Mines at TFT now getting looked at. Shaft worn as you can see in the photo. Only 6 months old.

Spitfire? Heard of a case of misaligned swing arm or front shock mount causing wear on the shaft.

Hope not, as mine lives on a Spitfire, too.

So all in all inlines have poor reliability on top of downgraded damping internals (shims etc) compared to the old coils?

Yay.

I’m probably going to take the plunge and get an Ohlins TTX to replace the DB inline on my enduro. The DB inline felt like it had potential but I’m concerned over reliability and i felt like i was always trying to make it work for me rather than it simply feeling great. This was clearly down to whatever the problem was/is with mine but i want something i can rely on.

Sounds like a good idea, think I’m going to go for a TTX or X2.

Yes Teethgrinder a spitfire. See what TFT say when it’s been returned. Frame alignment looks ok though.

FWIW we’ve sold quite alot and not had one back. Which is better than I can say for the DB Air CS.

A lot of shocks on Banshees seem to wear prematurely. It’s not alignment, it’s flex.

I believe it uses a pretty similar piston and shim stack to the rest of the cane creek range where the piston basically acts as a plunger.

I’m extremely lucky so far if all the bad reports are an example of the majority. mine is an early unit and has been great on my bike although its taken a while to get it sorted.

al – Member
A lot of shocks on Banshees seem to wear prematurely. It’s not alignment, it’s flex.

Where are you getting this information from? My inline is running fine on my spitfire and its fair to say i dont treat it well.

I’m extremely lucky so far if all the bad reports are an example of the majority. mine is an early unit and has been great on my bike although its taken a while to get it sorted.

If it was an assembly issue then you’d hope that some would have made it through unscathed.

Which is better than I can say for the DB Air CS.

Do go on…

Where do I get my info from? Talking to folk in the know and seeing with my own eyes.

Wouldn’t stop me buying a Banshee necessarily though. Quite fancy a Phantom, despite being warned of the issue by folk I’d trust to know better than most.

Which is better than I can say for the DB Air CS.

Do go on…

[/quote]

We have sent a few DB Airs back – mostly due to leaking oil, no inlines.

one year in on my inline on a spitfire and touch wood all good. Certainly dont think the bike is flexi at the back as a cause of shock wear but then I did come from an orange st4 which was endearingly compliant 🙂

I’m going to send it to tft after a cyb trip at the end of the month and hopefully any seal/ bladder issues that have emerged over the year on other peoples shocks will be sorted by the latest servicing knowledge….

Nine months on mine now, had some hammer (sorry), no issues so far.

I was going to buy one of these (they come as OE on the new version of my bike so setup would be easy too). Phoned TF, they said what sort of usage, I said, big 29er, everyday riding, some unskilled enduro racing, uk uplift, occasional trips abroad. They said CCDB Inline no use for that job, get a CCDB Air.

I was pretty surprised at that, no ifs no buts, don’t buy this. Even though I think I was pretty clear I couldn’t afford to buy a CCDB Air CS from them but I was ready to buy an Inline right then

They tried to put me off them too but my use is similar to yours and I’ve had no problems. I thought it was higher pressures that cause the issues, I run mine at 180psi

did they say why it wouldn’t be suitable? inline was great at fort william last week or at innners before that.

I was pretty surprised at that, no ifs no buts, don’t buy this. Even though I think I was pretty clear I couldn’t afford to buy a CCDB Air CS from them but I was ready to buy an Inline.

I like that from them, brutally honest….although perhaps if the shock is that bad they probably didn’t sell them full stop?

I don’t think they were saying it was bad, just not suited to the job I was going to ask of it. It’s also possible they thought I was modestly talking my speed and skills down, to be fair 😆 BMC obviously think it’s suitable for the bike and it’s not like i do anything that a 150mm 29er shouldn’t be up for.

I was a bit surprised so didn’t really follow it up much, tbf if I’d found an Inline at the price I wanted used, I’d have still tried it, it just convinced me to try and find a full Air as well. I mean, I had an RP23 in the hemlock for the exact same usage and it did the job well enough.

We have sent a few DB Airs back – mostly due to leaking oil, no inlines.

Ta.

I was thinking maybe I’d go for a DB Air on my next bike, have you got a lower proportion of returns on the Monarch Plus?

I’d have thought most people would recommend a DB Air CS for Enduro racing over the Inline.

I’ve run mine down the Golfie a few days and nights now, and its been spot on. I’ll be interested to see what it’s like down something like Alistair Lees, I’m expecting it to heat up a bit… Which is where the piggy back would come into its own.

rickon – Member

I’d have thought most people would recommend a DB Air CS for Enduro racing over the Inline.

Yeah, but I race enduro like a **** tbh.

I used an Inline on my spitfire Trans Provence and EWS this year along with lots of other riding. Absolutely no issues at all. I think it is like anything, if you get a god one it will be fine. There was obviously a run of these that were not up to what was expected of them though.

Been running mine for almost a year on my phantom all over Scotland, the alps and colorado. No issues here after zero servicing. It certainly works a hell of a lot better than the monarch it replaced!

Never heard of flex issues with banshee either. Is this something to do with worn out bearings?

I know tft said that some bike designs (high leverage ratios) and rider weight combos exceed what they consider to be the operating pressure and rebound damping range. Single pivot bikes like oranges seem to be particularly affected by this if I remember rightly from some old threads.

Hey Shackleton, I finally bit the bullet and went for the MRP Stage fork, thanks for the help with that one.

After 9 months on mine, it’s been back to tft twice early on for the known bladder fault, which after the second time was changed for the newer version. Tft have said they haven’t had any with this bladder back (July when I spoke to them).

As for the intended usage question, mines on a five and raced the Enduro2 race in Les Arcs, seemed pretty spot on during the 15min stages on that.

I had the updated one on my hd3 after the original arrived faulty, cracking shocm, the fox I had on previous bike wasn’t in the same league. No problems. Up I did notice on the original if I pumped it up 20 psi higher than requires then dropped it down the fault went away.

What was the fault that everyone’s mentioning?

I’ve got an inline on a SOLO and a dbair cs on a bronson. Both work similarly, hard to bottom out and you can’t really feel them working. TFT set my inline up brilliantly and I’ve not had to mess about with it much. I always use the bronson for enduro racing so can’t comment on the inline for that (because I’m not competent enough to race enduro on a shorter travel bike!), but I’ve had plenty of long days out on both and have had no issues whatsoever.

My only very slight concern about the inline is that you can hear it working…there is a sort of sucking down sound, which is a bit weird. My dbair cs did a similar thing when it came back from its last service so I wondered if it’s the nitrogen charge.

Ta. I was thinking maybe I’d go for a DB Air on my next bike, have you got a lower proportion of returns on the Monarch Plus?

Monarch + is very reliable. One back so far I think and we sell 3-4 for every CC DB Air + Inline combined. That was only a leaky valve which the customer then broke the stem on trying to remove and SRAM still warrantied it.

Only gotcha with the M+ is its trickier to set up than some in Debonair guise. The feel is very sensitive to pressure. We’ve set the inflexion of the shock curve on an Aeris at 30% which matches really well to the Monarch+ (Also a recommended 30% shock) but I hear of issues with setup for some riders on bikes with very high pressures and difficulty in getting a good set up so maybe thats a consideration too, but it does depend on the bike of course!

Looks like I (hopefully) will be getting a 2nd warranty replacement for my inline. So that’s 3 in the space of a year. This time noticed some bad wear on the shaft. Could be frame mis-alignment but it looks ok to me. Also on spitfire.

Good shock, not sure I would call it reliable though.

Mines just sucked down after 287 miles, off to TFT for warranty hopefully. Anybody with long term good experiences or should I just flog it when I get it back and take the plunge and get an Ohlins (Speccy Enduro 29er)

I bought one secondhand…

…and promptly bent the valve stem whilst attempting to cycle the shock with the pump fitted! 🙂

TF Tuned fixed it for me and also made some very minor tuning tweaks. The shock in question had a full warranty rebuild in November, but TF Tuned seemed quite relaxed about running it higher than 180psi.

I’m guessing that it has the replacement bladder kit.

Mine went off to TF after 4 months, they replaced most of it under warranty and now works better than new. New outer seal is blue.

Have any of you lot that had the knock feeling in the first bit of travel discovered what the issue was? Mines started doing it, very noticeable with the climb switch on.

It’s supposed to be the negative air spring. Very Common, even on new/freshly serviced units.

Worry if it chirps on compression!

Thats the negative air chamber, more noticable with volume reducers in it. my inline did it and so does my current monarch plus Debonair. nothing to worry about.

Well talked to TF who agreed it shouldn’t be noticeable and it’s not normal if you can hear it, so its going in under warranty. My other shock (monarch debonair) has been replaced twice because of the same problem.

Cleaning my bike today I noticed this:

Wondering (hoping!) it’d be covered under warranty? Already emailed TF Tuned…

Mine went for a service prior to my Whistler trip and TfTuned replaced a lot of it under warranty even though it was outside the warranty period. Its now a completely different shock, doesn’t blast through its travel unless you’re doing drops and jumps and then it uses the remaining travel. Its a lot more fun to ride with, it absorbs as well as making stuff lively and poppy too. Goes to show if I can tell the difference then it must be different as I’m not the most receptive to suspension changes.