Front end grip

Maro

Got myself a shiney new bike and have been playing with settings to get her riding nice. I'm very happy with how it rides except I've lost confidence mostly in flat corners where it tends to drift out, On steeper stuff it's grips well, I'm not sure whether to fiddle with the forks or tyre pressures, it's my first experience with tubeless and I've not dealt with so much travel before either.

Forks are RS Pike 160mm, about 20% sag and 2 bottomless tokens (as they were blowing through on smaller stuff), tyre is Maxxis Minion DHF, currently about 25 psi.

jimothy78

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19632557#p19632557]Maro[/url] wrote:

Got myself a shiney new bike and have been playing with settings to get her riding nice. I'm very happy with how it rides except I've lost confidence mostly in flat corners where it tends to drift out, On steeper stuff it's grips well, I'm not sure whether to fiddle with the forks or tyre pressures, it's my first experience with tubeless and I've not dealt with so much travel before either.

Forks are RS Pike 160mm, about 20% sag and 2 bottomless tokens (as they were blowing through on smaller stuff), tyre is Maxxis Minion DHF, currently about 25 psi.

Have you considered your position on the bike? A new bike with modern slack geometry and so much travel may well put your weight much further back, relative to the front wheel, than you're used to. As a result, you might need to shift your weight forwards to get the levels of front grip that you'd like. Before you tinker with anything on the bike, make a conscious effort to drop your shoulders and weight the front end more, and see how you get on.

rockmonkeysc

There are loads of possibilities. Could be your rebound settings too fast or too slow. Could be too much compression damping. Could be not enough sag (25-30% would be about right). Could be the bottomless tokens causing the fork to ramp up toouch. Could be bars too high, try removing spacers. Could be the stem is too long or too short. Or it could be your riding style needs to change.

Herdwick

I had the same problem with my bike and after fidling with every adjustment around the front end the issue was sort out when I changed my posture, slack head angles and long front ends need more forward attack posture.

Maro

Of course, it could well be any of the reasons mentioned. I did try to weight the front a bit more than before but then I may well have forgotten at times, I will continue without fettling for now and be mindful of my posture/positioning.

Thanks fellas.

rockmonkeysc

Try dropping bar height by removing spacers. It won't cost anything and takes five minutes.

Maro

Thanks for the advise, I dropped the stem by swapping spacers around. She was handling well around tight, slow local trails and like an absolute beaut at Black Mountains Cycle Centre yesterday which is well worth a visit.

rockmonkeysc

Black Mountain is awesome. The blue is a bit odd but the reds and blacks are brilliant.

Maro

Funny you should say that, we did a couple of reds/blacks at the top but spent most of our time there trying to clean the blue. It's only 20mins away so will be visiting lots now that I have a trail bike.

rockmonkeysc

Clean the blue? It's just single track with nothing technical and not particularly dirty.
Watch out for the bridge in the wet, it's lethal. I went down it sideways once! The step down jumps after it are fun though but seem open to the wind.

Maro

True, it's not technical, but I would nail one section and end up a bit too hot for the next or a touch slow somewhere and take too long to get it together. Also fiddling with rear shock, it was a bit too lively at times.