So I’ve a Rocket26 and it’s lovely but I’m wondering if any fellow Rocket26 owners have any tips on tweaks to make it more awesome to stave off New Bike Desires?  I’m ~180cm, its a large frame, I’ve a 70mm stem on it (tried 60mm briefly but I was too far back), and Revelations at 150mm.

The crazy part of me was wondering about semi-future-proofing by swapping the forks and front wheel for 140mm 650b fork/wheel, Liteville-style.  Offset bearings?  Angleset?  If anything I’ve over-biked so making it more like a Flare would be a good thing.

More solid forks. I’m 178cm and 64kg on a medium and used Revelations when I first built it. Picked up a pair of new style Pikes and the extra solidity on the front end is well worth it, despite the extra weight.

Worth trying offset bushes, as its a cheap and easy experiment.

No such thing as overbiked, just ride harder trails!

Still love mine, 5 years on. Use it alongside a new MkV Soul and the 2 work together very well.

Just received some offset bushings and will be installing tomorrow so will let you know. Mine is currently in this flavour:

Large frame black

Rp2 shock

X fusion metric 160mm forks

RSP carbon bars 780mm

Renthal Duo stem 10° rise and 50mm

KS DX 175mm seat post

Stans flow mk3 rims on hope pro 2 hubs with on one chunky monkey and smorgasbord tyres

Hope m4 evo brakes 203/180mm rotors

M8000 xt 1x drivetrains

Raceface turbine cranks

Mallet dh pedals

Hope headset

Charge spoon saddle

I have mucked around with many components on it since I’ve had it and the biggest difference was the forks. So much better in rough stuff pointing downhill. Had 150mm revs on before.

I went from a 70mm stem to 50mm and again I find it better with wider bars for control.

Only thing i would now change is rear shock…. Oh and the frame as have ridden the 27.5 version and is very nice indeed!

Beefier forks definitely, I have some Marzocchi 55 RC3ti (I think) on the front and it transformed it even from the Lyriks I had before. Ridiculously supple but great on big hits too. I have a CCDB Air Inline on the back too, which seems to compliment it pretty well. Tempted to try some offset bushings for extra rad.

You’ll never make a Rocket like a Flare though I don’t think; it’s at its best going fast, when you hit a certain point it just kinda skips over the top of everything. Put lighter bits and shorter forks on and I don’t think I’d have the confidence to hit that speed.

650b forks might not be a bad shout though, just be careful you don’t make it *too* slack.

I was thinking of reducing the travel to compensate for the larger diameter, seems like 160mm @ 26er is going to be “roughly” the same as 140mm @ 650b…

Been looking briefly at beefier forks.  Am I right in thinking that Dual Position Pikes are TALAS with a different name and be ignored?

Hi

Mines set up with:

Fox36 front and an X2 shock rear

785 bars with 50mm stem

XT 1×10

Hope AM4 SP hubs with the latest Flow rims

Cheers

Steve

Sell it, its dead , plus lets be blunt you want a new bike 😀

I ran mine with 650b forks at 150mm. That set (zochi 350) had the same a-c at 150mm as the manual listed as the max length fork.

Ultimately the upgrade bug caught me and I bought a 650b rocket (which is even better).

Mine is running Pikes at 160mm with a 1 degree slackset to bring the bb back down a touch. The Pikes are Vorsprunged and the Fox shock is Pushed, its ace.

My favourite bit though is that I’ve had the seat stays on my black frame sprayed black to match the rest 🙂

If my Pikes die I’ll buy a 650b fork to replace it but I’m determined to run it as long as possible. My mates have all succumbed but nobody seems any faster for it. I bought a pair of nearly new Minion/High Roller TR recently so I’m good to go for a while…

On the subject of ‘too slack’, I ran it with 160mm Pikes for ages before the slackset and it felt just fine. Adding the slackset has meant it pedal strikes a bit more often but only in the way that most new bikes do I guess.

I ran 160mm Pikes and a -1° angleset.

Did you try a longer bar when you tried the shorter stem?

Longer bar moves your weight forward.

alpin: the bar is 760mm and I’m not massively broad shouldered so don’t really want to go to the heady widths of 800mm.

Kelvin, curious to your thinking and rationale behind that combination, as I suspect you know more than most here about Rocket geometry…

forks or shock. CCDB is a thing of wonder and not really that hard to dial in to a good degree. Plus both could be transferred to a new steed when you really want to 🙂

Well 26er forks couldn’t be transferred to a new (presumably 650b) frame which is party why I was wondering about running 650b forks/front wheel.

Been looking briefly at beefier forks.  Am I right in thinking that Dual Position Pikes are TALAS with a different name and be ignored?

They are much better than TALAS but not as good as non travel adjust Pikes. At the stupid low prices you sometime see them at I think they are worth considering.

I ran mine with the BOS Vip’R rear shock and set of Surly Instigator wheels so 50mm rims and 2.75 tires, it was a riot.

Well 26er forks couldn’t be transferred to a new (presumably 650b) frame which is party why I was wondering about running 650b forks/front wheel.

Why not? I’ve got 26″ forks in my Switchback and I had 26″ forks in the Flare, Rocket and BFe (all with 26″ wheels, granted) when I had them. No fiery death ensued 🙂 Loads of ’26’ forks will take 650B, there’s only 12mm or so difference in the radius.

I guess my thought was if I’m going to buy new forks then I’d prefer to buy 650b for future proofness.

Future proof against what? 26″ will be back round as a newer, nimbler, lighter & stronger size in a couple of years anyway, probably on QR MiniBoost* 135×10 (it’s lighter and stiffer!)… 😆

* **** off SRAM, that one’s mine.

650b forks, with 26″ wheel, was where I ended up for a while… plenty of room for a chunky tyre and a mudguard. Forks went into a Rocket275 eventually. That bike has had a CCDB on it as well… lovely shock. Trying others… but will be going back to it I reckon.

I went angleset, rather than offset bushings, so as to go slacker at the front, without going slack at the rear. Did this with both my Rocket26 and Rocket275.

My metrics are both 26 and 27.5 comparable, 36mm and have high and low speed compression and rebound. Worth a left field thought if forks were your next step. As they say…transformed the ride blah blah..!