A “rebel shock” built by one of Cane Creek’s coil fanatics. The new DBcoil [IL] is a pleasingly obscure creation that it sure to delight the anti-air brigade.

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The catchily named DBcoil [IL] rear shock probably shouldn’t exist. In a world of weight saving and ever-improving air shocks it takes something of special kind of company to come out with a coil shock specifically intended for shorter-to-mid travel bikes.

Who is it for?

But there will always be coil shock fans. Folk who will delight in regaling you again and again of the unrivalled “off the top” suppleness of coil shocks and the troubles of heat dissipation on air shocks.

On another note, the inline nature of the DBcoil [IL] will also be of interest to riders with frames that cannot fit a piggyback external reservoir-ed shock.

>>> How to set up a Cane Creek rear shock

The audience for the DBcoil [IL] initially appears rather narrow but there may well be a surprising amount of riders out there who want the performance of piggyback coil shock in a lighter, sleeker package.

Rebel with a coil-over cause

One such coil merchant is Cane Creek’s Brandon Blakely. The DBcoil [IL] is all his fault pretty much.

According to Cane Creek’s marketing department’s PR folklore, Blakely stayed late after work a few times and cobbled together a protoype of what has become the DBcoil [IL].

The plans for such a shock had been mooted in meetings before but had always been put on the back burner and dismissed as a project deemed not worth pursuing.

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Anyhoo, Blakely’s after-hours coil shock baby turned out to ride really nicely. So Cane Creek made some proper ones. Well, first of all they made a few official prototypes and sent them out to their usual test squadron. Favourable reports came back and… here we are.

DBcoil [IL]

The DBcoil [IL] will still sport the features that makes Cane Creek’s shocks so in-demand. Namely, the Twin Tube design with constantly circulating oil flow, the four-way independent damping adjustment, the Climbing Switch that simultaneously adjusts low speed compression and low speed rebound.

You’ll also be able use Cane Creek’s handy new DIALED smartphone app for helping you set up the DBcoil [IL] on whichever bike you want to slap it into.

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New VALT spring

In conjunction with this announcement of the DBcoil [IL] Cane Creek have also revealed details of a new type of coil spring.

The new VALT coil is made from “high performance steel”. Less material is used, so it’s lighter.

How much lighter depends a lot on what spec shock it’s going on. On a 2.00 x 500 spring the weight saving is only 12.5g. On a 3.00 x 350 coil you can save 211g.

>>> Cane Creek DBInline Shock review