New bike, Unique Trance Build

Here is my ‘freeride’ friendly xc bike…

Medium Trance
Marzocchi 66SL reduced to 120mm
Avid Juicy 3
Hope/719/stans wheels

It’s a pretty healthy 30lbs but light considering the forks!

Interesting….. I tried a similar thing with a Scott G-Zero while ago. Hopefully you’ll get on better than I did.

Did yours break? The trance seems quite burly so we’ll see…

No – just far too steep/twitchy and not very confidence inspiring. The Menjas I was using also didn’t help as they’re quite a short fork for their travel.

Gave it up and dug out my old Roast frame and ridden that since. Mind you just picked up a coiler of ebay and am waiting for the shock back from TF tuned to start building that up so I may yet go bouncy again.

how did you reduce the forks to 120mm?
did you do this because you already had them knocking around?
does it not feel a bit unbalanced with all that weight at the front?

curious as I was considering trying my 66s on my enduro but the travel is too much (170mm), they’re a bit tall and a bit heavy – I’m guessing it’s easier to reduce the travel on the SLs because they’re air – I think I would have to change the internals on my 66 RC2Xs to get them to 150mm

how did you reduce the forks to 120mm?

They’re ‘designed’ to be reduced from 170-150 via the negative chamber so I just emptied the fork totally and worked out the pressures to get them to run at 120mm.

did you do this because you already had them knocking around?

Yes but they’re pretty well suited to the bike, I like having very good forks. I had some Pikes or 36’s that could be used but these are much nicer. Weight difference is minimal.

does it not feel a bit unbalanced with all that weight at the front?

They’re ‘only’ about 6lbs so it feels fine. The bike is balanced if lifted on the middle of the top tube and rode fine on a short spin yesterday.

I had a trance built up with a pace 130mm fork and the pikes set at 140mm, brilliant bike very very capable………enjoy

I had a trance built up with a pace 130mm fork and the pikes set at 140mm, brilliant bike very very capable………enjoy