And why wouldn’t you. Make the plushest rear end of any bike I’ve ridden just that little bit better. This is the one that wouldn’t fit to my mate Adam’s scout. He posted about it a couple of weeks ago. Fits my L 2017 smuggler very nicely.
Feels amazing just riding it over some rough farm tracks in the fields by the house. Proper test tomorrow. Beast at C-Y-B. Expect bike will be ace, my fitness after knackering my ankle and riding 4 times this year so far, probably not so ace 😉
I’m aware of the parlous state of the fence. It’s on the list.
you should get the push MX tune on it. I had a van rc on a previous bike and it was amazing. given the leverage ratio of the trannie’s you may find you have to go up 50-100lb on the spring rate.
Why I wouldn’t is that I don’t personally think the smuggler has a progressive enough spring rate to work ideally with a coil. But if you value small bump sensitivity over progression fair enough.
As Poah hints. If you’re an aggressive rider you will need to go up to a higher rate rear spring to avoid going deep into the travel too easily (and bottoming out).
plusher is one thing but without support it’s not exactly always an upgrade.
I have a DB Coil IL with Ohlins Spring on my Smuggler the grip is immense & not blown through the travel & am 90kg+ aggressive rider. Do have a stiffer spring, bought shock form TF who set it up. Have also tried it with 200×57 shock from my Vitus with offset bushes & angle headset. Coil is the best with 140 Ohlins forks upfront a very balanced & planted bike
Awful AND effective 😉 I hate the thing, but I don’t have to look at it while riding!
Good to hear some feedback from actual experience. I don’t really understand spring rates at all, but I do know it felt amazing on the test ride. Will post some real thoughts when I’m back later.
Why would it not fit? I don’t know anyone who rides a Transition (Smugglers, Scouts and Patrols) that doesn’t have a piggyback shock and many run coils .
My mate has his Smuggler set up with a CCDB coil with longer stroke and eye to eye and offset bushings to compensate, 150mm forks and a -2 angleset. It’s very, very fast.
That was a fab day. I really liked the coil shock on all the damp rocks on the Beast trail. Definitely seemed more controlled than the Monarch. Think I bottomed it out once (on the drop on false teeth) but wound a tad more pre-load on for the look of the thing and carried on.
Didn’t touch the LSC or the rebound. Felt pretty good from Adam’s settings. Ended up with a few PRs on the descents and pretty close on the rest. Since they were set on my Mojo3 and Bird Aeris, I’m happy with that.
Little bit more bob on climbing but based on how south my fitness has gone since injuring myself, I’ll put some of that down to tired pedalling.
So for a bit of weight, seemed to get ‘bottomless travel’, super controlled rear end, loads of grip and a real balanced feeling between front and rear. Might be ‘new bit’ glasses but I’m definitely sticking with it.
Try to avoid using excessive pre-load on coil shocks. It only takes away initial sensitivity. Better option would be to go up a spring rate (maybe even just by 25lb)
“How was the 200 x 57? I’m thinking about going this route to increase the travel to 128mm. Any benefit?”
When I ran the longer 200×57 shock with offset bushings it wasn’t for long enough. 2 short local rides. I had been off the bike for a bit, it was also a Rockshox Monarch RCT3, not as good as my now DBIL Coil shock.
preload only affects initial sensitivity – won’t do anything for bottoming out. you should have any preload other than to hold the spring in place.
Wrong.
It would only not increase bottom out resistance if the coil was going to full bind without any preload – which of course it won’t be – even with preload added.
Preload shifts the entire force graph up the y-axis, instead of steepening the curve like an alteration to spring rate does.