Hi
i’l contemplating “beefing” up my 5 spot, first upgrade consideration is the rear shock, i’m thinking of purchasing a coil DHX, would this work and what size would i need for a pushed 5.75″ 05 model?

Cheers
Nick

Do you use it for a lot of drops / jumps and rock gardens? I did the same excercise on my Heckler but only as i was using it for uplifts at Inners / Ae as well as trail centre stuff. Personally i only feel coils are noticably beneficial if they are getting ridden hard. The Pushed RP23 / RP3 will give you 95% of a coils performance on most DH’s and will only get out of its depth on stuff where you really need more than 6″ travel anyway. If you are hitting 6ft plus drops and big gaps like the step down at Ae then you will get some benefit.

Why are you wanting to beef up? If its just to hit more agressive AM / XC with the odd drop and gap bigger UST tyres / conversion kit, bigger brakes and a chain guide if not already fitted may be good options?

7.5×2 BTW get a ccdb it’s miles better.

Do you mean you have an 05 Horst Link 5spot, retrofitted width PUSH Industries rockers to up the travel? If so, then 190x50mm or 7.5×2.0in shock is the size you’re after. Most of these came from the factory with Romic coil shocks, but with Romic servicing being hard to get hold of for the last few years and better shocks from Fox and others most have been swapped long ago. I had the Romic on mine but the damping became unpredictable and swapped to an RP23. If you’re not a big fan of either ProPedal or fiddling with settings, a Vanilla may be cheaper and just as good for you. There are plenty more Turner tuners to be found here…

Turner forum on MTBR

Same size shock 190×50, beefy spot

I’ve got a TNT with push’d van r and lyriks. Pretty much spot on and as “beefy” as I’d want to go with a trail bike. A bit porky at 32-33lb but pedals all day without issue.

Not sure you need all the bells andwhistles of a more complex shock tbh. Many on here will disagree but a custom tuned fit and forget shock from TFT/mojo will serve you well. Unless you know exactly what you’re doing (and I suspect many ccdb owners don’t) you can easily adjust your shock into an ineffective overpricedpiece of crap – IMHO of course.

The RP23 is a great shock but when you step it up it does fail
in that it robs you of what could or should be a great ride.

I bought the Manituo IXS 6 for my Orange 5 AM but also look
at the Cane Creek Double Barrel.

A friend of mine has the 08 Enduro and put the 010 Fox DHX 5.0
and had to send it back to get more support IE when he pedaled
off he felt the DHX 5.0 kind of sank and found it harder to pedal
up.

Im just saying this has if you go for the FOX 5.0 you may find this
as similar suspenssion platfom to your bike.
This cost £ 50 quid by MOJO.

Thanks for all the comments, recently i’ve started riding bigger stuff drops about 4-6 foot and i’ve got into riding and pushing myself on the downhills. I don’t want to buy a full on down hill bike due to money and the fact that i still like riding up as much as i can, a build around 32-34lbs would be ok i think.

Other upgrades i’m considering are are front forks (talas 36 or lyrics), bigger rims etc, my rationale is that the more robust the components i put on the frame the better equipped the bike will be to handle bigger stuff? Also when i’m all kitted up i’m about 16st

Khani, what year is yours and are they 36’s up front?

To be honest mate I had FOX Talas forks and I had them turned
into Floats.
Personal oppinion I would not go with the Lyriks has there are
still reliability issues from 08 so out on trail and you want fun
go with the FOX 36’r Float or FOX Vans 36

The best of Three
Mines the Apple Green one

Mines an 08 front triangle and a 05 back end, talas 36 forks, I’ve stripped it down now and put the bits on a 2nd hand pitch frame which is ace

Hi grantway

appreciate the effort but they’re not Turners?

Kani

Did you find the handling of the bigger forks ok?

Cheers
Nick

160 was good down steep stuff but a bit slow on flatter stuff, 130 was best all-round

I’m not really sure why you are going rear shock first. Are you constantly blowing the rear shock? What are you finding wrong with it’s performance?

I’d guess that if you are constantly looking to be doing 4-6ft drops and the like then you’ll probably end up breaking a 5 Spot before too long, they aren’t really designed for that kind of abuse. Don’t forget that the frame was originally designed around a 125mm Fox Van.

Dave Turner has said before on MTBR that a 5 Spot would be okay doing that sort of sized drop occasionally, but if you wanted to be riding that more often, which by the sounds of it you want to as you are wanting to beef it up, then you really should be riding an RFX/6 Pack.

It’s worth bearing in mind that Turner no longer have spares for the old Horst Link rear triangles, so if you do manage to break part of that you’ll be needing to scour t’internerd to find a second hand part.

That said, a lot of the folks over on MTBR like the ride of the Pushed 5 Spot when combined with a 140 fork… Pike or Vanilla seem to be popular.

On the rear shock, are you still running the Romic? Or are you using an RP3/23?

As said above, the shock length is 7.5″x2″ or in other words 190mmx50mm.

I’ve been considering this myself – I have an ’05 push plated 5 spot. As I’ve owned it, it has got beefier and beefier, until I started considering replacing the air pikes with some 160mm ‘zocchis and getting a coil unit to swap out the RP23.

But then I started to think I’ll probably end up breaking it if I go that way, while even in full xc-jey mode its hardly a xc race bike. So I decided to keep it as the very capable all day trail bike that it is.

… but rthen I have 8 bikes, so adding a DH play bike to the garage is starting to take the piss …

Again thanks for all the comments.

Funnynick i know i should really be running a bigger bike but i can’t afford the outlay, i won’t be riding this stuff all the time but i’d like to have the capacity to take it on the odd downhill course.
I’ve already cracked a rear chain stay and what i’m trying to avoid this again by putting bigger components on, it’ll hopefully take some of the stress off the frame?

Cheers
Nick

Mate of mine has a spare Romic shock with coil if you need one – I’m sure it’ll be cheap. Email me if so.

I’ve owned Horst Link and TNT 5 Spots – and am now on a DW Link 2009 model for the past 6 months. I’ve also run Romic coil, RP23 and a Pushed Float R on them.

A Romic coil is definitely a little smoother and responsive on the HL and TNT Spots and I really liked it for all-round trail riding. Coil forks also work very well on these models but if you go beyond 140mm travel you will likely regret it. A TNT Turner RFX would be a better bet.

On the other hand, if you have the money, get a DW Spot. That thing runs 140mm forks just fine and is outstanding with 150mm or 160mm. I use Lyrik coil U-Turns on mine and it is a whole level beyond HL and TNT Spots in terms of capability.

Spots have always been versatile, but the DW link models have upped the ante considerably over their predecessors.

I still have my TNT Spot and sometimes ride that and the DW SPot back-2-back…. the difference is remarkable and obvious to everyone who’s ridden them with me.

Save ya pennies! 🙂

There seems to be a pretty big gap between the Flux and 5spot these days. I wonder if the gap is going to be filled by a new model?

If they brought out a 120-125mm flux with geometry between the currant flux and spot I might have to start saving up, but I think a revised spot with a slightly longer toptube, shorter headtube and lower bb is on the cards next, which is closer to the old hl spot geometry I think, I may try one for size when they’re out, tried a demo large dw and it felt short and tall compared to my L hl spot which fits perfect

I’d be first in line for that.

The DW 5spot seems to be rather more burly than my needs, yet the flux is a little on the weedy side for gentlemen of our mass…

The dw spot is definatly more AM than the older one, my urge to be a gnarlcorrr gonk has definatly subsided in my older years, something with a nice bit of Cush to save my old arthritic arse when it gets too wahay is more what I want

hello

If you are thinking of getting a coil shock don’t over look the fox van R and get it pushed for your weight and preferences. Also depends on how big and how heavy you are on stuff as to whether its worth beefing up a spot to take some abuse as you may well end up breaking it. Good strong wheels and tyres and a chain device are possibly a better upgrade if you are only doing some “gnarly” stuff every now and again.

I have an 03 5 spot that has always been built on the sturdy side, started out with a romic then a van r. Forks wise, 125 vanilla then onto a pike (kept blowing up) and now on a 36 talas which is mainly used on 130 but for anything steep getting wound out to 160. But the bike has always had 2.35 dh maxxis tyres and either 321 or 721 mavic rims on it. And its been used on dh courses, drops and jumps etc and ridden in spain and the alps alot and has probably exceeded mr turner’s recommendations for the frame. But i’m not that heavy about 11.5 stone with gear.

so after all that waffle you can beef up a spot and mine rides great with the van r coil on it, but be wary if you are a heavy weight, as has been mentioned above a 6pack/rfx is a better bet if you are more sturdy.

Just to chip in again – a DW Spot, while definitely more capable than previous TNT & HL Spots, is NOT a gnarcore/AM type bike. It’s a singletrack freak that loves to blast fast, flowy singletrack with the ebst of them. But… it can also be built to take a beating. That’s the tremendous versatility of the 5 Spot, and has been true since at least 2006 when they revised the geo to take 140mm forks.

There are plenty of folks on the Turner forum on MTBR who have built their DW Spots to 26lbs and change… and others (like me) who have them at 29lbs with burlier kit on. It’s all down to personal preference. I tried mine with Fox 32s, light tyres, and bars etc but prefer it with bigger forks and heavier tyres. It’s hardly a heavy AM bike though.

Turner has already announced their 2011 lineup and the 2011 5 Spot has a shorter headtube (therefore lower front end), 1.5ins so you can run any fork you want including zero stack and/or angleset cups, and IIRC a lower BB.

These changes make an already great bike even more versatile… Pretty much ideal then. 😀