[Closed] minimising trail vibrations

i had this on a FS during braking = pivots ****ed (actually mine was ovalising of the frame around the pivot bearing)

fork locked-out ?
brake levers rotated too far "down" ?
braking too much ?
(how many fingers have you got on the levers ?)

elbows up, shoulders down, knees bent, death grip off, relax

I'd look at your forks first, are they air? You can try with less psi to see if that helps. And look at rebound (too fast?)

Then look at bar, stem and saddle setup.

If you can have a look at your body position on the bike, it might be you are pitched a bit too much forwards so putting more weight on your wrists than need be.

Angling saddle, shorter stem, rotating bars can all help reduce the weight on your wrist, which should help you ride lighter.

(I broke both wrists so spent quite a while getting setup right on my bikes to reduce pressure & vibrations)

Expensive solutions could be things like carbon bars help with trail buzz.

I got 1 finger on levers and they are setup in same position as all my previous bikes. The only thing that is really different is my grips but dont think they will make that big of a difference

I got no problem in my wrists just my fingers. The forks are air and running about 30% sag I run them quite soft.

The obvious one? Tyres especially the front inflated too high?
anything over 35 psi is too much IME

Ideally, the least pressure you can get away with without the tyre rolling on the rim or pinch flatting

I'm in the same situation, but i think it might be that my bars are rotated too far forward....

cabbage84 - Member
I got 1 finger on levers and they are setup in same position as all my previous bikes. The only thing that is really different is my grips but dont think they will make that big of a difference

Lots of new bikes have realy skinny grips, lots of new gloves do not have much in the way of padding. All in the quest of "feeling the trail". Driven by mag reveiws imo 👿
Not convinced myself. I always change my grips for something substantially thicker, currently Raceface ??? something or other and find the gloves with the best padding. I have a manual job so hands are "tough" but with old age come aches n pains 🙄

cabbage84 - Member
I got no problem in my wrists just my fingers. The forks are air and running about 30% sag I run them quite soft.

Too soft maybe and bottoming out too often? A very good shop I use reckons the biggest cause of fork failure is people riding with forks too soft, looking for the "plush" feel etc

I was talking about wrists as it's all connected, if your weight is to far forwards you'll be putting to much weight forwards and probably gripping harder to compensate. You could of course just not be relaxing who knows.

Other thing to do is pay £50 or so to get a professional to set the bike up perfect for you. Best £50 I spent, learnt loads and got the bike setup perfect, have applied learning to all bikes since. Can recommend someone in southampton if you're local.

It could easily save you £50 in potentially unnecessary upgrades (trying shorter stems etc..)

too much compression damping?

The only thing that is really different is my grips but dont think they will make that big of a difference

Not true in my experience. I've found that thinner grips give me the same bruised knuckles you talked about, but I changed to some thicker ones and the problem was reduced. (I changed from ODI Ruffians to ODI Rogue)

I find that my fingers often fatigue fairly quickly on descents where I'm gripping quite hard (both the grips and when I'm on the brake - one or two finger braking). I will try to play with front-end setup as has been suggested here and see if that helps.

tarmac it?

Grips make a massive difference. Given that your body only contacts the bike in four places (not inclouding the saddle as your ass should not be sat on it when descending) what on earth makes you think they don't.

If you have big hands you need thickish grips or you will end up with ****ers cramp.

Carbon bars help alot, good gloves help alot, damping on the fork helps alot, tyre pressure helps alot, the angle at which you have the brake levers (should be no more than about 45 degreesish) the angle you have the sweep on the bar helps alot (having your wrists bent inwards is bad, i.e. the bar shouldn't rise upwards too much at an angle from the stem).

Also grip the bars and giving yourself white knuckles is bad.

you've got skinny grips?

skinny grips often hurt people with big hands.

i thought i was going to have to give up mountain biking until i found 'sunline logo - thick' grips.

and angling-up my brake levers a bit helped too. (so you rest on your palms, rather than gripping hard to hold on)

Should not need to grip that tight, just enough to keep your hands on. Try slightly thicker grips. Drop you heels and let your feet do all the hard work.

ever tried the Body geometry grips?

not the dafter "ergo" blade ones, but the more subtle bulged ones?

[img] ?1227118982[/img]

if you can find them they are well worth a bash, have them on both my trail bike and my beefy Hardtail. only have straight grips on my Dirt/street bike

slower rebound, less air in the front tyre, should fix it 🙂

You are going faster on your new bike, so gripping on more?

Seriously though, setup is most probable.

For example; I've a steel 456 and a Ti 456 and use different height bars on each (about 10mm lower on Ti) - otherwise I get a bad back. All I can guess is that there is a slight difference in size/geometry/tube-length between the two.