Viewing 25 posts - 1 through 25 (of 25 total)
  • how much do you spend each year on rear suspension maintenance?
  • hopefiendboy
    Full Member

    Looking at the feasibility of just having one offroad bike for all year.round use moving from a 29er hardtail to a 29er full sus (anthem x).
    How much would.you say you spend on maintenance and how often? Say over a year?

    soobalias
    Free Member

    as an only bike, i would budget for a full set of bearings/bushings per year.

    depending on the design probably worth buying a bag of hula hoops for the shock lower eye.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Depends on the bike,

    Shock service – £120 + any issues (I seemed to blow them up every 500miles which got silly).

    Bushings – £10 every 6 months

    Bearings – £20 to £150+ at the cheap end a single pivot you do yourself, at the other a full specialized bearing kit + labour will make you wince, but they do last quite long time, maybe every other year.

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    devash
    Free Member

    Yearly:

    1 x strip, clean and oil change (£2-3 for some Fox Float fluid)

    1 x strip, clean, seal and oil change (£15 for a new seal kit)

    I usually change the mounting hardware at the same time that I do the seal change, so add another £15-20 depending on what bushings I go for.

    Once every two years;

    Same as above except that I skip the seal change and instead send the shock away for a professional service / nitrogen refill etc. Usually around £80ish.

    I’ve had my bike for 3 years now and I haven’t had to change the frame bearings yet but I can imagine they may need doing at some point this year so +£120ish

    daver27
    Free Member

    If its anything like my old Mondraker that was £80’s worth of bearings every 3 months
    shock bushes every year along with at the least one shock seal kit.

    some designs are far far better than others when it comes to longevity. can’t comment on the Giants from personal experience, but the bearings are in roughly the same place as my Mondraker, but the shock is more protected.

    gonzy
    Free Member

    09 Giant Reign so lots of bearings and bushes
    give them a clean and regrease every couple of months and give them a squirt of lube to keep them moving smoothly before every ride…not needed to do anything else in the 12 moths i’ve owned the frame
    fox dhx shock got serviced 18 months ago, so other than keeping it clean and checking the pressure nothing else gets dont to it
    marzocchi 55cr forks, 2 years old and are covered by their 3 year no service warranty so another year to go on that. FWIW i’ve never needed to service a single marzocchi fork i’ve owned and theyve all been fine…i expect this to be the same

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    If it’s one you can do yourself then it makes a huge difference, as can the number of bearings in apparently similar designs.

    Specialized used 2x bearings in each of the smaller pivots (so that’s 4 at the horst link for example), and they were all blind, so you needed a blind pulling tool rather than just drifting them out. I think Giant just use one bearing in each pivot (so 8 in total) and they’re relatively straightforward.

    PJM1974
    Free Member

    In my whole experience with full suss bikes – twelve years – I’ve only had to change a set of bearings twice…and that was on my 2004 Spesh Enduro.

    I try to strip the bike down each year, remove the bearing seals, clean and regrease. If you can keep the bearings rust free and daubed in grease then it’s half the battle.

    [ninja edit]

    Specialized do indeed use a side by side bearing arrangement for the chainstay pivot. Changing these are a job best left to your friendly Spesh dealer, along with a small case of their preferred ales.

    stilltortoise
    Free Member

    I suggest it depends on how you ride, where you ride, in what conditions you ride and how often. A weekend trail centre warrior who rarely hits big rocks and mud and fastidiously (and carefully) cleans their bike after every ride is going to have much longer service intervals (and lower costs) than, for example, someone who rides their bike several times a week in the depths of wet, muddy and gritty winters.

    My first full susser (Whyte 46 with a Fox RP3 on it) had nothing more than one set of new bearings on it in the 5 years or so that I had it, but I bet my mileage in that time was no more than a single year for a super keen rider.

    Garry_Lager
    Full Member

    Ridden my anthem X about 10 months and just replaced the shock bushing – so £20 thus far.
    It’s a short travel FS, a couple of the pivots in the maestro linkage hardly move, so I’m not expecting a full bearing change any time soon. Maybe one pivot point is more susceptible than others so will need doing earlier, don’t know if that is the case yet.
    Same with the shock – it just bobs along nae bother, it’s not like a long travel bike where you’re smashing f_k out of the shock on a regular basis.

    I’ll prob get the tool set to do the bearings when the time comes, so that’s something to budget for – think it’s £80. There’s 8 of them so be a convenience to have the right drifts etc.

    darrenspink
    Free Member

    I suggest it depends on how you ride, where you ride, in what conditions you ride and how often. A weekend trail centre warrior who rarely hits big rocks and mud and fastidiously (and carefully) cleans their bike after every ride is going to have much longer service intervals (and lower costs) than, for example, someone who rides their bike several times a week in the depths of wet, muddy and gritty winters.

    Exactly. Since March I have ridden on average three times a week (with the last few months in mud) done 6 races and had a good few rides around centres and i’ve just had my Transitions bearings replaced – £80.
    But I know someone who has replaced his SC bronson bearings three times in the last year and hasn’t done half the amount I have.

    P-Jay
    Free Member

    2013 Cove G-Spot, little or none. Tough bike, bearings and bushes just shrug it off. Every now and then I remove the shock to fell how it goes through the travel and it’s smooth as the day it was new.

    joolsburger
    Free Member

    On my heckler I was getting through shock bushes about every six months or so and pivot bearings once a year on the Blur LT about every 12-18 months for bushings and I’ve replaced the lower dog bone bearings once for 25 quid. I had the shock pushed for £125 but only had to lube it for about 2 years now. Forks have just needed lube servicing which I do and one set of bushes so minimal cost. I’d say all in over about 5 years I’ve spent no more than £225 and more than half of that was pushing the shock.

    PimpmasterJazz
    Free Member

    Currently sick and tired of pivot issues and it’s one of the main reasons I’m probably going back to running an Orange.

    Set of shock bushes every year or two, shock service once in a blue moon and a set of pivot bearings every time America declares war on someone.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    Some bearings, every so often- Hemlock had some pretty small ones that wore faster so they got done every year or so, big ones less often, I think I did the main pivots only once in 5 years of year round Scotland. Shock basic service I do myself, loco does a proper service whenever I can be arsed. So basically it’s not much at all- lost in the background radiation of money I waste on bikes.

    Don’t even know where all the bearings are, on the new one. Should probably find out 😆

    kiksy
    Free Member

    Giant Trance, gone through 2 sets of bearings since last summer, so roughly 3-4 months a set. Completely seized. That was with no pressure washing , but also without taking apart the frame and regreasing.

    From now on I’m going to get into the habit of checking on them more often

    JackHammer
    Full Member

    I’ve only done an air can service since I bought the bike in 2014 oops…

    I keep meaning to send the shock away to get serviced, but I buy shiny things instead.

    I always though bearing services/replacements were a gimmick until I had my Giant Trance done and then the shock done and the thing felt so much better!

    need to do a proper strip down soon and check the bearings on my process are ok and then send off the shock.

    So… probably the cost of some suspension grease and oils so far. ~£20.?

    DaveyBoyWonder
    Free Member

    Not a lot. Orange Five and it had a new set of bearings when Orange stripped the paint off it about 14 months ago. Had some offset bushings at the same time and its all pretty solid at the minute.

    The shock itself is probably coming up to service time but I’ll probably just get a new one – read the good things about the new Monarch shocks so might try one of those.

    wrecker
    Free Member

    I had a float RP23 on my last bike. A service would cost more than the shock was worth at the time. Considering how much better the newer shocks were, it made sense to replace it. Now, I’ll do regular oil can services and then chuck them or sell for bits after a few years if they are really shitty.

    timraven
    Full Member

    I seem to get through wheel bearings faster than suspension bearings/bushings, but I suppose it’s about £90 a year. Though I tend to just replace the lot once a year anyway.
    Never had a shock or fork professionally serviced in 12 years of riding full sus, change the oil myself twice a year and make sure the friction surfaces are clean. Yet to have a problem. Yet!

    hammyuk
    Free Member

    Haven’t done any on the Cube!
    Not a thing – no noises, no tight spots, nothing.
    It’s 5yrs old and not been treated lightly.

    takisawa2
    Full Member

    Five. Nothing. Only ridden about 8 times though.

    zerogreg
    Free Member

    Probably a silly question, but how do you know when your bearings need replacing? Haven’t touched them in 3 years and they seem fine to me, but then again they could be shot.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    zerogreg – Member

    Probably a silly question, but how do you know when your bearings need replacing? Haven’t touched them in 3 years and they seem fine to me, but then again they could be shot.

    If you take the wheel and shock out, and waggle the swingarm, you’ll often feel a little roughness or hear a little grindyness. And if you know what it should feel like, you can feel stiffness too- it should all be very free moving.

    With the shock in and the weight of the wheel, it’s pretty hard to tell, and the bearings go off so slowly that you’ll generally not feel it while riding. This is a bummer for some bikes where it can cause frame wear- certain rocky mountains with their bushings frinstance, by the time you notice the bushings are worn, the pivot’s ****ed.

    daver27
    Free Member

    worn bearings are also one of the main reasons that some frames crack more than others… the extra load required to move the pivots causes a lot of stress leading to the frame eventually cracking.

Viewing 25 posts - 1 through 25 (of 25 total)

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