Afternoon all,

Another question from me regarding my potential 2 setups for the 1 bike.

So I’ve got an sb6c running 160mm pikes and a lightweight set of wheels. It works great for peak district rides etc but want it more “downduro” for uplift and alpine holidays.

I’ve just bought a bigger stronger wider wheel set.

I’m looking at having a bigger set of forks and front brake for alpine use and BPW etc..

That way I just swap the back wheel and realign the rear caliper and then unbolt the front brake from the handlebar and fit the other fork and front wheel and brake that all stay together as a unit.

So as this is really for DH duties I want to go as big and stable as possible

The Yeti website says the bike will take up to a 180mm fork.

Looking at the Lyrik axle to crown it’s 572 on the 180mm version. It’s only another 9mm for a 200mm Rockshox Boxxer.

What do we think…. will that extra 9mm totally screw the geometry?

Richie Rude and Jared Graves have ran them on DH courses that are flatter with Fox 40s.. but was that just because Yeti didn’t have a DH bike at the time? Can’t have ridden too badly though surely as some races were won on one?

will that extra 9mm totally screw the geometry

Nah, there’s more/less difference than that between some forks of the same travel from different brands, not to mention headset cup stack heights (if you have external cup), tyres sizes etc.

I *might* be concerned about the different stresses of single crown vs dual crown, but then I’d make that call on a frame by frame and rider by rider basis.

Nope, there’s more/less difference than that between some forks of the same travel from different brands, not to mention headset cup stack heights (if you have external cup) etc.

I *might* be concerned about the different stresses of single crown vs dual crown, but then I’d make that call on a frame by frame and rider by rider basis.

Yeh, I thought about that, I would have thought those pro riders put a bike through more stress in one day than I will through 2 or 3 trips to Pila/Morzine etc. I never get more than 2ft air really.

I *might* be concerned about the different stresses of single crown vs dual crown, but then I’d make that call on a frame by frame and rider by rider basis.

Is a valid point – your average ‘joey’ can break a bike in a totally different way to a Pro rider. Specialized had a big issue with the Demo’s – tested them for ages, released, the linkages all cracked with average riders landing drops with brakes on – Pro’s just don’t brake, so was never an issue.

I wouldn’t want a 200mm fork on a 150mm travel bike. I prefer a bit more of a balanced ride. A well set up 170mm Fox 36 could probably live on the bike full time & would do what you want it to.

It could..but then prob won’t climb as well for peak district riding. Im really interested in the 2 setup idea and getting the down setup more focused and less of a compromise.

It’s interesting people say about balance of travel, but we all ride hardtails with 5″ at the front and nothing at the back.

Don’t know – to me it seems like a massive ballache – I can barely be bothered to swap a wheelset to when i’m flipping between trail riding and racing DH/Enduro’s on my one bike.

I think adding pretty much an inch to the stack on the bike over what it was designed around (160mm Fox 36) would be odd.

I imagine the climbing ability wouldn’t be too bad, a 170mm Fox 36 is nigh on the same a2c height as your Pike.

It’s a 15 minute job. Crown race already fitted on each fork and separate front brakes and wheels that stay with each fork. So…

Swap back wheel and realign caliper is 4 min job.

Undo brake.lever from bars

Undo top cap, unbolt steerer clamp on stem… slide forks out slide other fork and wheel in. Retension top cap and stem bolts. Clamp brake lever on.

20 mins tops for when I do the occasional (3x a year) uplift, and then before heading on an alpine trip.

Appreciate the input anyway, I guess I’m looking at 9mm over a 180mm Lyrik, not over what I’ve currently got.

I have to say though it feels like the fork is too short to me on the 160mm pike.. especially when it sags.

This seems to disagree with all the people who think that the geometry will go terrible (not necessarily off of this thread)

linky

You might be able to run with more of the stanchin through the top crown to off set the difference?
You’ll need to remember leave enough stanchion between the lower crown and the lowers to allow for full travel.

I do like being able to swap between normal and uplift set up, but with my Spitfire it merely requires moving the dropouts from neutral to slack (which I managed between runs without missing an uplift at BMCC). I like the lower BB, greater stack height and slacker angles for uplift whilst for general riding the lower bars and steeper seat angle make it better uphill whilst the steeper head angle and shorter wheelbase suit flatter trails.

The thing about putting a longer fork on for uplift is that you’re also raising the bottom bracket, which is the opposite of what you want. So to bring that back down I’d use some offset bushes to shorten the eye-eye on the shock. Ideally what I’d want would be a moveable shock mount which allows you to swap but obviously what would have to be a custom machining.

Another approach to take would be to use a longer fork with an angleset – slackening the fork lowers the front, so a 170mm fork with a -2 deg headset causes no more stack height than a 160mm fork and straight headset. You might think that’ll be way too slack for trail riding but it really isn’t.

Boxxer on an enduro bike is bit overkill.

If it was me, I would swap the fork out for something a bit beefier, 170mm lyrik/36/ohlins. The pike is good, but the lyrik is a better fork, bit stiffer, better air spring.

As for swapping front brakes from a normal to a heavy duty setup, I’d just run the heavy duty setup all the time, the weight difference will be negligible and you won’t have to spend a couple of runs getting used to it.

I have two wheelsets for my smuggler, one lightweight with xc tyres (forekaster/ardent race) for local riding and one with minions for riding in FOD/Shropshire/Peaks/etc. The rest of the bike stays the same, save for flipping the compression switch on the rear shock to trail mode for the xc rides.

I’d prefer to have a well setup suspension and ride that all the time, rather than swapping between two setups that are not quite as good as they could be and the ride after you do the swap you are getting used to/fiddling with the fork rather than concentrating on riding the trail.

Have placed an order for a new bike and will have the same setup fitted to it all of the time with no swapping of bits, as its a pain in the ass!