We have a lot of products in the pipeline. We are always looking at the market, but we also have our own ideas for the suspension of the future; not only dirtbikes but also road bikes. This is parallel to the products that we produce for our OEM customers. On the off-road side, KTM is, of course, our biggest customer, and we must follow our customers’ needs and requests. We are also an OEM supplier for Sherco. On the street side it’s a little bit different: There we do more of our own development and try to reach new customers with products that we have developed. It’s fantastic to be involved in al kinds of motorsports. Of course, it’s not really our group doing the racing, but we are a family and are very proud of what has been achieved in MotoGP, Moto2, Moto3, rally and enduro, supercross and motocross both in the U.S. and in the world championship. It’s amazing to be able to win everywhere! At the moment, the air shock is being run by Andrew Short in supercross and motocross in the U.S. It is a development project that has been going on for a few years now, and we are looking for opportunities to make it an OEM product someday. Space is an issue: If you could create the air shock together with the motorcycle, it would be easier than to try to make it fit in an existing space. It’s really tight with the engine, the pipe, and the swingarm. 
Air forks offer less weight, which is a benefit everyone is looking for. The overall bike weight is always an issue, but there is also less unsprung weight. Still, we continue to offer coil-spring forks. The decision to use them is made by our customers, and we follow that request. It’s not just a question of function; price is also an issue. Air forks are cheaper to produce, but not by much. I think the Schrader valve on top costs the same as a spring! I think the main benefit of our air fork is it is the easiest for the customer to understand and to work on. He doesn’t have to adjust three different pressures like on the new Showa air fork. That’s okay for factory suspension, but not for the standard bike. We think most people would get screwed up! I think on a road bike, like a big tourer, an air fork and shock would be very easy to do because there would be space for a compressor. It’s always tricky for a manufacturer to go with a new product across the entire range. So they could decide to use it only on some models, or in the case of KTM and Husqvarna, on one brand. We don’t only work on off-road bikes with KTM. We do enduros [dual-sports], literbikes, 85s, 65s, electric bikes… we do our best to follow the request of the customer. There is not much difference between on-road and off-road suspension. The shock is very similar, and the fork is mainly different in that you need more travel off-road. We do have some different types of shocks. We have through-rod shocks [similar to steering dampers] for on-road use now. The benefit is you have less oil displacement because the volume is always the same, thus the reaction is a little more precise. 
Off-road bikes are more or less the same. They use the same tires, brakes, etc. On the street side, the bikes are quite different because you have touring bikes, sportbikes, naked bikes, etc. There is much more variation in the product. It’s one product for each bike model instead of one product adapted to several different bikes in several different displacements. Everything goes around in a circle. You make a fork or shock work for a bike, and then the manufacturer changes the frame and it doesn’t work anymore. Especially for fork flex, the front axle, triple clamps and the fork itself work in conjunction with the bike. If you take one combination and put it on another bike, it’s not necessarily going to work. It is something we work on with the customer, because the torsional flex of the frame has a lot to do with it. The engine mounts, the welding on the frame, the head stay—all of these things have an influence. KTM has tested aluminum frames, but the main reason we continue to use steel frames is KTM—actually the owner of KTM—has decided that we don’t want to follow anyone else. We make our own design and believe that we can do what we need to do. In Moto3, we are the only ones in 15 to 20 years using a steel frame in the Grands Prix. Also, manufacturing and tubing costs are lower, and we are very flexible—we can change torsional flex, lateral flex, etc. from one race to another without having to machine new pieces. Steel and aluminum are pretty equal, if you design it the right way. The construction is different, of course, but the outcome is the same. You have the small benefit with a steel frame that you can make it a little bit “softer” [more flexible] than an aluminum frame and still have the same strength. With aluminum, too much flex would cause cracking. Also, it’s easier to make an enduro [dual-sport] bike with a steel frame because you have more room for a bigger gas tank and all the electric components you need for it to be street-legal. 
We have semi-active suspension now and are developing fully active suspension. That’s suspension that reacts in real time. There are sensors on the bike for acceleration, stroke, and so on, and these are connected to an ECU, which sends electrical current to solenoids in the fork and the shock to optimize their behavior for acceleration, braking, jumps, etc. The software is OEM; we do only the suspension. It is a completely different kind of valve; it is not a piston with a shim stack but a kind of pressure-relief valve. And you have a very wide range of adjustability—10 times what you have with a traditional shock. The technology will be introduced on road bikes first, but the potential for off-road bikes is huge, and we will maybe see it in a few years. Active suspension is forbidden in racing at the moment, due to cost. With air forks, you need a guy with a pump, but with active suspension you need a guy with a computer! Each team would need a suspension specialist who is also a software specialist. The factory teams with a lot of money could afford these guys, of course, but the private teams with not so big a budget would have no chance. You cannot run a race with just six factory bikes! There have been many ideas and patents and prototypes over the years, and except for BMW’s systems [Duolever and Telelever], none have made it into production. It’s a matter of manufacturing costs: It’s impossible to make a single-leg fork or some such thing for the same price as a conventional fork. It’s way less hassle for the bike manufacturers, too. All these nice Bimota ideas or whatever will never reach mass production. A few hundred bikes, okay, but not more. 
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