I was wondering whether any Zesty owners on here have had their Fox RP23 shock pushed by TFT and if so, was it worth the expense and what did you find was better afterwards.

I don’t get the full ins and outs but my shock seems to have a very linear compression and the o ring always seems to be off the shaft when I get home. I set it up to around 20% sag and I only weight 72kg so not a heavy rider.

I don’t want to go wasting money if there is no need to have the shock pushed or whether I could just purchase the shim kit that fox sell and use them instead.

I found my 714 zesty the same with the o ring off the shaft at the end of each ride, even reducing the sag didnt change it ( as you mentioned).

I felt the suspension performance was fine and plush with feeling wollowy and just kept using it.

I know the guy who bought my zesty frame fitted a RS Monarch Plus and he felt that really improved the control/performance of the rear end decsending, but didnt give any technical feedback.

hope that helps in some way…

I’ve got an rp23 kashima XV boost valve shock on my 2011 zesty TBH it didn’t make a huge difference to the stock rp2
The pro pedal on the rp2 was fantastic on the rp23 im never even sure it works!!!
I had a volume reducer but in and it improved the blowing through the travel issue, I now run it at 175psi and I’m 13 1/2st in old money. The low friction bushes made massively more improvement.

Right, very few will agree with me here, but, I think that Fox Air shocks are all crap. It’s weird as there’s nothing wrong with their coil shocks.

I’ve owned 3 sussers and they all performed much better when any shock other than a Fox Air shock was used.

Fox air shocks require very high pressures. There’s loads more stiction as a result, but when they do start moving its all over the place. They blow through their travel and carry on noodling about after and trail obstacle has been passed.

All anecdotal and I haven’t owned a susser for a few years so things may have changed.

Cannondale Super V – way better with 5th Element air than Fox float R.
Giant Trance – came with RP3, much better with 5th Element Air.
Giant Reign – Came with Manitou Swinger, tried RP3 (again rubbish) and stuck with Fox Van R.

Personally, I’d put a decent coil shock on it and put up with the weight gain, the difference is incredible – much more akin to a new and much better bike. When you’ve sorted it, buy a titanium coil and yer done.

Some interesting comments here. I especially agree that based on my experience the pro pedal knob seems to do nothing. I also notice that when riding on the road I can see the shock bobbing as I pedal.

If there is a better shock out there without too much of a weight gain then I am all ears.

I have fitted low friction bushes as the stock fox ones are dire!

With regards to the volume reducer, is that the white plastic thing that clips over the large washer thing on the piston?

i cant give you any real feedback yet but ive just had my zesty stripped and powdercoated and while it was stripped i sent my RP2 off to tftuned and they’ve applied a kashima upgrade and a PUSH tune. Im currently building it back up so if i remember ill try and post some thoughts on it when i actually get back on it. Just over a week into 6 weeks stopped riding though due to a broken jaw!

Regards the volume reducer if I remember correctly you can by a kit with three different sizes to interchange, my opinion would be try that your self before sending away, I was told that you should bottom out your forks and shock on a half decent trail/jump/drop and if that’s not happening its got too much air in it I run my 150mm for at 30% sag and my shock at About 15% (zesty frame gauge) and genuinely really like it.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard of Fox shocks coming back with an unexpected Kashima coating…is a standard FOC thing?

I take it just came with the Kashima and you didn’t request/pay for it?

The pro pedal isnt a lock out for road its just there to allow a firmer ride for climb or whenever. Mine dont bob, not that I go on the road if I can help it 🙂 Expriment with air pressures most run way tyoo much.

I have Kashima very nice and plush. Use some fork juice regularly and striction will go away. Fire some on reberb too and it keeps it smooth and fault free in my experience.

Thing is, if you are using all the travel, but are not noticing hitting the end stops, then why change anything? it’s not like you are going to be deep into the travel when needing very fine damping (like for climbing traction or braking bumps….)

My 2012 zesty would always use all of the travel (O ring off shaft as mentioned above) but, yup, never noticed it actually happening.

If you look at the zesty ratio chart, you can see that it gets very close to the knee point at which the rear wheel to shock ratio starts to increase non linearly. This is why, even with an air shock (where spring load is square of displacement) you can use all the travel.

2013 shock mounting “spider” modifies this a little, giving a slightly more progressive ramp to the end of the travel btw

1st port of call as mentioned above will be putting a bigger volume reducer in. If you get to the biggest reducer and are still not happy then consider a custom tune although IMO using a damping tune to solve a spring curve problem is really bodging the job.

I was just messing around with the RP23 rebound settings and want to understand what should be the behaviour when you have the rebound valve fully closed.

It rebounds more slowly than when fully open, but I am sure that on a new RP23 the shock rebound is really slow and pretty much sticks when the rebound knob is fully closed.

I just want to check this to see whether this is the case and after 2 years I should have the Nitrogen recharged.

Thanks

Rebound behaviour depends on shock pressure so there is no set behaviour. The more pressure the faster it rebounds. My CTD felt like a pogo stick due to the high pressure needed to stop it blowing through its travel even with rebound fully closed before I fitted the correct larger spacer.

That’s where the volume spacer comes in, you run lower pressures to get the same bottom out so you end up with more sag, better small bump compliance and greater rebound control at any given rider weight and rebound setting.

I just stuck a coil on mine. Awesome bike.

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Iv,e got a spicy like that. 😉
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Not had my Zesty shock pushed, but I did have one pushed for a Trek Fuel Ex. It didn’t feel any better, possibly more difficult to get full travel but no better on the climbs. When I rang them about the shock I had got back, the person I spoke to seemed pretty indifferent to what I was querying. I couldn’t be bothered to send it back again because they didn’t seem to be bothered about telling me how they could improve it to m liking. It would just have meant time off the bike, for a minimal percentage gain maybe.

Then it started losing air pressure, but it was a few months since I’d had it pushed, so who’s to say its not wear and tear or perishing due to winter/being stored in a cold shed rather than a faulty seal. But never had that on any other shock (Fox / RS /Marzocchi), so all in I was a bit disappointed.

I’d probably try Loco or one of the others. Having said that, I was very impressed with the Monarch shock on my Titus, which is a similar suspension lay out.

Then it started losing air pressure, but it was a few months since I’d had it pushed

I’d have had that right back to TFT…

If there is a better shock out there without too much of a weight gain then I am all ears.

Bos Vip’r.

Also have a look here:
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/nicolai-helius-shcok-which-one

Rob – it was over winter and I’d kept it in a shed, so I could understand that a seal had perished. I think the leakage was the last straw and I sold the frame with the leakage listed as a caveat. I probably should have, but I’d lost interest in it by then.