My lad is insisting on buying one of the “bargain” Commencal Meta SXs on CRC – it appears this frame comes without a shock. I’ve never done this before, so what do we need to look for in a shock (size is 230 x 62.5) Plus, what mounting hardware needed and anything should be of concern? Helpful links welcome 🙂 Thanks for any assistance!

Once you’ve factored in the cost of a shock and possible service tuning of a 2nd hand one also hardware is it still a bargain?

Mounting hardware – phone TF Tuned, tell then you are putting shock X on frane Y, buy what they tell you.

Cool, thanks chaps. Yeah, hence bargain in quotes… Still it’s half what Commencal are selling them for the same way. Turns out he’s ordered a shock from Swinnerton anyway now. So I’ll see what turns up!

A retail shock almost certainly won’t have the same rebound or compression shim stacks.
Commencal will have custom tuned.shocks from fox/rockshox for each of their frames.
It might not be an issue, or it might change the ride characteristics noticeably as shim stacks are tuned around the frames kinematics…

A retail shock almost certainly won’t have the same rebound or compression shim stacks.
Commencal will have custom tuned.shocks from fox/rockshox for each of their frames.
It might not be an issue, or it might change the ride characteristics noticeably as shim stacks are tuned around the frames kinematics…

Here’s the fox spec off a meta sx tear off on pinkbike by inputting the code in fox’s website.

2022 Series FLOAT X 2pos
Serial number: 1023264-0332-T
Part number: 979-67-046
Description: 2023_22, FLOAT X, P-S, A, 2pos, Evol LV, Commencal, Meta SX, 230, 62.5, 0.6 Spacer, CL, RM, Rezi LMB1, Standard, Neutral Logo

So, iirc,
compression Light
Rebound Medium
Rezi Base Valve, Lever Mode Medium, Bleed 1

The rezi is the base valve so is what happens with lever actuation and how it controls the pedalling platform ( I think)

According to the description you need 20×10 mounts, I bought one of those Mega’s without shock at CRC, I’ve also picked up some utter bargain super deluxe shocks recently, medium tune coil works better than the nukeproof tune air shock, probably won’t even retune when it’s serviced, sometimes CRC have shocks so cheap, they’re little more than the cost of a service.

That’s the frame I bought last year. Love it.i bought mount hardware from TF tuned but pretty sure I only needed like two spacers out of the kit.

Fun bike.

I’m a serial swapper of bike frames and I always try and buy without shock. Reason being if they come with a shock I almost always end up switching them to my favourite…currently fox float x. These can be had virtually new on ebay for peanuts due to the current fashion for coil shocks. Iv always been agnostic to the supposed ‘tune’ of shocks. Can never feel any difference. The most I do is match volume spacers to leverage ratio then set the pressure and rebound.

You can get cheap tools on eBay to push the bushings, remove the axle/spacer from the shock which work quite well.

Sounds like he’s already chosen a shock?

But I was just gonna say to consider a Cane Creek, because they have a wide range of user-adjustability so they will work with pretty much any bike. And they are really good performers.

Thanks, good info people. He ordered a RockShox SuperDeluxe of some flavour, no point asking which really, cos I’ll find out when it’s delivered. I think he went by what the builds have on commencal’s site.
I’m sure he’s pretty agnostic to shock tuning, so as long as it fits, he’ll be fine.
Also ordered some Zeb Ultimates. Students eh?!

Haha! Funnily enough, Swinntertons rang me as I was typing that to say he’s ordered the wrong shock… they’re gonna chat with him to get it sorted 🙂

I DM’d you earlier desperatebicycle, but for anyone else wondering..

We sell bushing kits for the Meta SX (20-23 bikes) (and all other Meta frames) over at Offset Bushings here – https://www.offsetbushings.com/products/shock-bushings-commencal-meta-2021.

One neat thing is that from factory Commencal don’t use a DU bushing in the rear mount, so our kit adds one in and removes the play the factory setup has.

Cheers! Offset Bushings

So, feeling flush, the lad has bought himself a Cane Creek Kitsuma and it looks like I just need one mount hardware/bushing for the front shock mount. Frame supplied with a 10mm bolt, but the shock eyelet is normal diameter, so there’s just the one bushing needed in required in there. Looks like @offset site has single “standard” bushings, so I guess I order that with the frame/shock specified?

I’ve bought loads from Offset over the years and they are really good to deal with. Yes IME they just need the frame model and year and shock model and year details and they’ll be work out what you need.

Nice one 🙂

Sure, just note you need the front 20x10mm when ordering this https://www.offsetbushings.com/products/standard-bushing

Apologies, the flip chip at the back that’s specific to the SX appears to be a 10-12.7mm diameter stepped bolt inserted into a DU bush. Good to see they resolved the issue from other frames!

Great stuff. I mistook the flip chip for an offset bushing, so that part is sorted. will order the standard 20x 10, cheers.

Gawd, the Commencal site shows spacers/o-rings with the bushing. Do I need those? I hope this damn bike is worth all the stress!

those, I mean :

https://www.commencal-store.co.uk/ride-alpha-hardware-20-x-10-c2x19999500

They should come with the bushing

Thank gg – yeah, seen a vid on youtube now, definitely needed 🙂

It’s all good, just different styles of kit that all work in the same way. The product I linked to above is what you need – we produce lots of these for the Meta. Ours use full width spacers rather than an O-ring setup.

Hope that helps,

Nice one, thanks offset. All ordered anyway, so should be good to go.
Thanks for all the replies. Almost turned into a weeksy bike thread… still time I suppose 😀