New bike day, the Purple Peril….. GT Fury Expert.

Hey, i had to think of a name for the thread…. that’s the best i came up with.

After a random message via an old Pinkbike advert i got a WhatsApp to see if i was interested in swapping the Specialized Status for a DH bike…

Pics were exchanged, messages exchanged and I made the trek to Shropshire today to collect and swap for this.

2022-09-17_06-28-26 by Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr

2022-09-17_06-28-17 by Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr

Like the lads current race DH bike, it’s a GT Fury. This is the ‘expert’ model. It’s 2 years newer than his current bike and a little bigger. It’s also got 10 gears which will help with some of the local rides.

The current plan is to use his first GT Fury as the race bike, but with a view to potentially moving to this by the end of the year, either way, one of them will be the Race bike and one will be the ‘spare’ and emergency bike just in case we have an issue on a race weekend. It’s then just a case of jumping on the 2nd bike and it should be fairly familiar to him.

It’s pretty much immaculate condition and feels pretty nice in the Close riding round, so much so that i think i’ll be the first to test it on a ride tomorrow morning 😀

It was going to be a surprise for the lad, but i had to call him and check he wanted to go all-in with non-trail bike and both his bikes being a DH. He was 100% on this plan.. Whether that’s a 6 month plan or a 5 year plan, well, we’ll see…. but it’s the plan we’ve got for now 🙂

It’ll get it’s first proper run-out at 417 on Monday, i’m curious to see what he’ll be racing on at the weekend..

2022-03-05_02-28-34 by Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr

Needs a yellow coil to compliment the paint job 😉 I know nothing about DH bikes but it looks very nice!

DH bikes are mint. I definitely need one final fling on a modern one before I’m too old and scared. I considered a Fury but they come up too short for me at 6’2″ with long arms.

Yup probably know about the same as me then.

The spring going on tomorrow is black. Yellow is a good idea lol.

By heck. The lad could ride over a generic German saloon and not feel it pass under his wheels on that beast.
👌

By heck. The lad could ride over a generic German saloon and not feel it pass under his wheels on that beast.

I sure hope so… in many ways even though it’s also a GT Fury, it’s pretty different to his current Fury. So i’m really curious to see how it goes for him and whether we can find the confidence or not he has in the Fury at the moment.
I’ve re-sprung the rear, along with taking a spare in 1 increment stiffer. The front though is currently on a Medium spring which may be a little stiff for him… getting a soft is quite tricky as i can only find them in Italy… not a deal-breaker… but obviously takes a little longer. I do wonder if in 3-6 months time the purple will be his go-to and the blue one will be either the spare bike or sprung to my weight and then my DH bike 😀

Well look at that, it’s the fancy new high pivot one! Is it full 29”? What’s that fork?

27.5 both. He prefers that.

https://www.hargrovescycles.co.uk/1081/products/gt-fury-expert—2019-mountain-bike.aspx

Front Fork: X-Fusion LV1, 200mm, 20x110mm Thru Axle, Adjustable Rebound & Compression

Lightweight Fox SLS spring fitted at 350lb. Will check sag tonight but I think it’ll be right.

2022-09-18_12-10-37 by Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr

Give him a helping hand, put the forks & controls off his other bike onto the new one so he’s only got a frame to get used to.

That frame is twice the frame of the older I-drive fury.

Give him a helping hand, put the forks & controls off his other bike onto the new one so he’s only got a frame to get used to.

That frame is twice the frame of the older I-drive fury.

It’s certainly a possibility mate yes. He tried it today and really enjoyed it. But there’s no rush to decide upon which we use, how and when

At the end of the day, the fork swap takes an hour

Minor tech question.

There’s no such thing as an Eagle 10 speed chain is there ?

I was giving it a clean after this weekends race and noticed ‘eagle’ on the chain and i think it’s 459 on another link.

The setup as standard is
Crank
Race Face Chester, 165mm, 36T Ring
Bottom Bracket
Race Face, 83mm
Chain
KMC X10, 10-speed
Rear Cogs
Sunrace, 11-28, 10-Speed

It’s got an aftermarket Raceface chainring on i think, the bronze type colour version, but i still think it ought to have a 10sp chain on it ?
I’ve got one in the spares box brand new, so no biggy if that’s the case.

There’s no such thing as an Eagle 10 speed chain is there ?

isn’t Eagle is (more or less) the same thing as Shimano’s Hyperglide, i.e. it’s a name for a group of technologies shared with the groupsets, ie NX eagle will work with XO1 eagle

You can run >10 speed chains on a 10speed setup (i.e. 12 will work on 11 and 11/12 will work on 10)

Wider > > > > > > > > Narrower
9spd 10spd 11spd 12spd

As dc1988 rightly points out, you can put a higher speed chain on a lower speed drivetrain as they are narrower, but not the other way round. I’ve found that 11/12speed chains are less durable in my experience than 10 so probably would swap on the 10 if you’ve got one spare

Put all the good stuff on the Purple one, get the Blue one on air suspension so it can be both your bike and his spare.

Yeah i’ve now fitted a 10sp chain and link, so that’s all done.

Put all the good stuff on the Purple one, get the Blue one on air suspension so it can be both your bike and his spare.

Well that’ the question i don’t yet know the answer to. Which is ‘better’ the 2018 Boxxers or the 2020 Xfusions…

I can’t fit the shocks over from one to the other, they’re slightly different length/stroke, so the shock is staying.. The forks though i could move over.

But that’s the only ‘good stuff’ on the Blue bike… well, unless we count the Pro4s, which i can swap the front over for certain, but i need to speak to my Hope tech guy at Rotec cycles to work out the rear as the Blue bike has a 150*12 and the Purple is 148*12. Hopefully it’s just an end-cap swap or even a spare set of end-caps and trimmed by 1mm a side to get into the 148*12 of the purple bike. But that depends on the disk/hub offsets which can be different on DH bikes too. So that’s currently open to discussion.

As said, we’re at RSR Bikeworks tomorrow evening to get the telemetry done on the bouncy stuff, so we’ll know more after that on the setup.
The Codes Rs should arrive in a few days and they’ll go on the purple bike to give him the stopping power for the weekend coming.

As for air suspension so i can use it… Well in honesty that’s pretty unlikely now it seems to be the chosen bike.. Which means that 99% of the times i’d want to be riding the Purple one, he’d be on it anyway… So i couldn’t. Add to the fact it’s £1500 to get the bouncy bits in air.. i may as well buy a whole new bike instead lol.
Lastly, i don’t need/deserve/justify a DH bike if i’m honest with myself.

his favourite SRAMs have now been migrated over to the purple bike… so he’ll not be able to complain “oh i don’t really like the brakes”

As always, he doesn’t ‘complain’ but observes/notices, but i do press him for answers 🙂 I want to make the bike as nice as possible for him, so i quiz him.

And another quite specific question.
Need to work out a rear wheel plan. The blue GT is 150*12 and DH hub.(it’ll fit a normal Shimano cassette) The purple is 148*12.
The 150 does fit in purple bike (a bit snugly) but I’d say it’s 2mm offset too close to chainstay on brake side, so brake rotor won’t fitas it would hit frame.
Can you convert this to 148 or do we need a new hub? Front is fine and goes on lovely. But I think the purple bike will be #1 bike now so would ideally like the Hopes on it.

Minor irritation as that we’ve had a couple of chain drops on the purple peril. So i’m looking into options.

It seems to have an LG1 chain retention system, but only 2/3 of it… so it doesn’t have the top guide.

This is how the bike came as standard from the factory.

2022-10-04_10-00-58 by Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr

It only dropped once at Hopton, which it caught again and came back. So not all bad… but i’d prefer ‘never’ in terms of dropping it.

I thought moving the back plate forward may sort it, but i can’t change that angle/position. So i’m wondering how i can fit a top guide..

I also looked at the orientation of the high pivot wheel, that seems to be different for different chainsets, but it seems to be in the best position.

Thoughts appreciated.

That’s not a N/W chainring, stick one ☝️ n and you’ll be good.

Also check rear mech tension, and chain length.
Has been cause of my chain dropping woes previously.

Excellent Jimmy…. i didn’t even notice as it was a Raceface… will do that later 😀

i didn’t even notice as it was a Raceface

The ring is a Renthal on there, one of the older SR4 type.

LOL brain ain’t working…. I’ll get one ordered today.

Just currently swapping the forks from the blue bike to the purple one.

So the race bike will now get the Boxxers. Along with the Pro4evo front wheel.

Way more of a faff swapping triple forks though !

Way more of a faff swapping triple forks though !

I reckon changing dual crown forks is easier. The only additional step is having to remove the top crown and when putting it all back together you don’t even have to align the stem

YEah but they’re different heights, so needed to measure up the floor to bar height, along with having both bikes with very dogdy headsets, so i’ve needed a lower in the purple bike and an upper installing in the blue one…. Luckily i had 2 spare headsets in the box, so they’re in now and the Boxxers are ready to play.

Chainring is ordered and waiting it’s arrival.

2022-10-04_11-10-20 by Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr

With the clutch off on the mech, does the mech move smoothly?

Ive found that over time, the pivot axle for the lower cage corrodes and develops stiction, so you end up with poor mech tension, leading to the chains coming off.

The DH22 is an amazing tyre with outstanding grip and the toughest carcass on the market, but draggy as hell especially on the rear and well overkill for what your lads racing.

Will check that later… but i think it may be as simple as the N/W chainring as suggested… I’ve got one ordered, so i’ll check that as well. Thanks for the vid.

The DH22 is an amazing tyre with outstanding grip and the toughest carcass on the market, but draggy as hell especially on the rear and well overkill for what you lads racing.

It was Forecast to be wet on the weekend, which didn’t work out to be the case. Well, it rained a bit but it was wet for Sat morning practice, then dry..
However my lad being my lad wouldn’t let me swap it back to an Assegai, even though it wasn’t even a tyre swap but just a simple wheel swap that would be 20s work. I also think he liked the fact it was Ethan Craiks race rubber lol. Sometimes he listens and ignores my thoughts/advice…. The problem is, i’m not the one riding the bike, he is. LOL. But that’s a whole different kettle of crazy.
FWIW, i agree completely with you… but you try convincing him 🙂

He’s now got the Hope Pro4 in and the Assegai… but the DH22 is stil on the back at the moment, but i’ll likely swap it for the weekend.

Well that was interesting… after some testing last night the boy declared

“Both bikes feel completely wrong with the other bikes suspension fitted”. Apparently they were completely out of sync.

So both sets of forks were swapped back lol.

Also replaced both of the tyres for this weekends riding and racing. Assegai and DHR fitted for this set.

Needs orange fox 40’s 😁, the boxxers just didn’t look right but look fine on the pale turquoise/blue/green whatever ruddy colour that old fury is, and there’s too much black going on upfront with the x-fusions IMHO, but I’m just a self confessed bike ponce.
Love the purple but it’s a tricky one to match up.

Lol send em over mate.

Looks like a Cadbury Twirl so needs custom brown forks!

Lol that could have been its name!

@weeksy, noice, I had the first gen Fury. Absolute weapon of a bike, that purple is perfect.

If you want another first gen, one could be up for sale this week.

Sky blue, lovely condition and not crazy money

Bloody loved that bike, but my Slayer is all I need!

If you want another first gen, one could be up for sale this week.

Sky blue, lovely condition and not crazy money

Blimey, you should open a bike shop!