RockShox Super Deluxe Ultimate Coil Review

This is RockShox’s brand new Super Deluxe Ultimate Coil, and today, we will be telling you about three features this shock has that no other coil shock on the market can match.

With every generation of new products, manufacturers like RockShox try to cram as much innovation as they can into their fresh product line, and the Super Deluxe Ultimate Coil is no different. RockShox has completely redesigned the chassis and damper - the all new RC2T damper.

This damper has a rebound knob with 20 clicks, low and high speed compression knobs with 5 clicks, a brand new Hydraulic Bottom Out adjuster with 5 clicks, and to top it all off, a lockout lever that gives a rock solid climbing platform. It comes in a whole bunch of sizes to fit on pretty much any trail, enduro, or downhill bike, and you can choose between a stealth black coil or a classic RockShox red coil.

I’ve been riding the heck out of this shock for a few months now
and I’ve been seriously impressed.

Just like other high end coil shocks, the Super Deluxe Ultimate Coil is crazy sensitive and gives you that ground hugging feel, but that’s actually not why we’re here. There are three specific features of this shock that really set it apart from the competition, and that first feature is the adjustable Hydraulic Bottom Out control.

Coil shocks are inherently linear, so it’s going to be easier to use all of your travel, when compared to an air shock. A linear leverage rate means it takes the exact same amount of force to compress this shock the entire way through the travel, and most coil shocks have a little rubber bump stop at the end of the stroke to absorb the impact of bottoming out. The Super Deluxe Coil has that same rubber bottom out bumper, but it also has an adjustable Hydraulic Bottom Out, or HBO for short.

When you enter that last 20% of your travel, a stanchion inside of your stanchion (WHAT?!!?) enters the HBO chamber, and it pushes oil into the piggyback of the shock. With a little purple 3mm adjuster, you’re able to control how quickly the oil can rush into the piggyback, and adjust your end stroke ramp up. Less oil flow means more bottom out resistance, and keeping you from clanging off the bottom on those big sends. Now, when you send it into the next zip code you’ll have a comfy hydraulic pillow waiting for you at the bottom of your stroke.

What does this feel like on the trail? Well anticlimactically, not much! But that’s a good thing, because every time you would feel that clang of the bottom out, you just don’t! You won’t feel like you’re running out of travel because it happens in such a controlled manner.

I’ve been running this shock on my Transition Spire, which has 23% progression in its leverage curve, and we don’t want to get too into the weeds about which bikes coil shocks work best on, but I usually prefer running coil shocks on bikes with about 25% or more progression. With the stock link, I ran my HBO in the +2 setting, right in the middle, giving the shock a nicely supported end stroke. This was super comfortable for normal trail riding here in Bellingham, but I spent a day riding up in the Whistler Bike Park and after feeling more bottom-out than I’d like, I gave it another click to take the edge off of those bigger compressions Whistler is known for.

Setting up your HBO is a little different to other suspension settings, because you’ll know it’s dialed in when you don't even notice it. If you’re running too much HBO, it’ll feel like you’re bottoming out before you run out of travel. If you aren’t running enough HBO, you’ll actually run out of travel and feel that bottom out. Once you find that goldilocks setting right in the middle, you’ll get that bottomless feeling of just kissing the rubber bump stop before rebounding back.

I’ve also been playing around with this Cascade Link, which slightly changes the rear suspension characteristics of this bike, and increases the progression of the leverage ratio to 28%. With the aftermarket link I ran the HBO in the +1 setting and let the kinematics of the linkage do more of the heavy lifting when it comes to the end stroke.

HBO opens up the compatibility of coil shocks to a wider range of bikes with less progression in their leverage ratios, and I would personally run this shock on any frame with at least 20% progression. Does this mean you can’t run this shock on a frame with less progression than that? Definitely not! It comes down to personal preference and I just prefer a more progressive rear end, I know plenty of people who ride coil shocks on bikes with fairly linear leverage curves with no issue, and this shock also works on bikes with even more progression than this Spire. When the HBO is fully open, there’s still a bit of added compression in the last 20% of the stroke, but it’s very similar to any other normal coil shock end stroke, and definitely more linear than any air shock.

When you run a coil shock on a more linear bike, you often have to increase your spring rate and run less sag than recommended to keep from bottoming out too often, and for these bikes, HBO is a huge game changer. Running too stiff of a coil defeats the purpose of a coil shock because you’re losing out on that super supple initial stroke that we love coil shocks for. With HBO, you can run the right spring weight for your bike and weight without having to compromise on end stroke performance.

Now let’s move onto reason number two why I love this shock and that’s how dang simple it is to tune this new RC2T damper.

I know it’s easy to get lost in the clicks when you’re setting up your fancy suspension, but RockShox is putting an end to that. By cutting down on the total number of clicks and being able to see how many clicks you have at a glance, setting up this suspension is pretty dang straightforward.

All of your compression and HBO adjusters only have 5 possible settings, way less than other high-end suspension products. With so few clicks, it’s easy to assume that you won’t have the range of adjustability to tune your suspension to be buttery smooth, but just like your friend who thinks the gap between his knee pads and shorts is sick, you’d be wrong. RockShox has struck a balance between having a wide range of adjustability and a usable number of clicks. When you take your new shock out of the box, you’ll find the adjusters set in the middle of their range.

You don’t have to go two or three clicks to feel something anymore, and now every single click is going to have an impact on how your shock performs. RockShox has also claimed to have eliminated what they call “CrossTalk” from your high and low speed compression by moving them farther away from each other in the compression circuit. By keeping them physically separated from each other, adjusting one won’t influence the other. This definitely helps with tuning because once you’ve found how much low speed compression you like, adjusting your high speed compression won’t mess that up!

Once I found the right spring rate, I was able to set the Super Deluxe Coil up on the very first ride, which I’ve never been able to do with another shock. Even with all the compression and rebound adjusters set to the middle setting, the suspension felt great right out of the box, and only required some really quick bracketing to fully dial it in. I ended up at +1 click of LSC and HSC, and rebound 14 clicks from closed to get this shock feeling dialed in.

This gave me a great balance of that supple ground hugging traction we expect from coil shocks, as well as some playfulness to keep things interesting. The level of composure the Super Deluxe Coil delivers through chattery sections like braking bumps or webs of roots is very impressive. This shock felt pretty indifferent to whatever I threw at it, whether that was pulling for ambitious doubles or death gripping through chunky impacts, and I ended up running a faster rebound than I’d usually opt for. It made my rear end feel happier to take repeated impacts and also have a little spring in its step when popping off little trail features.

Another little feature that just makes so much sense on the RC2T Damper is the little ticks etched on the outside of your adjusters to tell you where you are in your compression or HBO circuits. You can just look down and see exactly how many clicks you’re running without having to get out the multi-tool and count clicks. If this shock wasn’t incredibly straightforward to set up, I would be more excited about this feature, but I just don’t feel the need to turn knobs that often with this shock.

RockShox also offers bike specific tunes for their new shocks! This means that just like those super fancy boutique shocks you see on those crazy dream builds, your Super Deluxe Coil can be tuned specifically for the bike that you install it on to get the absolute most performance out of your shock. Custom tuning is going to be most important for riders whose weight is farther out on either end of the spectrum, under 140 lbs or over 210 lbs, or for a very particular and experienced rider who can feel the shortcomings of their current shock tune.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a job for most home mechanics, because the shock requires a full tear down to get access to the shim stack. At the time of filming this, the custom tuning program is still in its infancy, and it’s been a little tough to get our hands on the parts we need to build these precise shim stacks, and we’re hoping that RockShox develops this further in the future. In previous generations of their rear shocks, RockShox has sold shocks for specific bikes that already have the ideal tune for that rear suspension, so they might bring this back in the future, but it’s hard to say!

The third and final reason why we’re huge fans of this shock is pretty simple, and that’s the value of it!

At $549 for the Ultimate spec, there aren’t any other shocks at this price point that offer this level of customization, performance, and reliability you can expect from the Super Deluxe Coil.

Between the custom tuning, hydraulic bottom out adjuster, and flat out impressive traction this shock gives you, this has quickly become my favorite coil shock on the market. No other coil shock has all of these features, and the ones that come close are almost twice as expensive!

This shock would be a perfect fit on any bike where you’re looking for ultimate traction. Whether you’re a racer and trying to squeeze out every last millisecond or you’re a weekend warrior who appreciates getting the most performance you can out of your shiny two wheeled machine. Even if you love climbing as much as you love descending, this is the coil shock to buy. With the extra traction of a coil shock, it’s been easier to clean those technical moves where spinning the rear tire costs you a dab, and the climb switch gives you a surprisingly solid climbing platform that seriously does not bob at all when you’re pedaling, perfect for those long fire roads.

Ok, we’ve been tooting this shock’s horn for a bit now, is there anything we didn’t like about this shock? Well, we really wish that RockShox offered their coil springs in 25 pound increments. With the 50 pound jumps between spring weights, it’s super common to be caught inbetween them and have to compromise. You’ll notice I’ve been running a Sprindex on this shock, and that’s just because it’s the only way to get the spring rate I need on my Spire.

Got questions? Feel free to shoot us an email or give us a call!

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