If ever consider a hardtail I have just bought a niner emd and I am loving it. It rides closer to a 26inch softtail than a HT and there is a fair bit of give in the rear espesially with tubeless tires.

I was thinking of running these spindles what do weigh if you don’t mind me asking and where do the break.

RS use a military o-ring grease but I think it’s a little too tacky I get good results by using slick honey and a drop of red rum on top of the air piston before I refit the top cap. If it’s a air leak make sure you replace the o-ring around the top cap and check the air assembly for damage.

Learn to do a drop down lower services on them and they will treat you well RS tend to under lube from the factory to protect leakage in packaging etc I think.. I would also agree on getting a damper upgrade in both the rebound rod and mo-co cartridge over the turnkey.

I see you thinking of running xo cranks one good reason to run them is that you can buy a spider less chainring from home brewed components and make a light ss or ten by crankset. Just make sure you helicopter tape the arms as the carbon marks up easily.

SRAM/AVID do them too if you have trouble getting them last time I needed them I used the hope ones.

If they had to fix the rebound dial it most probably was a full strip down just ask. The shop staff probably won’t know they may need to ask some questions so be patient with them.

Could just be the extra lube that was added in the service fork tech’s tend add a little more than factory to decrease stitchion in use. People tend to freak out when they see a little splash lube on the outside bits of there suspension when the bikes new. Or could you be paying more attention to the shock as you have just paid to get it worked on or it’s making a bad noise and needs reworking. Was it a air can service or a full strip down if it was an air can service you don’t have cavitation as that’s air in the oil of the damper end of the unit which would not be touched in a air can service.

You may find the chain line is optimized for hollow tech 2 chain lines. I have found using current SRAM cranks with either 2 by ten spiders in 104 or spider less cranks I.e what home brew componets can make you I have had to use the pauls chain device which has a lot of range in it’s chain line adjustment. Can you space the top guide at all outboard a bit to make it fit.

Have you thought about the voodoo d-jab strong sliding drop outs and a nice ride not sure if they are still making them though.

If you want to live in the city try and live near the yarra river on the eastern side lots of unofficial riding basic xc but fun. Or live in the outer suburbs near the Dandenong’s or near the you yangs (on the way to Geelong). We also have weekly dirt crits close to the city every week and a good endro scene you won’t be short of riding.

It’s not a complete lockout but the xx rs moco is pretty much set and forget with the occasional 5 min bleed. You can firm up the mo-co lockout with a few extra mil’s of oill in the damper side as long you get the rebound rod to move fully up and down. I would have to say that the fox lock out is the firmest I have used.

The seal that separates the damping fluid and the lower legs is separate to the seals in the mo-co. Sounds like you either have too little fluid in the upper leg or more likely the mo-co has had it and they are not fully serviceable.

Also you can use them for opening stubborn air cans on rearshocks.

These o-rings are dot fluid specfic and it may be hard to get them from a o-ring supplier in small numbers you may have to ring around the shops to find one. They are not always used when using the service kit.

Yes last forever and are rebuildable.

I don’t know what your wife’s situation is but I had chronic back pain from work and the way I fixed it was a personel trainer and lots of core work. Two years on and I don’t have to take time off once a month to lie on the couch and I can ride a hardtail again.

I really think the trick is regular lower services at least with rockshox it really is not that hard to do and stops the guck moving into the upper internals. I also run slick honey on the bush’s and internals for a smooth breakaway in the fork.

I made a work bench out of an old door and some mdf it was alright for a cheap fix.

Try some easyouts although they take patiences to use.

Julian is right it’s just splash lube to make the bush’s stay wet and smooth. With the damper side all you have to do is make sure the bottom of the mo-co is sitting in about a cm of oil after you have cycled the rebound rod. You can check if you have put too much in if the rebound rod will not push all the way up into the uppers.

It was early 2-step which had issues but they fixed that I thought duel air worked pretty well.

They are the road levers without the internals it will be fine.

A little bit of sick just came up when I looked at that track bike it must be a joke.

Yes very long time ago bought a new air assembly job done.

Looking good don’t mean to thread jack but has anyone ridden the 100mm travel cubes as they are on my short list for my next build.

Motion Control unit like I said they are either crown activated i.e you turn the knob at the forks crown or remote in which case they have a internal spring which resets the lock out to off when the pop loc is not activated. How much they cost depends where you are although you can buy them by themselves or as a upgrade pack including the pop loc.

I would replace them the ware has created a stress risers at that point, a new csu or fork will be cheaper than the damage cause by them failing.

Just looked up the RLT and it has a lock out mounted at the crown. If you want to run either a poploc or a x-loc you will need a different mo-co and the matching remote lock out either pop loc or x-loc. So basically if you need to bend over to lock it out at the moment you need a different mo-co if you want a remote. I would ride it for a bit you may like it. I have swaped some of my forks back to crown mounted lock outs to clean up the handle bar clutter.

You could always swap lowers later if you want to try 15 or 20 mm from 9mm.

Don’t know about shimano but SRAM are interchangeable the higher the number the better the chain i.e better plating hollow pins, hollow side plates. But if your a harder rider try the heavier less machined chains. Ten speed chains use power locks and they are one use only.

Motion Control is a compression dampner that is basically a big plastic spring. With the blue dial untensioned the valve is fully open, tensioned it is closed and the pedal platform is engaged. The plastic spring the outside of the unit gets compressed with big hits and valve is bypassed the gate or threshold adjuster sets how easily this bypass ocurs. Where the blue dail sits in it’s rotation does effect the compression (it sets how much the valve is open) but only one of the poploc units allow’s you to set this at a given place. There is a whole range of new mo-co’s coming out with new tricks.

May take you up on this.