Untitled by davetheblade, on Flickr

Will post pics when finished

Nice!!!! Great weather for the test run too!!!

Nice – get em fitted and ride with us tonight?

Good choice Sir. Light, plush and reliable. I’ve been hammering a pair for months now 🙂

Working nights this week in Liverpool rob – hence I have today off. Otherwise would love to!

let me know when you are around – be good to catch up (have a pint?)

Deffo Rob.

Well, forks fitted – decided do do an air sleeve service on rear shock and have somehow lost all damping 😐

Untitled by davetheblade, on Flickr

Untitled by davetheblade, on Flickr

Untitled by davetheblade, on Flickr

Just waiting for some new silly wide bars now – and a new shock 😥

Those frames look so much better with proper forks on them.

For a supposedly “budget” fork brand, they don’t look remotely cheap, do they?

Can see X-fusion taking a nice chunk of market share for themselves.

Certainly don’t seem cheap at all honourablegeorge – not a piece of plastic in sight

Untitled by davetheblade, on Flickr

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/85252658@N05/9244617820/]Untitled[/url] by davetheblade, on Flickr

Untitled by davetheblade, on Flickr

They do look to be great quality. I guess the proof’s in the pudding.

They look like 2nd gen Slants – the casing is different so your not forced to run a 203 rotor

Nice!!!

Yeah, look really good int he detail shots. Very interested to hear how they ride. Would like some black 140mm 34 chassis forks for my Soul, with good old fashioned 1 1/8 steerer – not sure if such a thing exists.

looks like my pitch now 🙂

My first pair of 140/110’s were faulty (topping out), out of the box. Annoyingly I only found this out after I’d fitted them. Rutland Cycles whipped them straight back off me ( they paid all postage), and one week later they were back from the distributer. They performed beautifully for two gentle XC rides before failing again! The distributer put this down to a faulty batch of cartridges. Rutland sorted out the repair again, and one week later the forks were back.

By this point I’d lost a lot of confidence in the forks and the repair, but not Rutland Cycles. They were brilliant throughout the process. They’d already offered a no-quibble full refund, but I thought I’d persist a little longer. Rutland themselves said they really rated the forks and the distributer, and felt this was just a run of very bad luck.

Now that I was up and running, I found that tuning the forks in was tricky. They blew through their travel under braking, and while never bottoming out, every ride, no matter how flat, would see the zip-tie at the top of the stantion. I took the shock pump out on a couple of rides, really dialled in the pressures, and finally got the sweet spot.

Since then, I’ve absolutely hammered the forks. My local ride is Glentress, so they’ve had weekly usage on the red and black runs. The long travel allows me to really rag my hardtail through the various boulder fields and cobbles, and even when unlocked they climb well. In terms of performance, I’d put them alongside my Magura Menja forks and my Rockshox Reba and Recons.

So once fitted and running properly, they feel like a pair of £400 forks.

honourablegeorge – Member
Yeah, look really good int he detail shots. Very interested to hear how they ride. Would like some black 140mm 34 chassis forks for my Soul, with good old fashioned 1 1/8 steerer – not sure if such a thing exists.

Sounds like the same thing I am searching for to put on my BFe. I would love the Slants with DLA but alas they are tapered only 🙁

Should point out that mine are old fashioned non-tapered.

I’ve done about 600 miles on my slant 29’s since I got them, it took some time to get the right air pressure dialled in, but now they’re sorted I think they’re excellent. No issues as yet 🙂

Black 140 DLA non-tapered:

Blue electrical tape: model’s own 😉

The internals look very well made too – check out the video from about a minute in….

Vengeance product launch

That is for the 2011 160mm Vengeance though, these are the 2012/13 170/140mm Vengeance

I just want to get out and ride the bloody thing…

Well, first impressions – very impressed!

When I first got on I was a little concerned that I’d lengthened the wheelbase and slackened the HA too much going from 150mm to 170mm. After a few hundred yards it started to feel right (always felt the SL was a little steep anyway).

Not thrown it downhill yet, but a fast blast along the riverbank and back and it felt amazing – a little bouncy & pingy at first, but a click back on the rebound, one on the high speed and a couple on the low speed and it transformed the ride. So much faster across the roots than with the E150 SL’s. First impressions (knackered/undamped rear shock aside – Fox RP23 ordered for now for cheapness) and it feels like the bike it should always have been.

Update

RP23 finally fitted after I originally ordered the mounting kit for an alu frame, not carbon. Easton Haven 55mm stem and DMR 780mm Wingbars fitted.

Just been for first proper run and wow – it’s like riding a completely different bike. Set a really good time on Strava on the DH section of my run – in fact I think it’s the fastest I’ve been down there even pre-strava and on my old Enduro.

Clipped a tree with the bars 😉 – I’ll get used to ’em. Forks just soak everything up – I was waiting for a quite tricky section and realised I’d done it without even noticing. Just worried the rear end can’t match the front now – but is still a lot plusher than the old AFR shock. Climbing with the new set-up is not compromised at all.

Feels like the bike it should have always been.

Before

Untitled by davetheblade, on Flickr

Now

Untitled by davetheblade, on Flickr

nice