All Things Bikes and Tacos! (...and every vehicle imaginable)

I'm sure there's gonna be a battle for that thing! Good luck.

 

Adventure ride yesterday..

Friend: "I think there's a trail here."
Me after bushwhacking down a near vertical hillside of dense vegetation for 10 mins: "Nope ain't seeing it.."



What we just came down.

 

Got 1200 feet and 7 miles in on a backcountry type trail. unmaintained. very raw type riding. On my way home I'm like, I want jumps. So I head over to the little bike park and do another 3.5-4 miles and 400 ish feet of vert. Getting ready. I'll have no gauge of how my legs are until I ride with people I'd ride with last summer too.



Rolling over pine needles and pinecones definitely supplies the dopamine

Trailhead/OHV area started super close to town which is great. Started 15 min drive from campus

 

Looks a lot like the foothills riding in Bozeman, MT.

 

anyone have a ss cog available? preferably good brand. bonus if it has a lock ring..

 

Who has experience on the newer Zeb Ultimate A2 and Fox 38, or other enduro fork?

I am still struggling to dial in the Zeb and after reading more seems that it might be that I don't go hard enough for the fork haha. The damping is just too harsh to the point that my hands hurt and arm pump is noticeable after a 4-5 hour enduro ride. That is why I am planning on swapping to carbon bars but now I am wondering if I should try a different fork.

Not that I am looking for super plush but I don't feel like the fork and rear suspension on the spire match for me. The rear is plush, pretty much perfect. The front, I'm leaving 1-1.5" of travel on the table, even at 68psi when the recommendation is high 70s-low 80s for my weight. Compression wide open and rebound fairly slow, almost closed. Compared to my pike ultimate it feels almost like its a rigid fork haha.

I guess on the flip side, brake dive is almost non-existent, at least to the point that it isn't a concern. It does track fairly well too so I guess it's not so harsh that I am bouncing around.

I'm planning on doing a lower service to see if that will help.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Anyone need /have use for an older Rockshox recon? 120mm. Was gonna consign it cheap locally but in case someone needed it for a kids bike or put on a bike to pull your nice fork thought I’d check here. 29 or 27.5+. Was on an xl so decent steerer

 

hmm. go the latest zeb ultimate. there are random times where it feels a bit stiff but i've gotten so used to it. lol. i think i prefer it that way though. :/ couldn't tell yah. maybe the damper needs work?

 

Lower service couldn't hurt, could be grease clogging some passages. 4-5 hours on a bike is a fair amount of time too.

My GF loves her Zeb and a bunch of my friends went from 38 to ZEB in the last year.

Id fart around with the pressures, maybe see what sag you are at with the "recommended" pressures.

 

If you haven’t cracked open the fork at all definitely do a lower service. All forks are known for inconsistency in assembly grease and oils inside. They’re built on an assembly line.

 

I have an old RockShox rebuild kit for 30mm stanchions if anyone needs it.

 

What pressure are you running? Is it at or near the “recommended” pressure?

I find that for most air forks, it’s better to run more air pressure, less tokens and less HSC. Provides the same amount of mid and bottom support but allows the fork to move a little more freely during the sharp hits. It really only scarifices small bump compliance but as my buddy says “it’s mountain biking, it’s bumpy yo”

RS recommends 65psi for me and I run 73-75 psi.

 

I think it's the latest Zeb, maybe I will get used to it. It could just be that I swap back and forth between bikes a decent amount so I notice it more. I am tempted to get it tuned if it's possible haha.

I've been playing with pressures and am like 10psi lower. I got it closer to 1" unused which I guess isn't terrible since I haven't ridden it on any big drops.

At this point I haven't even looked at sag since I can't get it to feel good at any pressure haha.

I'm thinking I'm gonna try to do this today. We will see if I get a chance to.

I'm pretty far below recommended at this point. I checked the tokens and it has 1 in it right now which is stock. I might try taking one out if the service doesn't do anything. I just don't think it's a token issue since it is stiff throughout the travel.

Thanks for the ideas guys!

 

huh. stiff through the entire travel sounds like a service mgiht be in order.

 

Sounds to me like the classic mistake of letting air out because it's harsh. If you run too little air the fork sags into the ramp up of higher spring rate which is going to feel harsher.

Remove any volume spacers if you have any in there. Pump that shiz up to whatever you need to get 15-20% sag. You're probably going to want to open the rebound more as well. If it's packing up because you're running super slow rebound it's also going to feel like trash.

 

I know nothing about getting suspension setup “the right way” but when it feels harsh to me I usually take away a few clicks of compression as my first step then go to volume spacers. Eventually it works for me. I’m a set it and forget it person. So during bike park season even if I wanna go pedal 20 miles it’ll still be set for bike park and I just deal with it and don’t complain

 

On another note, I've had my Spur for almost one month and am even in miles with my SJ Evo I've had for a year and in a couple rides i'll have surpassed the miles I had my on Chameleon (that I had for a year). I'm sure theres plenty of unrelated reasons for it; but I truly love riding this bike.

 

I’ve pedaled more miles on my Firebird in a month than I did on my Rallon all of ‘23. It’s a good feeling to have a bike that helps you really want to get out and ride just a little extra

 

I did a 50 hour service so we will see haha. The foam rings were surprisingly dirty so it probably was time even though I don’t think I’ve hit 50 hours on this bike.

I did a service and set the pressure back to recommended so we will see how it is tomorrow. I’ll probably play with rebound too if I get a chance to shuttle a bit.

 

I got a Fox Factory on a new bike once and hated it until I took it apart and found they had put all the oil for the lower in the air chamber. Worked much better after correcting that.