial to teams and mechanics in a race environment?

15/02/2026

Some different suspension analysis tools developed in
Mixing this analysis with some AI creates the Suspension Performance dashboard in slide 2, which also includes some suggested changes to try, which I would normally avoid as they miss the crucial context that comes from the rider.
The heatmap in slide 1 shows normalised behaviours of the suspension to understand What's happening out of the norm. E
There's more work to do here but it's a very useful tool for giving an overview of the suspension performance.

12/02/2026

Proper pistons out of the box!
mtb haven't cut any corners with their Advocate brake and this is evident all over the system from the impressive levers, braided hoses and hardware. For me though, this is most clearly the case when you look at their pistons.

In the past I have upgraded to pistons to replace the standard ones because there is a lot to gain from using an appropriate material, improved heat management designed in and with surface treatments that allow improved delivery of the pads to the rotor.

In this case, you can tell that Hel has a background in high performance braking systems because pistons like this are standard here. Of course you need to have a caliper body that is just as well engineered to ensure that the pistons performance isn't compromised as a result of flex, poor heat management and manufacturing tolerances, and this is another box ticked for Hel.

Still more to learn and more to test but in terms of build quality and engineering, these brakes are a step above most.

09/02/2026

Good data is about good preparation.

I usually take a couple of pretty well stocked trays of spare sensors and mounts, as well as a variety of nuts and bolts, strong double sided tapes and a huge amount of electrical tape and cable ties.

In the book, there is a chapter about being as prepared as possible regarding spares and consumables. Another chapter covers the testing protocols and structure of a day's testing that I've developed over time and the chapter on the equipment and sensors you need will depend on the goal of the testing. It's all well and good having a range of sensors and data channels, but if they're not installed properly or you don't have the correct methods to install them properly, then your data will be compromised. As with anything, getting the fundamentals right is the best first step you can make and the chapter on installation will mean you don't have to learn by making the same mistakes I did.

Data Driven Descents is getting closer and closer to being ready for a draft print which is really exciting. All being well, it will be released in March. Huge thanks to all the people who have placed preorders. It's blown my mind how many there have been. You can still preorder the book for the rest of February at the discounted price, if you haven't already.

04/02/2026

Steering dampers aren’t just down to “feel”… you can measure how effective they are. I have been running the .cc
CS.1 for around 15 months now and it's impressive.
Using frequency domain transfer analysis, we can easily see how effective the steering damper is at reducing vibrations from the front axle to the bars.

The result: ~17% reduction in vibration transfer from front axle to handlebars (0.5–500 Hz and up to ~23–27% reduction in key steering disturbance bands. This is exactly what you want from a steering damper. The transmissibility graph shows us how the steering damper has decoupled the front axle and the handlebars across the frequency range.

Less unwanted feedback = more stability, more grip, more confidence.

This isn't a sponsored post, I purchased my damper from Pademelon at full retail price, so this is a completely unbaised analysis.

31/01/2026

It's not a scientific test, and it's nothing new, but it is a proof of concept. Knowing an idea has been tried before shouldn't stop you from trying that idea yourself to understand it first hand.

Time to get some parts machined and actually do some proper testing.

If anyone knows of a good company to get parts machined, feel free to drop me a message.

30/01/2026

The Dorado rotor guard development is getting close to completion now. has been amazing at implementing changes and improvements to get this newest version ready for a test tomorrow.
Also another change to get some time on the .mtb brakes, and really starting to get to grips with them.
It's going to be a wet one at Forest of Dean tomorrow.

24/01/2026

Revisiting previous tests and analysing the data with new tools helps to either further prove the initial outcome or reveal other insights and/or outcomes that were previously not apparent.

In this case, using an expanded version of frequency domain transfer analysis to understand the effects of counter balancing wheels has been very interesting. The previous reports are then updated with revised analysis and outcomes based on the new findings.

New analysis tools applied to historic data can help to bring more value and deeper understanding to existing characteristics and the possible solutions to find further performance.

19/01/2026

I've put together a video on Patreon, which will be released on Wednesday, explaining how Frequency Domain Transfer Analysis can be used to understand how effective a lateral mass damper (LMD) is.

I have previously analysed it's contribution using accelerations in the time domain to show how, even on a gearbox bike, a lateral mass damper can reduce the amount of lateral movement at the BB/gearbox. This analysis also used FFT (frequency domain) to see how the amplitude of the frequencies is altered with a LMD. However, this new analysis shows the relationship between the rear axle (the excitation point) and the frame (the response point) and how the (LMD) can decouple the two, the energy distribution and the timing of the relationship.

I need to repeat this process on a non-gearbox bike(s) to see how the contribution differs, but also to understand how different the results may be on different bikes and with different rider inputs.

Link is in the bio.

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