Full susp for £1k - £1.5k

tallpaul_s

I've got 32t front and the 11-46t cassette on mine, there are times when I want a lower gear, I've ridden SRAM eagle with 32t/50t and that lets you climb almost anything, can't see anyone needing anything lower than that.

kajjal

TallPaul_S wrote:

I've got 32t front and the 11-46t cassette on mine, there are times when I want a lower gear, I've ridden SRAM eagle with 32t/50t and that lets you climb almost anything, can't see anyone needing anything lower than that.

How durable do you find the cassettes are as they are very expensive to replace compared to cassettes with less range ?

tallpaul_s

I've only ridden eagle on demo bikes so can't really say about wear, I have SLX 11-46t on my bike.

apreading

My son rode a Bird Aeris 120 for the day around swinley. Within the first hour or so it started to skip a gear and this carried on for the rest of the ride so he just avoided the biggest rings and it was fine. When we got back to Bird we found that a tooth had snapped off. Bike wasnt that old so cant have had many people ride it. I have never had or seen a snapped tooth before so whether they are a bit fragile I dont know but that is an expensive thing to replace!

joebristol

Was that eagle with the missing tooth? Assume on the cassette? I keep looking at bikes with it on and wondering if the big cog would be nice at the back - then deciding gx 11 speed with the 10-42 and 30t does actually work just fine and it’s still reliable a year down the line. Cassettes are a lot cheaper too I think (and hope).

JGTR

I have Eagle, love it, been extremely reliable and durable. Haven’t touched it from day one.

I have NX 11 on my hardtail and the Eagle is worth the extra cost, for me anyway. I do anything from BPW, to the monster climbs at Afan to 50 mile XC rides on my FS.

tallpaul_s

Yeah eagle is awesome, I'm looking forward to Eagle eTAP coming out, just to know by how much I can't afford it of course

danlightbulb

Guys how tight should a maxle lite be? Ive read it says palm imprint is needed but thats not very specific, is it a light imprint or a heavy imprint with redness?

Ive not used these before. i used to do up the QR skewer as tight as i could.

Edit. It seems i have a maxle ultimate on the front, not a maxle lite. The rear looks like a maxle lite but the axle has formula written on it. i might put a maxle stealth on the rear as i wont need to remove the rear wheel much. Is this doable?

kirkymtb

I picked up a twig in my SRAM GX cassette a couple of weeks ago. It broke 2 teeth from the 5th gear. £85 to replace from CRC. List price is £115. I'd only recently changed the chain so will wait 'til the end of summer to put a new one on. The chainring looks OK.
I looked at a Voodoo full suss in Halfords yesterday for £1200. I could make do with that but would wait for them to do a 20% off week and get a new Boardman which retails at £1650 so £1320 with the 20% off.

jamski

danlightbulb wrote:

Guys how tight should a maxle lite be? Ive read it says palm imprint is needed but thats not very specific, is it a light imprint or a heavy imprint with redness?

Ive not used these before. i used to do up the QR skewer as tight as i could.

Edit. It seems i have a maxle ultimate on the front, not a maxle lite. The rear looks like a maxle lite but the axle has formula written on it. i might put a maxle stealth on the rear as i wont need to remove the rear wheel much. Is this doable?

It doesn’t need to be uber right, you’ll snap the lever. Just like any quick release, you know when it’s tight enough. And yeah, you should be able to put a stealth through the rear. I have one, looks neater. Got any grips or a saddle yet?

danlightbulb

Thanks. So just a standard maxle stealth off the shelf purchase for the rear?

Saddle is on route, as is spare mech hanger. Havent ordered grips yet im undecided on the bright yellow or just boring black lol.

danlightbulb

First proper ride today, Hopton Woods.

Very happy with the bike. It climbed well I think, hadn't rode back to back with my HT obviously but the rear felt planted on the technical climbs rather than skipping around and the fireroad climbs were ok too. Could tell the difference with using the rear lockout so glad I have this. I was mostly in the lowest gear but I got up them all. On my old HT I'd have been in granny gear probably just because it was available.

I couldn't really open the bike up on the descents because the trail was really badly overgrown. Around every corner I was getting slapped in the face by foliage.

I appeared to use approx 80% travel on the front and I would say 80-90% on the rear. I wouldn't say I hit anything particularly hard, so not sure whether I should make either front or back a bit more progressive at this stage. Probably need more riding to decide. I'm impressed that I used that much travel though, as on my old HT the front fork (Recon 100mm coil) seemed to barely move.

The bike certainly felt a hell of a lot stiffer, which was a nice suprise. My old HT front wheel was so flexy by comparison to this, but I wouldn't have realised without riding this.

I think I need to learn to ride it a bit differently to my old HT. The bike just seems to want to be leaned into corners much more aggressively than I could have done on my HT.

Overall, really like it.

Oh and I got the Charge Spoon saddle this morning and fitted it before my ride. Very comfortable, so happy with that too.

tallpaul_s

Nice, glad you're enjoying it!! Keep eye on the travel, you might want to add a token in the forks/shock to make them a little more progressive but give it a while.

JBA

Glad you are enjoying the new bike.

What % sag are you running on the forks and shock?

You may want to consider rerouting the front brake hose so it runs down the inside rather than the outside of the fork leg. It's asking to be snagged on a branch or obstacle where it is.

danlightbulb

JBA wrote:

Glad you are enjoying the new bike.

What % sag are you running on the forks and shock?

You may want to consider rerouting the front brake hose so it runs down the inside rather than the outside of the fork leg. It's asking to be snagged on a branch or obstacle where it is.

30% rear, 25% front.

Well spotted, thats how it was built up by the shop. Could do with sorting out all the lines really, its a bit straggly looking at the front cos some are a bit long i think.

billycool

Glad you are liking it. Lovely photo as well (where are you?)

Ref the sag - sounds like it might be a bit `soft` if you are almost maxing it out without pushing it too hard.

I'd suggest you try 25% rear and 20% front and see how that goes. You have the option of tokens as well, but for now you can just do trial and error with what you've got. We are all differnet and like different characterisitcs in our forks.

Riding a FS is a bit different to a HT, so overtime you should find yourself pushing harder than you could (or with more confidence) than your HT.

Keep us posted.

joebristol

Sounds like you are loving it. These are nice looking bikes and I’ve seen a few on the trails recently. Amazing having Pikes for the money over all else (although guides and GX 1x also unlikely to be seen on other fs bikes at a similar price).

Sounds like you could run your forks and shock a touch stiffer on the spring pressure - if that still feels soft enough for you over small stuff but gives you more scope to hit stuff hard without bottoming out then great.

If you like the sensitivity at the current sag level / pressure then you can add bottomless tokens to the fork which reduces the air volume so the spring stiffens up quicker as it goes through the travel - making it more progressive.

I think the rear shock is a monarch - I assume you can do similar with that with bands that you put in - although I didn’t ever investigate that with my Boardman as it always felt fine without. With my current bike I find the rear suspension is more linear so I’ve clipped in 1 token so far so it ramps up quicker. Still playing around with that a bit at the moment.

steve_sordy

When it comes to FS suspension set up, I prefer the front and rear to be balanced. If I jump to flat, or ride across some bumpy but level trail, I like the percentage travel consumed by the bike to be the same as each other. I had a FS that would only do that if I dropped the %sag in the shock to very low levels. In which case the rear was very harsh and lacked grip. In other words the shock was diving too much. So I fitted some air volume reducers (spacers, rings, whatever). They are easy to fit and have a phenomenal effect. I have done this to several different bikes; sometime it is the fork that needs adjusting in this way (also easy to do if the design permits it at all).

This is a very good read on suspension tuning, from Bike Rumour:
https://bikerumor.com/2014/10/30/bikeru ... -download/

danlightbulb

Used like 95% of rear travel this afternoon so might run shock at 25% sag and see how that is.

Also, im quite struggling pedalling standing up. on my old bike the saddle would always be there so even on a descent if there was a little pedalling section id plonk my bum down and put the power through. Now, with no saddle there i cant do it and im finding i cant put any power through the pedals standing up. any ideas?

JBA

Push the little lever and the saddle pops up. Simples.

danlightbulb

JBA wrote:

Push the little lever and the saddle pops up. Simples.

Even for a 20m section which is still part of the descent and all i need is a speed boost? I wont have time to drop it again before the next bit.

JBA

You should be able to pedal standing up for such a short distance. Shift up to a higher gear as soon as you can on a descent so you don’t spin out when you need that little boost.

tallpaul_s

If it's that short a section you only need a few pedal strokes, then yeah, keep out the saddle, make sure you're in the right gear and stomp on the pedals.

Also, you'll soon get used to dropping/raising the post whilst simultaneously braking, clipping in or out and changing gear There's several bits on my commute where I have to brake with both brakes, change down a couple of gears, unclip and drop the post all in one action. And the reverse, getting away from lights - clip in, dropper up, change gears all in a couple of seconds.

danlightbulb

Hmm yeah maybe it is gearing choice then. Its easy to come off the top of a climb where ive been in biggest ring and roll into a descent and not change up cos gravity takes over. Im still just dropping a couple cogs like i did on my old bike when i probably need to drop 7 or 8 cogs at least.

danlightbulb

Guys changing the pressure in my shock is having unpredictable sag results. ive just added 25 psi (taking shock to 200 psi) but it hasnt shifted the sag at all.

danlightbulb

also rear gear issue (?). backpedalling is causing the gear to shift down off top cog.

danlightbulb

@JBA ive rerouted the brake hose as you suggested but im not sure about it. The fork has a clip which seems to be naturally directing the brake hose to the outside of the fork rather than the inside. Bit tricky to take a photo in low light but what do you think?

JBA

danlightbulb wrote:

Guys changing the pressure in my shock is having unpredictable sag results. ive just added 25 psi (taking shock to 200 psi) but it hasnt shifted the sag at all.

Make sure the shock lever is in the fully open position when setting sag.

steve_sordy

danlightbulb wrote:

Guys changing the pressure in my shock is having unpredictable sag results. ive just added 25 psi (taking shock to 200 psi) but it hasnt shifted the sag at all.

The suspension is new and consequently a bit "sticky". This is normal. Set the rebound damping to zero and any compression damping also to zero. Then bounce around on the bike a few times before setting the sag. (You should do this for the fork too). Once you are happy with the sag, reset the rebound and compression damping. Some suspension (fork or shock) never do seem to get out of the "sticky" period. In which case ride the bike and react to how it feels. If it's too soft, add some pressure or vice versa if its too hard. Once you have a set up that feels good, write down the pressure and stick it to your pump, garage wall, wherever you can find it again.

Also, be aware that every time you take a pressure reading, air inside the fork/shock will pass into the shock pump. This is normal. Typically this will reduce your fork pressure by 5psi, but will reduce your shock pressure by much more, maybe as much as 20psi. Shocks and forks do not tend to leak air much at all, if any. But it would be wise to check and reset the air pressure to your written down settings once per month, just in case. If you suddenly start having pressure drops, take it as a sign that something is wrong.

For general maintenance, I wipe down the fork, shock and dropper post stanchions after every ride and apply a circle of wet lube to the stanchion an inch or so above the wiper seal. Then move the saddle up and down a few times, and bounce up and down on the bike. Wipe off any muck that floats up from the wiper seal area. If there is a lot of muck, do it again. Some say that this is nothing more than cleaning, but I don't mind ensuring that my wiper seals are clean. I've been riding bikes with suspension for ten years and I've never had a problem. It takes 5 mins and it's a very small thing to do to keep everything tip-top.

steve_sordy

danlightbulb wrote:

also rear gear issue (?). backpedalling is causing the gear to shift down off top cog.

I have seen this reported on 11-12 speed cassettes. It is a sign that the set up needs a small tweak, maybe to the limit screw, maybe to the mech hanger straightness.

As the number of gears increases, the need for precise adjustment increases. It takes less and less to knock them out of kilter.