Quarq ShockWiz - Installation, Setup, & Review [Video]

Overview

The ShockWiz is a suspension tuning tool created by Quarq (who is owned by Sram) and is made to help everyone dial in a better suspension setup. The ShockWiz attaches to your bike with some simple zip ties and monitors the rear shock’s or fork’s air pressure to give you recommendations to help tweak your setup. Connecting to a phone app and running off a small watch battery, everything about the ShockWiz has been made to be user-friendly.

Setup

Getting the ShockWiz set up is a rather simple process. A few zip ties to attach the ShockWiz unit to the fork or shock, a shock pump to inflate, and a smartphone with the ShockWiz app, and you are ready to ride. 

Connect your phone to the ShockWiz unit through the app, then proceed with the setup instructions. You will go through the calibration wizard and follow the given instructions. You will compress your suspension, extend it, and follow a few other steps to get rolling. Once set up, the ShockWiz will tell you to go out and ride! You can choose between different tuning styles including Playful, Balanced, Efficient, and Aggressive. I will explain these in a bit.

Performance and Riding Recommendations

To get the most accurate reading for the ShockWiz, it wants you to ride some pretty well-rounded trails. It will then give you a confidence reading, 100% meaning it has all the data it needs. Trying it in the parking lot, some stairs and gaps, I couldn't get over a 76% confidence score, which is not enough data to give full recommendations. I headed out on to a range of trails and checked it again about halfway through my ride, which was enough to get a 100% confidence score. Looking into the suggestions, detections, and statistics (pages at the bottom of the app), it’s pretty fun to see some of the scores. Some are for fun, like the jump count and average air time. The others that really help are on the suggestions and detections pages.

With my first rating of 92/100, I had some room to improve my setup. Having this on a short travel trail bike with a Fox DPS rear shock, there is only so much you can do to improve the setup, but I wanted to see how close I could get to having a perfect score. It showed a yellow rating on air pressure and recommended I add 5 PSI. The other bad reading I had was air spring ramp or volume spacers. The shock I was on already had the highest number of volume spacers installed, but the suggestions wanted me to add more. Again, only so much you can do on some shocks. I added some air and ended up closer to 10 PSI higher than my original pressure and kept riding. At this time, since I changed setup I needed to start a new session so I could get a new score. 

After adding air pressure and getting in more laps, I pulled out the phone and checked my new score. I improved from 92/100 to 97/100 just by adding some air pressure. My guess is that I would not able be to achieve a perfect score since I can’t add volume spacers. But a 97/100 is pretty darn good and my rebound, air pressure and LSC (the only adjustments I have on my shock), are all good according to the app.

I think the ShockWiz is not only really fun to play with, but incredibly useful if you have all of the adjustments on a shock like a Fox Float X2 or a Cane Creek.

Tuning Options

I want to explain the different tuning styles as they could be interpreted differently than what they really are.

• Efficient: Efficient is going to be focused on a pedaling style bike and work to reduce bobbing by creating a stiffer shock tune.

• Balanced: Balanced will be landing somewhere in the middle of traction, suppleness and pedaling efficiency. This is the most popular option. 

• Playful: Playful will be about the same as balanced but will have more “pop” or a fun feeling to the bike. It still maintains a balance between traction and pedaling efficiency.

• Aggressive: Aggressive is easy to get mixed up. This will be going for the plushest option, and getting users to use all the travel and give the bike a very DH feel. Not to be mixed up with aggressive riding, make sure you are using Aggressive when wanting to have a plush bike. 

Once you have ridden around enough and have a good confidence score, you can swap between the different tuning styles and the suggestions might change. This is a nice feature as you can see what might need to be adjusted if you wanted to go from Playful to Aggressive. Learning what these changes make it possible to remember them for future rides without the ShockWiz.

Is the ShockWiz for You?

Who could benefit from using ShockWiz? Just about every mountain biker. Whether you don't know squat about suspension tuning or you are a nerd, it could always help. I think riders with shocks that offer an HSC/LSC and HSR/LSR adjustment will believe the ShockWiz is one of the best tools for getting the best ride. With how many settings there are to adjust it's easy to get those shocks and forks really, really wrong! Could you get a shock dialed without it? Of course, but many bikes are now coming with highly tunable suspension like the Fox Float X2 and Fox 36 Grip2. And if you have the kind of suspension that requires some attention, having a dialed setup is an easy way to get faster than your buddies.