Thanks guys.

Just checked the pressure in my road bike and at 95psi its fine, and I don’t think the MTB tyres would be a problem. Mind you, its down to a balmy 48 in the shed now as I left the door open for things to cool off a bit. I tracked down the smell of rubber I mentioned earlier to my new tyres hanging up ready to be fitted. New tyres always smell a bit, and I think the heat is making them ‘gass-off’ a bit quicker than usual.

So, I’m feeling a bit reassured about the bikes, thanks, but maybe I should be more worried about the bottle of LPG for the BBQ and the jerry can of petrol for the lawnmower that are stored in the same shed…

Any thread on fork boots always misses the point

Oh ok then, I’ll bite… What is the point then…

Leave the big ring on and pretend it’s a bashguard……because it is

Yes, but its also a spinning sawtoothed leg lacerator!

I use a bash guard not only to protect the cranks from logs & rocks, but also to protect my flesh from the large chainring when I crash. Got one nice sawtooth shaped scar on my calf already…

Don’t mean to hijack the thread – but on a closely related topic….

I don’t use fork boots – prefer to just wipe them clean after each ride and add a little dry teflon lube to the stanchions. However, I am using a rear shock boot – the lizard skins neoprene one (though there are similar from Endura and others).

My logic is that the rear shock on my Trance is low down in a very exposed position, and especially when I ride on gravelly rail trails, gets a good sandblasting! I take the boot off every couple of rides and wash it to get rid of the dust, and so far no signs of rub induced wear on the shock.

So whats the take on rear shock boots then?

Bolts, overtightening and washers spring to mind……

Nah! I can confidently say that wasn’t it – for two reasons…

First, there’s a cylindrical metal insert in each of the bash guard’s bolt holes, so you’re tightening metal against metal, not compressing the plastic.

And second, I use a torque wrench anyway…

Yep, but so will any other short M5 bolt (though you probably want stainless steel), and won’t cost you two quid and have to wait a week to get it…

I have a spare one, but I’m a little far away from you – Western Australia.

However, assuming the XT is the same size as deore and SLX, it will be M5 which is a pretty common size, so you should have no problem picking one up in a hardware store. In fact, in a pinch (excuse the pun) water bottle cage bolts are M5 so you could use one of those until you find a suitable replacement (tho’ you may need to cut it shorter with a hacksaw)…

Damn you all!!

Just when I thought there wasn’t anything left to buy….

catflees – I don’t want to sound like an apologist for CRC, but my experience has been that orders sometimes remain in a status of ‘processing’ for a few days after they’ve actually been dispatched, so don’t give up hope that yours is actually on its way. In fact, I’ve got two orders I’ve already received that are still showing as processing – and one was from 2009!

Just to balance the CRC bashing a bit – a small tale of service above and beyond…

I bought an own-brand chainring bolt spanner from CRC six months ago, and a couple of weeks back it breaks while on active duty. I send them an email with photo of offending item in two bits, and today I get a full refund of what I paid for it, and a free Park Tools replacement (as the own brand one is out of stock), and a ten pound off voucher!

With that kind of service I’m willing to forgive them being a bit busy in the lead up to Christmas…

Sorry to resurrect this one – but just wanted to retract what I said earlier about the plastic bash guards being able to “soak up the punishment better” than aluminium ones.

They might look tougher, but my E13 Turbocharger has cracked at all four bolt holes, after only a few clunks on logs, so its back to the aluminium ones for me…

Tacx 5-25nm. Found I was undertightening some bolts, and way overtightening others, so IMO quite useful.

you can prob pick up an unused shimano SLX or Saint bash for peanuts as all the brand whore lover boys swap them out for
an E13 or similar

Oh so true! But beware, the SLX M665 bash guard doesn’t fit the SLX M660 cranks without getting the file out. BCD is the same, but the distance between bolt and lug on crank spider is slightly larger on the M665 – to allow for a bit thicker plastic surrounding the chainring bolt hole – see below….

My E13 Turbocharger cracked at all four chainring bolts after just a couple of dings off logs. I put the ugly Shimano one back on, and no problems since. Guess there’s a reason those clever guys at Shimano made the plastic thicker around the chainring bolts on the M665 bash, even tho it means it doesn’t fit ‘standard’ Shimano cranks.

Those forks came standard on my Giant XTC hardtail. As the bike shop said to me, they’re not as ‘plush’ as the Fox ones, so you’ll notice a bit of difference on rocky technical stuff. But for general XC and at that price they’ll be fine…

+1 for SD7s, and a pair of speed dial levers to go with them. I’ve been real happy with the RW2 pads that come with them too, and haven’t felt the need to change.

My first ever car was a little white Mini 850. I was 17 at the time, and inherited from my Mum, and used to drive it to school. It was on its last legs by the time I got it – was stuck in third gear so always had to park it on a hill to get going again. The radiator was so furred up it had been bypassed so overheated regularly – always carried a jerry can of water.

By some quirk of fate, everyone’s school locker keys fitted the ignition, so I never knew where I’d find it at the end of the day – remember looking out the classroom window once to see it parked between the rugby posts in the playing field.

It was so cool having a car of any kind while still at school though…

+1 for the M530. Just fitted a pair to one of my bikes after being all M520 prior to that. Find them easier to start off when on hilly or rocky stuff as you can do a few pedal strokes to get some momentum up before clipping in.

My experience (converted three bikes to 2×9) is that a triple FD works just fine, but the double FD has a smaller cage so certainly looks much neater, and may prevent chain drop a bit better (but I’ve no peer reviewed scientific evidence to back up that assertion).

Even with the same BCD (104), the ‘arms’ of a Shimano composite chainring are longer. So, if you want to put a composite chainring on cranks not designed for it, you need to either file off the small tab on the cranks (quite easy), or the chainring ‘arms’ themselves (more difficult). Don’t know about Raceface, but it took me about fifteen minutes to adapt a set of deore cranks to fit an SLX composite chainring – mask off the bits you don’t want to damage with the file, file off the tabs, touch up with a bit of black paint – done! Worth doing IMO – much smoother & quieter shifting with the composite middle.

2 hours? To clean a bike that was ridden clean?

2hrs to clean a bike? You need more hobbies.

Yeah, I know, a bit obsessive! But I find it a good way to wind down after a weekend of riding, and really quite therapeutic…

But, if its doing more damage to the bike than good, then I’m sure I can find something else to do instead – like a few hours on STW for example….

Well when I was living in Perth all you had to deal with was a coating of dust

Hi Repatriot, yes usually true, but we’ve just had one of the wettest winters on record – shock horror – actual mud in the Perth Hills!

But you’re right, now we’re into summer it probably won’t rain for … oh … the next four months or so, so it’ll only be a coating of that red oxide dust to worry about, and I’ll probably stop washing the bikes so often. Might get withdrawl symtoms from my Sunday night ritual and will have to find something else to wash instead… car … dog….?

Good for you Herman! I bought a Trance last week, and I’ve been riding it all weekend. Its my first full suspension bike and I’m liking the feeling! I found the front end a bit lively at first, but now I’ve learnt to push my weight further forward, and reduced the air in the fork, I’m flowing through my usual trails much more smoothly and faster than I did on my hardtail – and boy does the thing like to jump!

Only made a few mods to mine – 2×9 drive train, ergon grips, and my usual tyres – other than that it was ready to go straight out of the box.

Mine’s a 2011 X3 (Australia model)… 2011 Trance X3[/url]

Enjoy!

Is there no big online shop based in Oz?

There’s a couple trying to emulate CRC & Wiggle, but its difficult for them, as like many things in Oz, they don’t have access to a big enough market to drive the economics. So, they’re more expensive, have less choice, and it still takes over a week to get the goodies…

CRC & Wiggle are real popular over here in Oz too – bill direct in AU$, Oz specific promotions, and even tie-ups with local bike shops to assemble the bike and free first service.

However, I’ve noticed a worrying trend where some of the big component manufacturers are putting pressure on them not to sell their kit into Oz, presumably to protect their local distributors. Started with Mavic, and now I can’t buy anything Topeak thru CRC either…

I had 22/36 for a while and the chain came off a fair bit when changing down

Yup, that’s one of the problems from using a ‘normal’ 36T chainring with a 22 granny. Shimano’s 36T chainrings are designed to work in combination with a 26T granny, so when changing down, the ramps send the chain off in a trajectory where it expects to find a 26. The 22T is lower down, so the chain overshoots and ends up on the BB shell. The M665 36T chainring has much shallower ramps, so that the chain drops down at a steeper angle where the 22 granny is. The shallower ramps also make changing up much smoother.

I’m not saying a ‘normal’ chainring wont work, just that the M665 one works better.

have 2 bikes that run 22 / 36 and know of several others – it works fine with ordinary rings

And I and several others I know had problems using ‘normal’ rings, which were solved by using the M665.

So there you go, I guess that’s both the beauty and frustration of an internet forum – you get conflicting advice. Best to suck it and see and make your own mind up, I guess :-)

I strongly suggest getting the SLX M665 36T chainring. 22 to 36 is a big gap for the chain to jump, and the M665 chainring is the only one I’ve found specifically designed to do this – it has modified ramps and tooth offset to make shifting up smooth and avoid chain drop on the way back down.

Any 22T ring will do, as that’s nothing special.

Note: by the time you’ve bought two new rings, a bash, and longer chainring bolts, you might as well just buy the whole SLX M665 double crankset, which has everything you need, and you get the bonus of a new BB thrown in!

Also take a few links out of your chain – follow the big/big +2 rule, with the 36T now being your ‘big’.

You can just dial in the high limit screw on your existing FD, and this will work OK, but with the 36T chainring making the chain ride higher in the FD cage where its narrower, you may get chain rub issues at either end of the cassette. So if you want the best out of your new 22/36 setup, get an FD specifically designed for that combination, like the SLX M665.

Quick update for anyone searching in the archives…

Emailed Fox in the US and they replied that the core of the air fill valve is just a standard schrader valve core, and one from an inner tube or auto parts store will do just fine.

There was a loooong thread discussing 9/10 speed compatibility in all its various permutations on MTBR a while back.

It seems to suggest that there will be issues if you swap in a 10sp FD for a 9sp. Aparrently, the 10sp chain is narrower (on the outside, but not the inside, so still work with 9sp chainrings), and the 10sp chainrings are spaced closer together. As a result, the 10sp FD is designed both narrower and moves less far with each shift change, and therefore will be prone to chain rub if used with 9sp crank/chainrings/chain. The OPs expereinces here seem to confirm this.

Hasten to add, this is not from my knowledge/experience, just passing on what was said by others who have tried it. You can read the whole thread yourself at MTBR 9/10 speed thread

Can’t seem to access Merlin web site at the moment – but if you say so….

According to mavic web site XM 317 it’ll take 1.0 to 2.1 tyres.

Do they come in top & bottom swing?

Yes. M665 is the top swing version, M667 is the down swing, and there’s even an E-type.

Not my experience though- I lowered my XT triple mech by a fair bit, certainly more than a few mm and had no chain rubbing issues on either bike. Took ages to get it right though.

Guess that goes to show that FD tuning is a bit of a black art rather than a science!

How much you can lower it before you get into the narrower part of the cage and rubbing issues will depend on a number of things – how high it is to start with, shape of cage (deores are wider than SLX – don’t have an XT to measure), wheelbase (shorter distance BB to rear axle = increased chain angle), size of largest sprocket on the back & chainwheel on the front (chain will run higher on larger diameter sprockets), and suspension travel on a FS bike (FD is fixed whilst cassette & thus chain moves up and down with suspension travel).

For example, I just measured my triple setup, and all I can say definitively is that for me and my setup the chain currently runs in the section of the cage that is 13mm wide, which is enough to use the whole range of the the cassette without chain rubbing on the FD cage. But, if I move the FD down by just 3mm the chain is now in a part of the cage that’s only 10mm wide, and no matter how much tweaking I do, it’ll rub at one end of the cassette or ‘tother. Now some people accept a little rubbing in 1 & 9 as normal, but I’m a bit anal about my gears and expect to use all 27 (or 18 in a double) without any annoying noises!

Can only suggest that the OP tries lowering his FD until he starts to get rubbing, and then he’ll know that’s as far as he should go with his setup.

I used a standard mech initially and found that the chain regularly dropped irrespective of how I tried to adjust it. An SLX double front mech fixed the problem immediately.

Surely if your chain didn’t drop when going between the middle and granny on your triple, then there’s no reason it should if you just take off the big ring. Unless … you changed something else in the process, like changed height of FD, chainline, or put on a different size middle ring – any of these things could introduce a new element that causes the chain to drop, and then the double FD with its different geometry would indeed be the solution.

Seems to tick all your boxes…

Wheel[/url]

You’re welcome.

It’s also very easy to switch accounts later. I did same thing, ordered as a present for my wife, put it all on my account, tested it out and loaded a few books I knew she’d like, then tranferred to her account after I’d given it to her.

Edit: Only slight issue is that once you’ve switched accounts, you can’t re-download the original books if she erases them or something, but thats not a biggie.

I’ve actually got hex key skewers on

Ah, that could be your problem there!

I tried the hex key skewers on my bike, but I just couldn’t get them wound up tight enough to make me feel safe. Road bike/commuter maybe, but with the forces off-roading and disc brakes put on a skewer, I just didn’t trust ’em, and went back to the QRs.

It could be that the lower torque on the hex skewers is allowing more than normal play in your whole front end. I’d try it with the old QR lever in, and see if it makes any difference. But also check bearing play, rotor alignment etc as above…

I just thought they had to be in their normal position to work properly & not get chain rubbing.

Yes, you’re correct on this point. The standard triple FD has a wide part of the cage where the chain runs on the middle 32T chainring, to allow use of the whole rear cassette without the chain rubbing on the FD cage. If you lower it more than a few mm the chain will now run in a narrower part of the cage and you’ll get chain rubbing issues at one extreme of the cassette, or other, or both. If you raise the FD you risk chain rubbing on bottom of cage when in granny ring and small end of cassette.

So, if you’re going to run a standard triple FD with a double chainring setup, the optimum position is the same as for the triple, but you just dial in the high screw to stop it being able to change up to where the big ring would have been.

Note: if you also change your 32T middle for a 36T middle, then the chain is running higher, so you actually have to raise your FD a bit, so the chain is still running in the widest part of the cage – or, as per my post above, you get a double specific FD.

would a double specific one make any difference/sit lower/look better.

The quick answer is yes, yes, and yes.

When I first converted from 3×9 to 2×9 I stayed with the standard triple FD (SLX M660 in my case). It worked, but it wasn’t optimal. I had a few issues with chain drop and chain rubbing in various gear combinations. I changed to the M665 double specific FD and it solved those problems, and is a much smaller/neater package too.

However, I was running 36/22 and the problems were mainly due to the large difference between the two rings, and the chain running higher on the 36T than it would on a 32T. The M665 is designed for this combination, and to solve these issues. With 32/22 you may not get the same issues in the first place, and therefore won’t be so much benefit going to the double specific FD.

My advice – if you’re not getting any shifting issues with the triple FD, stay with it. If you’re getting issues, or want to go 36/22, then yes, worth getting a double specific FD.

There’s pretty close clearance between pads & rotors, and a bit of force on the front unit can twist everything slightly, making it rub. It’s not unusual, and I get it cornering hard on tarmac – and probably off road as well, but with all the other things going on don’t notice it! Of course it’ll be more likely if the rotor isn’t precisely centered in the pads, has a bit of a warp in it, hub bearings worn/maladjusted or QR not done up tight enough – so I’d check these things first. The torsional (twisting) forces on a front fork can be large, which is one of the reasons for the appearance of large diameter axles like QR15 in place of the conventional 9mm ones, to stiffen up the whole front end.

+1 to Khani. The reason I just bought a FS bike is cos I did a four day MTB event last month on my hardtail (tho’ not a 29er) and promised my body I’d never put it through that again!