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Evening,
I hope you're all well.
Just been in the shed sorting bits on the bike, pads, pedals etc, after a grimy 5 months winter riding!
I have a few, what you may think to be daft, questions to ask.
1, Braided hoses
When I was last clued up on bikes, a good 16yrs ago, everyone wanted Goodrich hoses.
but we never matured enough to know whether they worked...….
Did they, are they worth doing?
2, Rock Shox Pike RCT3 forks
Are they any good?
I think they need a service, done 1800 miles on them and they seem stiffer that they used to - as long as they're not like the old Fox talas forks i'll service them myself.
3, Reverb dropper post
Are they hard to service, I assume 1800 miles is a good interval to look at it.
It rarely gets dropped!
Many thanks
1. Bling factor only according to Hope. No better or worse than plain ones.
2. Dunno
3. Not too bad apparently but I've been told by someone who's done his that the videos on YouTube miss out the trickiest part which is installing one of the seals. Worth checking the videos to see if you are fine with it. There are (at least) three versions so work out which one you've got.
1. Small improvements over shadowed by increased weight. Their true strength was crash resistance and flexibility. Mostly were over it.
2. Service Interval for semi bath on RS forks it somewhere between 30 & 50 hours. You are many hours beyond that I suspect.
3.dunno. had one that spaffed it's guts really early. Warranty replacent got sold sharpish and I never went back to reverbs.
Steel braids were always a bad solution for bikes- kevlar braid is lighter, cheaper, easier to fit, can be the exact same dimensions as plastic hose, doesn't abrade paint like uncoated steel braid or crack like coated steel braid. And was actually standard fitment on some quality brakes back as far as 2007- some people replaced the superior kevlar with goordridge because they didn't even know they had it. But weirdly it was seen as a sign of quality that you could get Hopes, frinstance, with steel braids to replace the crappy basic plastic stuff, while other brands just gave you the good stuff straight away. Funny old game, bike upgrades.
2) Yes, Pikes are good. With a little tinkering they can be very very good, especially if they're older ones as there's been some clever upgrades.
3) They're not hard to service but tbh it's still a pain in the arse and depending on the exact reverb you might need a specialised tool or two. I've done 2 full services, the third one I couldn't be bothered and just sent it to these guys.
TBH considering the price of servicing, the cost of most repair, and the cost of total replacement, I think there's a pretty good argument for just giving it the absolute basics and then if it breaks get it fixed.
Thanks for info guys.
Appreciate it
All the best