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Hi Guys,
Just wondering if you have any set up advice for the pace I have recently bought. I'm 5ft 9in tall so bought a a medium and have fitted it with the kit from my old bike which was 130mm rock shox revelation forks and a 90 mm stem.
I'm finding it a very fast handling on flowing single track which is great but a bit twitchy on descents and think it may be due to a steeper head angle and shorter wheelbase than my previous bike (marin wolfridge 2004). I was thinking of getting a shorter stem maybe 70mm but a bigger travel fork maybe an idea next year.
I also seem to be using most of the rear travel on shock (its got the DT one) when I set it up as per instructions of 10mm sag.
I mainly ride trails such as afan, cwm carn with odd trips to lakes, peaks, quantocks and the occasional adventure race or bristol bike fest 🙂
Be interested to hear how you guys have set up your bikes for your riding.
I'm running Pushed Air U-Turn Pikes on mind, 90mm Thomson OS stem and I have an RP23 out back after killing two of the DT Swiss shocks. Oh, and tubeless tyres. Mine's a medium and I'm around five nine and a half. I run quite a lot of sag at the rear and I'm quite happy with the handling with the 90mm stem, feels about right to me, but I guess it's all relative and I've been riding twitchier hardtails for a few years.
I think the Pike really suits it btw and matches the rear end nicely. Running the back soft slackens things up a bit and the nice thing about the RP23 is there's no harsh bottom out feel when you do use all the travel. Ride Peak a lot, Lakes, Dales, North Yorks Moors etc and very occasional trail centres, works fine all round for me.
I like the fact that it steers quick enough to cope with nadgery singletrack, even if I can't, but to me at least, it doesn't feel too quick steering on the downs either, but I'd agree, it's not a slack steering descent monster, though it still goes downhill pretty well.
I used to set mine up with recommented sag but set it to rebound faster. I always did think that the pace felt plush considering the type of bike it was.
I used to worry that I'd bottom out the rear shock but after landing 4/5ft to flat drops whithout bottoming out I wouldn't worry- the shock profile is very linear and won't ramp through the final part of the travel quickly.
I would stick with the rev130's as they are the correct height for the bike - bear in mind it's not designed to be a techy/play bike, I always thought of mine being a comfy all day xc bike.
I only sold it as the geo didn't suit my shape - I bought a large as I needed the TT length but it always felt too big to throw about.
Well, what a co-incidence - I used to have a 2004 Wolf Ridge & now have a 405. The 405 feels much more like the Gary Fisher Sugar+ that I used to have - fast handling and ace in twisties, but thankfully nowhere near as pyscho twitchy. Personally, I find the 405 is brilliant on woodsy, twisting singletrack - like a lot of trail centres stuff. But on serious rocky natural descents, I've been a bit disappointed - the Wolf Ridge would leave it for dust (er.. about the only place it would though :wink:. )
I'm 6' tall and ride a large 405 with 90mm Thomson 15deg rise stem. Originally built it with a DT XMC130 fork but found this way too divey on steep rocky descends & hard & late braking. I'm currently running a coil sprung Revelation (130mm), which really seems to suit the bike for what I use it for (trail centres & less extreme XC). I've also tried a Fox Vanilla RLC (140mm), which was bloomin' brilliant - but it had to go back onto wifes bike...darnit! Running the correct coil spring for rider weight gave a tiny bit less sag (c.5-10mm) than XMC's 25mm-32mm sag, but propped the front end up a bit more, resisted dive and gave better small/fast bump sensitivity. I haven't tried Pikes on my bike, but I can imagine they would suit the bike a treat - just that bit extra height to slacken things off.
As far as rear set-up goes, I've found that running 11mm of sag with the Revs gives the best compromise between head slackening and shock performance. I occasionally push the O-ring off the end of the shock, but this is only after squashing in and out of big rollers at silly speeds 🙂
p.s. I now borrow my wifes new Orange Five if I'm going out into the Peak on my own - slower uphill, but it absolutely monsters descents compared to the 405. If you get really fed up with the 405 on descents and want something more Wolf Ridge-ish (but better) flog the 405 and get a Five - 10/10 grin factor.
I sold my 405 to buy a 5 - best bike i've had.
I sold my 405 to buy a 5 - best bike i've had.
I can understand why 😀 Went for a ride today and borrowed my wifes 5 for a few minutes to session a bit of cheeky downhill - wife couldn't believe the steepness of slope that it'll get down...er...and TBH, neither could I!! Absolutely ace bike 🙂
oops..apologies for thread hijack
swapped the 90 mmm stem for a 70mm stem and it has made the bike alot better downhill .. much easier to throw about than marin and think it is descending a similar or faster speed now as it is alot stiffer than the marin.
I think it could do with a slightly taller fork to slacken head angle a bit more but I dont think it would justify the price.