NBD incoming

Nah. When outing the Trek I did try a few deals on a Privateer but none came off in the end. I’m really happy with the Slayer, but I will change brakes soon. When I can be bothered with the internal routing lol.

I may even just take to my LBS, not because I can’t do it, just because I can’t be bothered 🤣🤣🤣

HAd the Shockwiz on there yesterday for a few hours… Needs a smidgen more air pressure on the back but what did surprise me was the rebound. The lad is running it pretty slowly, slower than i’d certainly expect anyway. But the Shockwiz was OK with it.

I spoke to Katy and she also runs hers slower, something to do with geometry, progression curve of the suspension, i don’t know, i’m not an expert.. But both are really happy with it slower than you’d usually expect.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2ogNe53]2023-02-13_04-54-47[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

The cream soda is mine… my bottle cage was too big for it 😀

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CopPvsBp4T3/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

Fast people (and I’m not suggesting you aren’t one 😉 ) typically like slow damping.

I remember Chris Porter thoroughly ruining my patriot in about 2002 when he tuned the shock like he did it for his racers at the time. I hated it 🙂 I like to feel my suspension moving so I’m not much of a damping fan, slow enough and safe enough is fine, everything else is unnecessary but… I’m not trying to win a race.

Lol trust me, I’m not offended. I’m a long long way from fast. Worth having a play though maybe but I’m happy with how mine feels.
I did notice that I can feel a difference between bearing mount and bushing, well I think so.
But I don’t see it or tuning affecting my speed. I’m a slightly brave but fairly incompetent old bloke.

I see it when we hit trails together or I run into a feature with these kids, just ‘wham’ and they’re pinned!

Another day of coaching for the lad, along with a day playing for me.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CovDfb_v_62/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

He also did some daft chute which is like a blood cliff face in reality. It goes down about the same height again to the bottom.

@weeksy good to finally bump into you at FoD when the boy got the bike. He seems a lovely lad and Katy says the same about the 3 of them. Where is that photo above? FoD?

Will keep an eye out for you next week at the Western event, I think you said you were heading there?

Where is that photo above? FoD?

It’s just behind where they do the hire bikes, further up from the most insta’d (non) secret hip in the Forest 😆

@johnjn2000 thank you. As much as I appreciate comments about his riding, I honestly love comments about him as a person. It’s very nice to hear

As said above, instead of going to the blue/red signs right at start before skills area, go left between the 2 stones, through the gate and you’ll find a bit of a play area there.

Can’t write more, bpw all day today, I’m dead!

Will keep an eye out for you next week at the Western event, I think you said you were heading there?

The Westerns seem to have fallen by the wayside for the team, a big part of the reason being that they don’t seem to attract many youngsters to the classes. The 14s class had 5 riders last time we looked and we felt it wasn’t great in terms of value ofr money to only race 5 others. SO next weekend we’re racing at Stile Cop and coaching at FoD before that on the Privateers. In terms of Enduro racing, we’re doing more Southern Enduros than anything else.

@weeksy, ahh yes I remember the conversation now. It was Milland I was going to look out for you, the memory is fading with age 🙂

Jeez that was a bit of a morning…
3 bikes stripped, cleaned, sorted. The Mallet DH pedal on the blue Fury needed a bearing sorting, i’ll get some new bearings ordered, but a clean and regrease has got it fairly OK for now.
But FFS how much mud, mess, dirt can you get on a bike in a day…. Although i wonder how much of the dirt came from the uplift rather than the trails.

The boy had an awesome day and was flying down the trails with his team-mate Drew. I was ‘chasing’ them down some reds, but chasing kind of implies there was a way i’d catch them, but that wasn’t going to happen was it 😀
They then hit some blacks, 50 shades of black for example, which is outside of my depth of talent, so i had to leave them to it.

We had a weird little problem with his rear mech on the DH bike which had ‘moved/slipped’ in some way, i’ve not massively looked into what yet, but the boy and a mate sorted it while i was out on the trails.

Couple of days off for both of us now until we hit FoD and Stile Cop next weekend.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2ohK2sn]2023-02-19_09-18-34[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

But FFS how much mud, mess, dirt can you get on a bike in a day…. Although i wonder how much of the dirt came from the uplift rather than the trails.

we went a couple of weeks ago, the mud collected from the bottom of the hill (Dai Hard last section, IF etc) was a special kind of hard to wash off!

I’m sat on a bench outside the BPW cafe right now looking at the mud on my bike, I’m not looking forward to the clean up!

This was the uplift mess a couple of weeks ago! Way worse than the mud from actually riding!

Bit of a daft mistake at the weekend. I was selling the boys 27.5 forks… well strictly speaking they were my forks lol, but you knwo what i mean.
Bloke came over and was buying to build a bike for his kid. “oh i still need a load of bits other than the forks”… So we dipped into the spares boxes and he was given a set of bars, pedals, cranks, brakes, grips. He was quite staggered that i didn’t want any money for them, but i was happy helping out someone to get a youngie out riding. It was only yesterday when chatting with my lad about his BPW riding and he then says to me, i think those DMR 35 rise bars are a bit too high… Can we go back to the Renthals (28mm rise)… I then looked and looked, until it dawned on me, i’d given the Renthals we took off last week to this bloke 😀 😀
So, onto CRC we go and had to buy the lad a new set of bars lol. I’ve got 4 other sets in spares, but they’re all 35mm diameter and he needs 31.8mm for his stem. I could have bought a stem of course, but the cost would be no different to bars.

Playing at the woods last night and it was one of those weird evenings for him. He simply wasn’t feeling it. Either bike, either style, just a bit ‘nah, got nothing’ which is quite weird for him. On the DH bike he is getting closer to the limit of the 350 spring, so we were trying out the 400, which may have upset the balance of the bike a little, but either way, he just wasn’t quite there.
So we’ve set it back to the 350 as this weekend won’t have anything massive involved in it. Hopefully that’ll find his happy place again. Other than that…. we’re ready i think.

Given that your lad is only going to get heavier/faster and will need to change springs, is it worth looking at a Sprindex so there’s less of a jump between spring weights when he does need to change?

TBH mate we’ve been thinking along not too disimilar lines, well i say ‘we’, he doesn’t really do the thinking, he’s not really the thinking about it kind of rider, but he is very much a rider who notices things when they’re not 100% nowdays. So i’ve been thinking of say

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225160220143?hash=item346c984def:g:tU4AAOSwO6xjHwf-&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoOkOh9JYbtEfbOCcJBw9HjFGI5ES9Xj85HWTHw7DNtiZfdnCVT7Cvn%2BzHSliHsKWe8Mk72%2F6NaHxeU1HniiBhwlfim7utrU%2BY2%2BUX46N3EZTAQu4ZfeQYI6Hq1rsDl9CgvO2y7E4b6Cn4nC%2FvVb5b8WTM1kqD7MKbBemyIx%2BKcenmechYjEu74KB7I%2F1u22M3N3w2Aue%2BLfV%2BBvvFtByH%2B8%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR6iu0v_OYQ

Fox Float X2 Factory 2022/23 rear shock 225×70/72.5/75 Trunnion

That kinda ticks all the aspects of infinite adjustability and makes things a lot simpler. You see, what i didn’t realise before was as you add springs, you also need to adjust the rebound. So when i went from a 300 on his bike to a 550 when i rode it, the rebound was miles out… I was surprised to know as i thought the rebound was ‘static’ in the context of what you set it to was right for the shock, but that was incorrect, it was right for it at that spring rate… Bit of a ligh-bulb moment for me that was. Maybe everyone else here already knows this, but i didn’t at the time. So when i raced his DH bike the rebound was way too fast.
So i’m thinking potentially we go for the air shock on the race bike #1.

We also have a Marzocchi Bomber CR Coil, however that’s a bit of a lemon and needs sorting as it’s crappy in the first 30mm of travel and then has a clunk, so needs a rebuild… Or maybe just selling on as ‘needs a service’ at a lower price.

Air would make life easier for adjustment and might make the DH bike a bit more poppy and slightly closer to the enduro bike in feel. I guess all you can do is try it and wait to see if he’s happy with it!

50lb jumps are far too much. Not a fan of the sprindex as the marked weights are miles out.

I’ve had all my springs checked, so know exactly what they are, did find a spring marked up as 550 which came out at 525.

I’d have the 350 and 400 measured, see where they are, the 350 could be as low as 325!

IMO, I’d avoid the x2, they are unreliable. Losing pressure, dumping oil and in trunnion flavour they just don’t survive.

Simply bolting a shock on to a bike will be pot luck, I’d sooner have a shock with less adjustment setup properly, than one with loads of adjustment.

I guess all you can do is try it and wait to see if he’s happy with it!

IT’s certainly an option, if i can get it for the right price, it could be a simple try it and see without any worry because if he doesn’t i can sell it on for the same money.
We’ve currently gone back to the 350 shock/spring which means the bike is back to how he’s been running it for 4 months now. It’s a tricky little debate at times, he’s very good at feeling something is ‘wrong’ but not necessarily brilliant at giving me the information as to why and what i need to do.
Yesterday was ‘it feels unbalanaced’ which is good… but sometimes i need a bit more info to help with that… But it was pretty certain it was the sprring rate as that was the only change we’d made.

Well apart from the inability to get it down certain lanes, the lack of parking at venues, the lack of parking at home and the expense to purchase, it’s perfect 🙂

Never been a problem, although storage at home could be an issue. Cost £500, sleeps 3, if you can fit a van down the lane you can fit this behind it.

wrong thread 😉 but thanks 😀

wrong thread

Oh yeah…should get back to work😄😄😄

Nukeproof do a 375 spring if it helps at all

All info helps mate… especially if they do it in a 2.80 😀

So i’m thinking potentially we go for the air shock on the race bike #1.

hhmmm not sure about this one. Assuming he’s been liking his DH bikes with coil springs then the move to air could be a biggy. You’re also then entering a world of having to consider HSC, LSC, HSR, LSR plus volume spacers to get it sorted. All of which you still have to consider when adjusting the pressure in either direction.
The fit and forget of a coil (plus the feel of course) makes a lot of sense, along with hoovering up second hand springs whenever you see one

I thought coil can still have all the same compression and rebound adjustments as an air shock

His XFusion coils are fairly basic in terms of adjustability.

We do have a Marzocchi Bomber CR but that isn’t playing nicely and is stiff/slow and clunky…So that’s going to TFTuned this week to be serviced, that has a bit more in terms of adjustment, but that also relies on our ability to do so 😀

He does love the feel of the coil…. but don’t forget, his PRivateer is all air and he’s riding that a fair bit.. Which arguably may make the transition back to the DH setup every weekend or two, slightly difficult. But riding the PRivateer is what he has to do (and actually wants to do as well).

The price of springs is pretty insignificant in the current scheme of things, i think i have 8 of them at the moment lol… with several up for sale on PB and also Ebay…

Spent a while chatting to Rich at RSR Bikeworks and he was telling me some interesting stories about Ethan and Wyn and how they liked their bikes etc..

We moved onto a few possible plans and we now have a new shock and a few spare tyres.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2oijtgg]2023-02-22_03-49-52[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2oijtd5]2023-02-22_03-49-46[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Don’t forget that as he gets heavier and you pump up the shock you’ll need to increase the rebound – it’s the same as a coil 😉

we now have a new shock

Which I’m guessing is filled with hydrogen from how well it levitates!

It’s a tricky little debate at times, he’s very good at feeling something is ‘wrong’ but not necessarily brilliant at giving me the information as to why and what i need to do.
Yesterday was ‘it feels unbalanaced’ which is good… but sometimes i need a bit more info to help with that… But it was pretty certain it was the sprring rate as that was the only change we’d made.

This is where bracketing comes in, you only ever change one setting, make fairly drastic changes, not just one click. Good example is winding up the low speed on the fork, he should feel that the front sits higher in the turns, another example would be taking all the low speed compression off he baclpk, it will sit down mid turn.

I’m pretty lucky with the g1 that I can change how the bike feels with spring weights, but then get the bb height back with spacers. A true race bike should have this built in, rather than the fixed geometry we get.

I hear you. Yesterday I thought was 1 thing which was the spring weight, but it threw things out by the rebound adjuster being borked which messed that up. My mistake, won’t happen again.

We’ll head out for a test run or 5 on the new shock tomorrow but if he’s not feeling it, we’ll throw the 350 coil shock on there as we know it works in 99% of scenarios.

Bracketing etc is very much a weaknesses of ours as we don’t ‘focus’ at times, but that I guess as we’re trying to keep enjoyment in there too. It’s a fine line and we deffo get many things in this game somewhat wrong. But we’re trying to learn and take things onboard from all you guys

The boy loves the new shock, really happy.
We did have some interesting times when fitting as the pin that holds it was a struggle to get in the new hardware.

It was using the push end cap type which seem to allow a bit more freedom and of course movement. We wanted the full bushing which spreads the load better.

I called the GT expert who had a spare straight one and it was soon installed.

So it’s now on with new hardware.

Need a bit more work on pressure as it’s a smidgen soft, but he’s loving the DH bike at the moment for sure.
Busy weekend coming up!

GT Fury Shock Bolt 2019-2021

That’s not an unreasonable price. Ordered one as a spare.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpF3E2KjFth/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

Coaching day for the team then straight to Stile Cop race and a quick practice before they closed the course, walking back up the course to pick out his lines to try in the morning.

Excited boy for tomorrow

Race day. Sunny, dry and cooolllllld

7/36 on run 1. Decent run but hopefully a bit more to give in run2