Just got back from my first off road ride in 18 months, to be fair it was a shakedown ride after fully servicing my 10 year old full suss. Good points, the forks and shock behaved, the dropper post worked, the shifting worked (need to reset the bottom limit screw on the front mech). The bad bits were the mud, the gloopy mud and the bottomless mud, need to dig out the mud tyres. There was a strange rattling from the front, tightened headset and QR up half way round, not a lot better, the rear brake ate two springs (I hate avid juicy 7s) and the trails looked a bit like an explosion in a dog egg factory. Oh and it rained.
Got back to find a pedal seized. Anyway sussed the rattle, the flipping front axle only goes in one way around, only a mm in it, swapped that around, QR should work now, hopefully no more rattle (I had visions of fork bushings gone), pedal lock nut was loose so the main nut had tightened up on the bearings, now fixed. Brake is likely to be going the same way as the front, in the bin, £80 for a new one.
Bikes now clean, I’m clean, main issues fixed, feel quite happy now, might give it another go next weekend. Felt a bit like a survival ordeal but it’s got to get more fun when it warms up.