Smith charging hard at Crankworx - Photo: Sean St Dennis

Last week Steve Smith stepped it up big time and took the win at Leogang as well as the overall Elite Men’s title for 2013. SRAM sent through a little detail about his BoXXer though an official channel and we’re curious to see if the Charger damper makes it into the next iteration of the BoXXer for consumers.

Going into the final round of the World Cup in Leogang, Austria, all eyes were on Steve Smith (Devinci Global Racing) who was on a roll with his victories at the Mt. Saint Anne and Hafjell World Cup rounds. Never off the podium this year, Smith was a mere 17 points behind the overall leader Gee Atherton. With 250 points at stake in the final round, Steve Smith knew there was only one way to succeed in grasping the overall World Cup title: win the day. He went on to dominate both the qualifications and finals, securing an iconic World Cup championship title that will have a place in mountain bike racing’s history forever.

Riding his Charger damper equipped BlackBox BoXXer, Smith demonstrated not only his speed and talent, but also proved himself as a truly consistent and clear-headed racer, capable of handling the tremendous pressure of a down to the wire season’s finale. – SRAM

You can see Smith has been riding the Charger damper for some time now as you can see the Charger damper in his BoXXer from Mont Sainte Anne in addition to a X01/XX1 style derailleur.

Steve Smith and His Charger Damper at Mont Sainte Anne (Photo: Sven Martin)

If you haven’t rode the Charger damper inside of the new RockShox Pike, you’re missing out. It’s one of the best RockShox fork’s we’ve rode and we’re excited to see it potentially become available in the BoXXer range.

Below you can watch some of the details on the Pike with Boobar from Sea Otter.

Video: 2014 Pike Features and Technical Overview

If you’ve curious how their new extruded expanding bladder and charger system works in the fork, you should watch the video above as well to learn more. As the fork compresses the extruded bladder expands (see picture below). They’ve designed a new damping package as well since its a cartridge based system.

Expanding Bladder system (static state on left, fork compressed state on right)

Bladder

RCT - Charger Damper

In addition to the damping changes, there is some potential weight savings as well on a Charger system in comparison to the current Mission Control DH setup. The Charger setup can be designed to use less oil compared to the current Mission Control DH setup.

Video: Bleeding the Charger Damper and Technical Internal Details

Smith's derailleur SRAM X01DH? (photo: Daniel Klose)

In addition to the Charger damper, another interesting tidbit on Smith’s bike is his short cage BlackBox/X01 derailleur on it. Color us excited at the idea of this as well. If you haven’t rode X01 (or XX1) the shifting is impressive, quiet, and is a system that we’d love to see available in short cage for Gravity riders (X01 DH anyone?).

Smith - Custom 7spd drivetrain (photo: Daniel Klose)

Time will tell what SRAM does for the next revision to the BoXXer but it’s clearly been working for Stevie and other BlackBox riders.