-alan-
pfm Member
I didn't get to the price - but 29' wheels with 120mm suspension travel on an 11kg frame probably tells me more than I need to know
Recommend me a decent full suspension X-Country bike ?
- Thread starter -alan-
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I didn't get to the price - but 29' wheels with 120mm suspension travel on an 11kg frame probably tells me more than I need to know
-alan-
pfm Member
Was back out on the local public trail park this morning - fire road climbs followed by fairly fast flowing gravelly downhills with deliberate rock-bed sections interspersed throughout the downhill trails.
The old hardtail Cube is fine on the climbs, and the fast smooth trails - just suffers on the rockbed things. Given the difficulty trying to source anything decent this side of later Summer, and the horrendous cost of getting anything with full suspension anywhere near the 12kg weight - I might treat the front shocks - Rockshox Reba RLs - to their first ever oil change ( I know, I know..) and/or start looking for a more modern spec s/h replacement perhaps.
The old hardtail Cube is fine on the climbs, and the fast smooth trails - just suffers on the rockbed things. Given the difficulty trying to source anything decent this side of later Summer, and the horrendous cost of getting anything with full suspension anywhere near the 12kg weight - I might treat the front shocks - Rockshox Reba RLs - to their first ever oil change ( I know, I know..) and/or start looking for a more modern spec s/h replacement perhaps.
As per the recommendation to me, how about going as big as possible on tyres and seeing what difference that makes? I 've just fitted a 2.3 Schwalbe Space to my Kula, old tyre was 2.0, the difference is huge. Can't ride it in anger, needs a brake bleed, but it feels trandformed. That's a cheap enough experiment.
-alan-
pfm Member
Funnily enough - just fitted a set of 26 x 2.4 Maxxis tyres to it a couple of weeks back. Had to trim the outer edges of the blocks on the rear to get it to fit between the forks - so that's my list width wise
I thought it made it slower uphill - but that may be down to a slightly larger rolling radius increasing the gearing, and depriving me of vital assistance when I need it most
Downhill's fine though. Probably a bit more cushioning on the worst of the bumps down to the sheer volume of air in the monsters, but no complaints there.
My main problem with the suspension (or lack thereof) is the hammering the bike (and I) take over the rock-tables at speed. It really does make your vision blur. Have backed off the preload so I'm using more of the suspension travel (without bottoming out) but i don't think the damping in the things is worth a fig on either compression or rebound.
I thought it made it slower uphill - but that may be down to a slightly larger rolling radius increasing the gearing, and depriving me of vital assistance when I need it most
Downhill's fine though. Probably a bit more cushioning on the worst of the bumps down to the sheer volume of air in the monsters, but no complaints there.
My main problem with the suspension (or lack thereof) is the hammering the bike (and I) take over the rock-tables at speed. It really does make your vision blur. Have backed off the preload so I'm using more of the suspension travel (without bottoming out) but i don't think the damping in the things is worth a fig on either compression or rebound.
-alan-
pfm Member
^ The jury seems to be out on the tyre-width vs drag thing off-road. On smooth tarmac - the consensus is that narrow is good, except with ultra skinny race tyres where the drag seems to rise again once you get too skinny (something to do with there being an optimum size and shape of the contact patch).
Offroad - lots of views and 'tests' based around an hypothesis that the bigger tyres can be better in mud (as they sink less) and on gravel strangely. The thinking on gravel seems to be around the larger tyres being able to flex more as they ride over stones, and then return that energy to the rider with the higher 'elasticity' (for want of a better word) of the fatter cushion of the rim and tyre. No absolute consensus mind you. Everybody does agree any extra weight caused by the fat-rubber is a pure negative though - both in terms of extra mass to lift in climbs, and the extra rotational inertia that's there accelerating (and I've just realised, obviously braking too.. ).
All said and done - I wont be rushing out to buy one of those fat-tyre beach-bike lumps you see the occasional chap (and it is always a chap) out sweating on anytime soon
Offroad - lots of views and 'tests' based around an hypothesis that the bigger tyres can be better in mud (as they sink less) and on gravel strangely. The thinking on gravel seems to be around the larger tyres being able to flex more as they ride over stones, and then return that energy to the rider with the higher 'elasticity' (for want of a better word) of the fatter cushion of the rim and tyre. No absolute consensus mind you. Everybody does agree any extra weight caused by the fat-rubber is a pure negative though - both in terms of extra mass to lift in climbs, and the extra rotational inertia that's there accelerating (and I've just realised, obviously braking too.. ).
All said and done - I wont be rushing out to buy one of those fat-tyre beach-bike lumps you see the occasional chap (and it is always a chap) out sweating on anytime soon
SteveG
pfm Member
That's pretty much how my Cotic Soul is set-up and it reasonably light (11.5kg including pedals etc.) with an 1x11 set-up (36 front and an 11-46 on the back) and adjustable Fox air forks. It's fast, agile and still pretty capable when pointed downhill.
SteveG
pfm Member
^ The jury seems to be out on the tyre-width vs drag thing off-road. On smooth tarmac - the consensus is that narrow is good, except with ultra skinny race tyres where the drag seems to rise again once you get too skinny (something to do with there being an optimum size and shape of the contact patch).
Offroad - lots of views and 'tests' based around an hypothesis that the bigger tyres can be better in mud (as they sink less) and on gravel strangely. The thinking on gravel seems to be around the larger tyres being able to flex more as they ride over stones, and then return that energy to the rider with the higher 'elasticity' (for want of a better word) of the fatter cushion of the rim and tyre. No absolute consensus mind you. Everybody does agree any extra weight caused by the fat-rubber is a pure negative though - both in terms of extra mass to lift in climbs, and the extra rotational inertia that's there accelerating (and I've just realised, obviously braking too.. ).
All said and done - I wont be rushing out to buy one of those fat-tyre beach-bike lumps you see the occasional chap (and it is always a chap) out sweating on anytime soon
My impression is that it's not really the tyre width that makes a difference with mountain bikes in terms of climbing capability, more the type of tyres, the weight and the tread type. I run lightweight 2.2" tyres on a few of my mountain bikes and those climb noticeably quicker than some of the more mud biased 2.0" tyres I have on other bikes.
I'm sure that's the case. Big low pressure knobblies will soak up energy, that is after all what they are for when descending. They aren't going the *stop* soaking up energy when you are trying to drag the thing uphill. Bending the tread knobs back and forth, flexing the tyre walls, it's all going to add to energy soaked up. They get warm, after all.
I have a 26 x 1.5 slick shod bike, it has no rolling resistance penalty over my road bike (700 x 23C) in the real world. Stick a knobbly on though, of any size, it's worth about 2mph on road for an average level of effort.
foxwelljsly
Me too, I ate one sour too.
I didn't get to the price - but 29' wheels with 120mm suspension travel on an 11kg frame probably tells me more than I need to know
£5k. Apparently they have these for test rides at one of my local trail centres. A mate of mine has one of their super slack ali framed enduro bikes and it's bloody great. Still £3.5k which is stil more than I can justify for the amount of cycling I do.
foxwelljsly
Me too, I ate one sour too.
I would highly reccomend getting some compatible S/H Fox forks with the maximum travel your frame geometry will support (Probably 120-130) and bunging in new oil and seals kit (get the oil from a motorbike place - it's exactly the same as the stuff Fox charge a fortune for). For £150 or so and a couple of hours work you will end up with a slightly slacker front end and some far plusher suspension.
-alan-
pfm Member
A quick google suggests many of the pre 2012 100mm travel Rockshox Rebas can be converted to 120mm travel by removing a spacer ..
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/reba-q-can-a-100mm-be-converted-to-120mm-or-not/
A look inside with a rebuild kit and fresh oil sounds like it could be a reasonable return on effort.
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/reba-q-can-a-100mm-be-converted-to-120mm-or-not/
A look inside with a rebuild kit and fresh oil sounds like it could be a reasonable return on effort.
Whenever I start to feel that my forks not performing at or near their best I send them to https://www.tftuned.com/servicing. They will strip down, clean and rebuild the forks and fit new seals. Every time they come back I'm amazed at the improvement. After every ride I clean the fork stanchions with a damp cloth and if they are particularly dirty / dusty I spray Muc Off Silicon Shine above the seals, give them a pump then remove the ring of gunk that remains mid stanchion. Doing this keeps the forks plush and means that I only need to send them to TFT every 3-4 years.
-alan-
pfm Member
£99 for the Rebas - not too bad if we were on the same island/in the same trading block. If it weren't for the shipping and turnaround time (and import/export hassles) I'd probably go with that.
Had a quick scan through the rebuild piece on the singletrackworld link above Steve. Fork rebuilding in general looks messy, and quite fiddly - but shouldn't be insurmountable with a decent manual/vidyo and a healthy measure of patience - no ?
Had a quick scan through the rebuild piece on the singletrackworld link above Steve. Fork rebuilding in general looks messy, and quite fiddly - but shouldn't be insurmountable with a decent manual/vidyo and a healthy measure of patience - no ?
Exactly right, but be prepared for a lot of swearing, a few "why did I bloody start this?" moments , and some angst. Set aside a lot of time, including walking away to calm down and look again tomorrow.
DO NOT attempt this if you are a novice mechanic.
-alan-
pfm Member
Got it. (Couldn't be much worse than the 2 1/2 years it took me to get the bstd CV carbs on my old 450 working properly surely..hopefully.. )
If you can bugger about successfully with 40 year old Japanese carbs, you can sort this. I'm currently in the throes of bleeding SRAM Guide R brakes with a generic bleed kit. Oh joy. If anyone knows why SRAM think it is a good idea to *remove* a bleed plug before bleeding, get the air out, then unscrew the bleed device and put the plug back in, please let me know. WTF? This has been done, long ago. No. We know better.
(Couldn't be much worse than the 2 1/2 years it took me to get the bstd CV carbs on my old 450 working properly surely..hopefully.. )
Another option to improve the handling of the bike while descending would be to slacken the head angle a little. I recently ordered an angled headset from https://www.workscomponents.co.uk/ (other brands are available ). Got an email saying that the headsets are still at the factory being anodised but looking forward to trying it out on my hardtail.
). Got an email saying that the headsets are still at the factory being anodised but looking forward to trying it out on my hardtail.