What is leverage ratio on a bike?

It is how many millimeters the rear wheel moves for every millimeter the shock compresses. If the wheel drops 3 mm and the shock 1 mm, the leverage ratio is 3:1. It is not a fixed number: it changes through the travel, and that shape is what decides how the bike feels.

Why does my bike bob when I pedal hard?

Because of low anti-squat. Anti-squat is how much the design resists the suspension compressing while pedaling. If it is low, the bike bobs (pedal bob); if it is high, it stays firm but pedal kickback can appear on bumps.

Are DW-link, VPP and Maestro the same?

No. All three use two short links, but VPP makes them counter-rotate (turn in opposite directions) while DW-link and Maestro co-rotate (same direction). That difference changes anti-squat, axle path and how each bike pedals. They are not interchangeable.

Pillar guide · Suspension kinematics

How your bike's suspension works, explained simply

In one sentence

Suspension doesn't exist to make you "comfortable": it exists to keep the wheel pressed to the ground. Everything else — leverage ratio, anti-squat, axle path, the odd names like VPP or DW-link — are just different ways to achieve that one thing. Here it is from scratch, in order, no marketing.

You'll leave this page understanding why your bike feels the way it does — and why your friend's, with the same travel, feels completely different. We start with the simplest idea and build up step by step. No prior knowledge needed.

First: what is suspension actually for?

Picture running and hitting a hole in the ground. If your leg stays rigid, you trip. If your knee bends in time, your foot stays on the ground and you keep running without losing a step.

That's exactly what your suspension does: it lets the wheel rise and fall following the terrain while you and the bike carry on in a straight line. A wheel pressed to the ground is a wheel with grip — to brake, to turn, to put down power. When the wheel skips and lifts off, you lose control. That's the real mission. Everything below is the engineering toolkit to do it better.

The mother concept

Leverage ratio: the lever between your wheel and the shock

Why does a long wrench loosen a bolt your bare hand can't? Leverage. The longer the arm, the more your force is multiplied.

Your rear wheel and the shock are joined by a system of bars that does exactly that: it multiplies. The leverage ratio answers a simple question: how many millimeters does the wheel move for every millimeter the shock compresses? If the wheel drops 3 mm and the shock 1 mm, that's a leverage ratio of 3:1.

Leverage ratio explained as a lever: the wheel travels 3 mm while the shock compresses 1 mm — Leverage ratio 3:1 — the wheel moves a lot, the shock little.

Why should you care on the trail? A high number makes the suspension feel softer and more sensitive, but it demands more air pressure or a stiffer spring to hold you up. And here's what almost nobody tells you: that number isn't fixed. It changes through the travel. And the shape of how it changes — not the average — is what really decides how your bike feels.

→ Go deeper: what leverage ratio is and how it's measured The shape of the curve

Progressive, linear or regressive: the suspension's "personality"

If we plot the leverage ratio through the travel, we get a curve. And that curve has personality:

The four leverage ratio curve types: linear, progressive, regressive and mixed — The four curve shapes. Which one your frame has decides whether it wants air or coil.

Progressive = starts soft and firms up at the end (harder to bottom out). Linear = equally firm throughout. Regressive = softens at the end (rare, prone to bottoming). A progressive frame is the one that takes a coil well; a linear one wants air, which is progressive on its own.

That's why two bikes with the same travel and even the same average leverage ratio can feel opposite: what rules is the shape of the curve, not the average.

→ Go deeper: the progressivity curve What happens when you pedal

Anti-squat: why your bike "bobs" (or not) when you pedal hard

Noticed how some bikes rock up and down when you pedal hard seated, and others stay firm? That's not the shock. It's geometry.

When you pedal, two things happen: your weight shifts back (tends to compress the suspension) and the chain pulls on the swingarm. Anti-squat measures how much those forces cancel out. At 100% the suspension stays still while pedaling; below that, it sinks and "bobs" (that's pedal bob); above, it even extends. High anti-squat makes you efficient climbing — but, as you'll see, it has a price.

→ Go deeper: what anti-squat is What happens when you brake

Anti-rise: why the rear "firms up" under braking

Anti-squat's cousin, but for braking. When you grab the rear brake, your weight goes forward and the rear tends to extend. Anti-rise measures how much the design counters that. Lots of anti-rise = the bike stays planted and stable, but the suspension gets less sensitive right when you're hitting bumps. Little = more active, but the geometry moves more. It's a balance, not a "better."

→ Go deeper: what anti-rise is Where the wheel travels

Axle path, chain growth and pedal kickback: the connected trio

When the wheel hits a root, do you want it to go up (into the hit) or back-and-up (dodging it)? That's where axle path comes in.

The axle path is the route the wheel traces as it compresses. If it goes rearward, it swallows square-edge hits far better — that's why high-pivot bikes "float." But that rearward path moves the wheel away from the bottom bracket and stretches the chain (chain growth), which in turn tugs the pedals backward: that's pedal kickback. That's why high-pivots run an idler pulley: so the chain doesn't kick your feet. All three concepts are the same phenomenon seen from three angles.

→ Go deeper: axle path → chain growth and pedal kickback Why there are so many names

The systems: single pivot, Horst, VPP, DW-link, Maestro, high-pivot…

All those names are different ways of joining the wheel to the frame to get the leverage ratio, anti-squat and axle path the engineer wants. They're not empty marketing: they really change how the bike behaves.

The most repeated mistake online is saying "DW-link, VPP and Maestro are the same." They're not: VPP uses two links that rotate in opposite directions; DW-link and Maestro, in the same direction. That single difference changes anti-squat and axle path. Here we separate them one by one, with what each does well and badly.

Start with the simplest and climb: single pivot → Horst Link / 4-bar → DW-link → VPP → Maestro → high-pivot + idler.

→ The comparison almost nobody gets right: DW-link vs VPP vs Maestro And in practice

How it all connects to setup

All this kinematics is the skeleton of the bike: it comes from the factory and you don't change it. What you do adjust — pressure, SAG, tokens, rebound — works on top of that skeleton. That's why the same shock feels different on two frames: the frame sets the base curve, the shock fine-tunes it. If you want to go from "understanding" to "tuning," that's the next step. And since that same kinematics moves your geometry while you ride —sag and braking change your angles live—, it connects directly with dynamic geometry in the geometry cluster.

→ All suspension setup, troubleshooting and compatibility

Lost, or want to apply it to YOUR bike?

Tell us your model and the feel you're after, and we'll explain its kinematics and how to get the most out of it. Message us on WhatsApp

© 2026 BikeLab Studio. Content under CC BY 4.0: you may copy, translate and publish it, even for commercial purposes. Citation is mandatory. Without attribution, the license terminates automatically (CC BY 4.0, §6.a) and the use becomes copyright infringement: we request the removal of the content and its deindexing. · Design and ownership: Carlos Ravello Joo

BikeLab-pedia · Suspension cluster / Suspension kinematics explained / Carlos Eduardo Ravello Joo · BikeLab Studio · Trujillo, Peru