Energy Return Curves: The Impact Math Your Setup Never Shows
You've done everything right. New dampers, fresh bushings, maybe even a carbon-fiber bracket to hold your GPS. Yet the handlebars still buzz at 55 mph, and that pothole two blocks from your house still feels like a kick from a mule. You start to wonder if the problem is you. It's not. The problem is that your setup is tuned to stiffness, not to energy. Every impact sends a pulse of energy through your frame, seat, and hands. How much of that pulse your system swallows—and how much it spits back at you—is governed by something called the energy return curve. Most riders never see it. Most engineers only glance at it. That's a shame, because it's the single most useful graph for understanding impact absorption.