Quarq Shockwiz Suspension Tuner: Rider Review

Our "Rider Review" article series features honest reviews from verified purchasers of Worldwide Cyclery. They contain the photos, thoughts, feedback & overall review you are looking for. 

Suspension tuning is easier than ever and probably the most important thing you can do to have a good feeling bike, no matter how much your bike costs. If it has air suspension then you could benefit from dialing in your shocks to your personal riding style, straight from your phone. That is what the Quarq Shockwiz does. Our friend Nicholas recently tried it out. Let's see what he has to say:

Nicholas' Review

This was a Christmas gift given to me by my wife because I am is always tinkering with my bikes and a total data nerd.

I had my eye on one of these for a while now in the age of highly tunable suspension setups to really dial in the feel I was looking for. My current setup is a (recently acquired) Cane Creek Helm which has a tremendous about of customizability and this came at the perfect time to really dial it in. I will break down my review into two sections; Ease of Setup, and Use.

Ease of Setup:

Following pictures and securing the ShockWiz to the fork was a breeze, as was finding the App and syncing the device to my phone. Doing the initial setup in the app is where things start to get interesting. You will be asked to deflate your fork and then cycle it several times, then inflate your fork and cycle it again. This is not a particularly hard step EXCEPT on my fork (Cane Creek Helm) as you have to manually reset the negative air chamber, a feature not present on Rockshox or Fox. I still didn’t find this added more than a few minutes, but something to be aware of. After you have completed these steps you are ready to hit the trails!

Use:

For the most part, this is a set it and forget it until you want to begin using the insights. As long as it is hooked up it is passively learning from your riding. My only advice is to not just try to get the confidence to 100% on just 1 trail system. I opted to wait much longer so I could take my bike on a variety of trails and features to get the best recommendations I could. I found by being able to set it to my riding style “Firm” and “Grounded” I was really able to dial in the exact performance I was looking for, which can honestly be quiet overwhelming with 7 different variables to adjust. It took me about 2 weeks of riding local trails to get it 95% of the way there and then the last little bit was just adjusting my high and low-speed compression based on the trail I was riding (which after doing all this tuning I had a better feel for.)

I also think its important to call out reusability for this. You are looking at a $300+ piece of kit that in theory, you will only need to use twice (once for the fork and once for the shock). If you are fortunate enough to own multiple bikes or like to change bikes/components all this time, obviously your mileage will go further. When I got this all my friends were super excited because it meant our whole group had one, and it’s not hard to recoup the cost of the Quarq ShockWiz in 6-packs in exchange for loaning it out to your ride buddies.

Final Verdict:

"Overall, I would rate it a 4.5/5. Setup is a cinch, the recommendations are easy to understand, and I personally learned a lot more about how the entire suspension design worked together to have a better clue what I needed to change for the ride qualities I was looking for." - Nicholas