Unfortunately it’s not shown on the exploded diagram so this is speculation… I would guess it functions similar to a nyloc nut, with the rubber grommet acting to stop the reach adjuster turning too freely. Without it is possible that being rattled on the bike could cause the adjuster to turn itself. You could remedy this making your own rubber grommet out of an inner tube or using loctite.

Good luck!

Totally understand wanting to have a nicer set of bars, I’m probably going to “upgrade” from the nukeproof alu to carbon bars!

I’m unfortunately out of ideas. You’ve tried rotating the bars – changes how much of the upsweep contributes to backsweep? Can you tell looking at the dirt marks on your old bars how these were rotated?

Has anything else changed with your setup or riding?

Good luck in getting this sorted.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but why don’t you go back your old ones or look for a carbon pair with the same angles, if you want to upgrade.

Also consider that if you are changing the width the bars then that affects the angle that your wrists meet the bar at. The wider the bar the more naturally turned out your wrists are.

I’ve just looked at these bars, they have very similar angles, suggesting that they will feel similar. What are the angles for your current bars?

I find that I prefer a handlebar with slightly more back sweep (or rotated inwards a bit). I was having wrist pain after long days at Whistler using a Answer ProTaper bar. Overnight I swapped to Nukeproof handlebars and it was so much better. My mate who was recovering from a broken scaphoid was having some pain, so he rotated his bars towards the saddle just a bit and it massively improved the situation. This is obviously personal preference but something to consider

Perhaps also consider your grips. I find the Odi Ruffians too narrow, the Rogues too wide, but the Odi TLDs just right (I sound a bit like Goldilocks!).

I’m planning on trying to make a ghetto 9 speed wide range cassette. I’m going to use a Hope 40T sprocket (Shimano specific) with a Shimano XT M770 11-34T cassette.

There are a couple of complications that mean it might not work:
(1) The reinforcing tabs near the top of the Hope sprocket are designed to make contact with the 36T sprocket on the cassette – two opposite tabs have an outer diameter of 131mm, but my quick measure of the 11-34T cassette has the dips between the teeth at 129mm and the teeth at 134mm. So it will depend where the Hope tabs align to the teeth as to whether they interfere or not. The XT cassette has pins out of back the cassette which luckily happen to just be wider than the required spacing, so I’m hoping the splines of the Hope Sprocket will rest on that. I’m happy to make up a narrow spacer to fit on the freewheel to account for the difference in 9sp and 10sp spacing (probably use HDPE plastic).

(2) On the XT cassette, the 17T is fixed to the carrier. The simplest would be to lose the 15T cog, but personally this is very useful. I’m planning to drill out the pins that hold the 17T cog on the carrier and then file the carrier down (there’s a nice line to make it easy). This way I can ditch the 17T. I might swap the 15T for a 16T, if the jump is too big.

This is all beginning to sound complicated, but I don’t want to throw out a very low mileage 1x 9-sp drivetrain just to get this to work.

Are folk successfully running these tubeless? Does it require more than just yellow tape? I appreciate that this can vary with tyre brands – I tend to run Maxxis Minion EXO 2.5, so any information about compatibility with Maxxis tyres would be appreciated.

Reading on mtbr.com it sounds like a lot of people were using Bontrager rim stips, I’m not sure how well this would work on these wider rims.

I emailed Race Face about this, the offset is 2mm

I’m running on SLX m665 cranks with no problems.

There’s two potential negatives to doing this:
1) there’s potential for the individual turns of the coil to bind on full compression.
2) the spring rate has not changed – it is still a 400lb/in spring (this is one of the differences to air suspension, where you can’t separate preload and spring rate). This means that you are likely to bottom out on relatively minor hits or be very dependent upon high speed compression damping. Whether or not this is a reality will depend upon how the leverage rate changes during the stroke.

Thanks for the details. I’ll contact my friend and check whether she’s happy for me to take it apart more. Is it a common problem that the diaphragm gets torn or is it that they just wear out and stop sealing?

Yeah I was hoping it was some kind of overflow, but unfortunately it seems to be still leaking despite being sat for a couple days and the lever doesn’t feel that sharp anymore.

Does anyone know what would be broken inside? I appreciate spares aren’t available but at least if I could spot a broken seal then I would know it was for the bin.

Thanks.

Bar position may be out a bit, is there a tried and tested method to get them right?

In terms of rotating them towards the saddle, it really is only a subtle shift that is required, easily something you would quickly try for a section of trail during a ride and then get instant feedback. The difference in sweep between the Answer and Nukeproof bars was only 1 deg but made a massive difference.

Something I have found is that I like my bars rotated further back than some of my mates and it generally seems to correlate with people who ride over the front v. me who rides more over the back. Again it’s only a subtle difference.

In the spirit of blaming components, have you looked at your handlebar setup?

I find that I prefer a handlebar with slightly more back sweep (or rotated inwards a bit). I was having wrist pain after long days at Whistler using a Answer ProTaper bar. Overnight I swapped to Nukeproof handlebars and it was so much better. My mate who was recovering from a broken scaphoid was having some pain, so he rotated his bars towards the saddle just a bit and it massively improved the situation.

Perhaps also consider your grips. I find the Odi Ruffians too narrow, the Rogues too wide, but the Odi TLDs just right (I sound a bit like Goldilocks!).

I moved to Seattle from Edinburgh. There is a lot of great biking here, but unfortunately most of it has dubious access issues and therefore isn’t suitable for open discussion.

If you are after mainly (gap) jumps, Duthie is great. For local XC the standard Tiger ride off the Evergreen page is good. The most readily available extensive XC/all mountain trails that are legal are about 2h north in Bellingham at Galbraith. If you pop into the LBS (called Fanatik) in Bellingham they’ll give you a map and some helpful hints.

Sorry that I am unable to be more forthcoming. Wen I moved here it took me ages to understand the weird access issues, especially coming from Scotland with the right to roam act.

Have fun!

I also seem to be having a similar problem.

I have a Zee clutch mech which does this limited forward rotation before it feels like the clutch kicks in. It didn’t seem to do this to begin with. I’ve also tried to tightening the screw but it doesn’t seem to have helped.

Bump 😉

Thanks.

From what I’ve read, people buy a 0.25″ (6.35mm) square nut and cut a groove for the cable with a final height of 6mm. But I’m not sure if this provides the perfect change in the pull ratio.

There used to be a piece of software called Instamapper, which you could program to send a GPS co-ordinate at set time intervals. It was great for my girlfriend to track my progress. Unfortunately that has now stopped working (they say temporarily). Currently my girlfriend uses the find my iphone app when she wants to check where I am on a ride.

Sounds like Squirt is the winner. Anyone have experience of Finish Line Wax lube?

Just to say about Tiger mountain – it doesn’t officially open till April 15th, but this can depend on weather.

I’m not sure when or how long you are here. But Canada is very close.

The North shore is awesome – not all DH stuff at all. Then there is Squamish and the XC trails at Whistler which are really good – Comfortably Numb is excellent.

The place Neil was mentioning is called Duthie. It is awesome for jumps, but in my opinion the the XC isn’t great – they seem to have focused more on trying to cram as much mileage in a small space rather than flowy trails.

Unfortunately I don’t ride much XC stuff, but if you are entering some races then I’m sure you’ll meet people. This is kind of how it works here and then you start to find the hiddden stuff.

Other places to look for are Tiger mountain if it is open (chance of seeing bears and cougars) and Tokul.

Good bike shops in Seattle: Big Tree or GHY. Greggs is ok, more like Edinburgh Bike Coop tho, actually they have a XC race team I think, so perhaps worth chatting to them.

I live in Seattle. Perhaps if you describe what kind of trails you like to ride – I used to live in Edinburgh if you want to give some comparisons.

A lot of the snow cover has gone, but some of high mountain riding (6000ft) is obviously out. I don’t really know that many good cross country rides unfortunately as I tend to ride mainly DH or jumps. A lot of the best trails here are to a varying degree hush hush as they are technically illegal, which is why even though it has a great reputation it is hard to find some info. The best bet is going to bike shops and asking around. In terms of Internet research have a look at the Evergreen Alliance website and also the Galbraith mountain trails near Bellingham.

Will you be bringing a bike? Will you have a car? When are you here?

I’m not sure how around I will be in terms of a tour guide though due to work commitments.

I live in Seattle. Perhaps if you describe what kind of trails you like to ride – I used to live in Edinburgh if you want to give some comparisons.

A lot of the snow cover has gone, but some of high mountain riding (6000ft) is obviously out. I don’t really know that many good cross country rides unfortunately. A lot of the best trails here are to a varying degree hush hush as they are technically illegal. The best bet is going to bike shops and asking around. In terms of Internet research have a look at the Evergreen Alliance website and also the Galbraith mountain trails near Bellingham.

Will you be bringing a bike? Will you have a car?

I’m not sure how around I will be in terms of a tour guide though due to work commitments.

In response to tutgareth: I’m running a Maxxis 2.5 Exo Minion on my Flow EX rim and set it up tubeless with the yellow tape without any problems.

I’ve noticed the same thing – you can certainly see where the grease on the spring has changed consistency and taken on the slight pinkness of the SRAM suspension oil.

To combat this (i.e. make sure there is enough lubrication on the bushes to prevent wear), I make sure the bushes/seals have grease put on them and have slightly increased the amount of oil I put into the lowers. With my 2012 Lyriks it was meant to 10ml of 15wt, so now I put in 15ml of 15wt and normally a couple of ml of heavier weight SRAM red rum fluid.

Whether this is going to help prevent wear or not, I don’t know, but it is no more effort really.

Perhaps other people have some different ideas.

The advice seems to break down into either something along the lines of my bike is the best bike:

SB66c – Topic Closed

Or an examination of what it is you want the bike to do (winch and plummet v. Undulating trails perhaps?) and your riding style (slackness/wheelbase varies quite a lot in this category of bikes).. Deanfhb has some good advice.

People seem to be largely recommending their own individual bike without explanation about how it is better than this or that (e.g. Better square edge bump performance or something). This is probably partly a result of there being so many good bikes out there in this class that it is hard to get a wrong one, although it could be ruined by a bad setup.

What I did was try to think about my own riding. What was my strengths and weaknesses: I’ve always been ok at low speed tetchy stuff but struggled with balls out speed stuff, so I particularly wanted a slack, long and low bike to help combat this and was happy to compromise on its maneuverability. Also I tried to sit on as many bikes as I could and get a sense of what reach felt the best for me.

Saying all of this (hope it didn’t come across as preachy) I also chose a bike that I liked the look of!

To be honest I hadn’t realized how cheap chains might be, even if I push the boat out to a non-brown one!

Unfortunately I live in the US, so I’ll have to think of some other stuff to buy from CRC to get a free shipping.

But this will be paired with a brand new single speed sprocket on the rear.

I hadn’t spotted the “trail” options which are pretty light still. Unfortunately they’re quite vibrant.

Thanks for the replies. Food for thought, perhaps I should stick with Bel Air…

I’m really hopeful this bodge is going to work. I’m not too fussed on having 10 speed but a clutch mech would be nice. Can’t quite justify the purchase yet though as my current mech is fine.

Northwind – if you try this bodge, please report back on how well it works.

Thanks.

Pinkbike article

The person who made the comments was called jwick, his profile contains photos Jwick profile[/url]

It sounds like the pull ratio of a 9sp SRAM shifter is very close to that of a 10sp rear mech, and this simple mod corrects this small difference.

Not strictly related to the question. But Pinkbike recently did a review of the Zee clutch mech. Within the comments there was a detailed mod with linked photos of how to make the 10sp clutch mech work with a 9sp SRAM shifter. It was simply by using a 0.25inch spacer on the cable retaining bolt.

Anyway thought it may be of interest.

So there was too much oil in the damper, about 208ml instead of the prescribed 184ml. Seems to be all working now.

I’m not sure if this is a recent change or a slow build up of oil passing into the damper (or perhaps I made a mistake when I last changed the oil). I think I’ll keep an eye on it and take it from there. I guess the simple diagnosis for a recurring problem is not getting full travel.

Thanks again for your help.

I actually live in the US now. I dealt directly with SRAM, who emailed me to say that they used 2012 components. But given how protracted the whole experience was, I wouldn’t be too surprised if there wasn’t a problem there.

Ok thanks guys, sounds like we have a potential winner.

Mr Plow: I’ve always found way less than the 10ml comes back out on dropping the lowers but I assumed a bit of loss during use/coating the inside of the legs. Have you actually found an increase in the oil volume in the damper?

I’ll report back for completeness in case this helps for people searching in the future.

Hi,

I’ve got the instructions that Hotlines sent out for swapping out the chainstays – it includes torque values if that is what you are particularly after.

I can send this on if you give me your email address. You can also download an exploded diagram of the frame/linkage etc from the Nukeproof website.

Cheers.