When was the damping oil last changed? I wouldnt worry if i were you (unless you plan on hitting 10min non-stop descents every run).

Depends what air shock it is and in what condition its in…

Most of gt i realise is tame, but the beauty of the place is the variaty. Easy, hard, fast, slow can all be mixed in depending on what you feel like.
Oh and as much as super-g is a motorway now it has an awesome left hand berm in it about half way down…

I know how to do it, but havnt done it as yet. Changed oil on dhx's and the basic principle isnt any difference. Big difference is that dhx's have a schrader valve to pump air into, fox air shocks dont. They use a rubber pellet compressed with a grub screw..the russian guy managed to make some needle device fitted to a shock pump to mimic the fox nitro charging tool.
Air would be fine instead of nitro…the water content in air is the reason they use nitro, so a nice dry day and you'll be fine. Pressue wise fox upped the pressure from 300psi to 400-500psi a few years ago as they had problems with larger riders bottoming too easily…300psi (normal shock pump pressue) wouldnt be a problem unless you're heavier than ~14st and ride hard.
Only reason i havnt tried it yet is my shock isnt in need of a service…if it was i would have a bash and if it failed/poor performance then i would send it off…would be no more expensive for the service.

AJ (with a helmet cam) – Giant DH thing
Rowan Sorrell – Orange 5 constantly stopping for AJ to catch up

The reason I'm getting a 5!
You're buying a 5 because rowan sorrell is an awesome rider…some reason. He's broken one or two 5s, but that not a surprise when you see how he rides it.

The beauty of body armour is it lets you ride the next day…a medium/heavy crash without and you'll be feeling it the next day (and straight after).

…then theres the fact that 20mm is much better than 15mm… 😈

Sweet, for about them for some reason!

And its slack enough as it is with 140mm…

Funny thing, if you look at the oil charts for '10 rockshox they say to use 5ml semi-bath oil each side for reba/revelation!
I would think this might be your problem…as if people didnt have enough problems with 15ml…easy way to lose 30g though!

They're awesome. Used to rebuild my crank bros pedals every 3-6 months FOC…until i got sick of taking them down there and bought some pedals that didnt break!

-1 Specialized, the tyre walls are made of paper!

Lots of people seem to say this and it seems to have stuck. I think specialized have changed the control tyres to make them thicker and more rip resistant…the sidewalls of mine certainly dont feel paper thin…time will tell, but its survived 2 rocky rides so far.

Have the same problem (kinda) with flows, except it wasnt ripping sidewalls, its pulling non-tubeless tyres off the rim. The highroller/minion i have has a thinner sidewall than the crossmark i have (all single ply 2.35/2.25, larsons the same?), and the crossmark has a looser bead. Just got an eskar 2.3 2bliss to hopefully sort problem…goes up so easily, only problem is its huge compared to the 2.35 maxxis! Popped the eskar on the front and its pretty good tyre, looking to get a captain 2.2 for the rear.

You sound like you ride with your hand at the end of the bar and the lockon bit causes uncomfort. If so try specialized xc grips. Inner clamp only and so comfortable i'll never go back to 2 clamp designs (i used to get sore hands from the outer clamp as i hold the bars right at the end).

Been using a Fox Float and RP23 for nearly 3 years with just a seal and oil change in the fork.Still working perfectly well.Hate to think what i'd have paid in servicing charges.

You think they work perfectly well, but in reality the rp23 oil will have degraded slowly so you dont really notice. Fresh oil and it'll be night and day. Unless you only ride it a few times a year…
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I recently found some instructions online for servicing a DHX 5.0 coil shock. I can't wait to have a go at that one!

Dead easy, just make sure you get the right oil.

4) do it properly myself*

*With the exception of damper service on shocks, since I don't have any means of nitrogen charging of course. Air can service is a piece of wizz though.
Im in this cat too…and im just about to get shot of my rp2 as i can home service a monarch.

Michelin XC Dry2. 2.0 but come up a little larger. Tough, light(ish) and fast rolling. Oh and cheap!

i was under the impressions that floodgate only affected the forks when the lock out was on.. its highly likely i could be wrong though.

It controls the point at which the fork goes into the high speed compression circuit. It does affect the fork when blue (low speed compression) is fully off. If gold is set too high it will almost never use the hsc circuit, hence a harsh ride and not using all travel.
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It was boxxer springs that were £20! Forgot about the u-turn spring.

I own coil lyrics and air pikes and they're much of a muchness in terms of plushness but the air is much lighter.

Thats a surprise, apples with apples?

Im 71kg without kit and a medium is fine for me. You could try a lighter weight spring (~£20 from tf) or spend lots on a conversion (around £120). Also see if you have lots of floodgate on (gold knob) as lots (more than around 10 clicks) can make a them ride harsh and make it hard to get full travel.

What do you weigh? Standard pike spring?

Weight wise there is something like 100g between the air and coil 454s…not much.

tubeless sidewalls are normally a bit thicker, hence less susceptible but (as well as to stop slow leaks) they do that because a slashed sidewall is a bit harder to sort when tubeless than tubed

They do that to give extra support as the tyre doesnt have a tube to help. A tubeless is only harder to sort as you have to remove the tubeless valve…hardly troublesome!

People always seem to talk about tubeless tyres getting slashed, never tubed…think this is people seem to think that running tubeless means they can run uber low psi…hmm, for me the benefit is rolling resistance with same psi (i like my rims!) and better feel.

Been running normal maxxis kevlar single ply for just under a year now with no slashing issues (although weekend gone i did pull the rear tyre compleatly off the rim at ~30psi…just got me a 2bliss for the tighter bead).

If the outers and cables get gunked up and roughened inside then it stuffs up the shifting wether its full length or interupted

True, but everytime you split the cable you allow 2 extra places for crap to get in.

Cheers terry. Just thought it was strange as all the other ust and non-tubeless tyres ive inflated lock to the bead.

For all you saying clean the cable, how to you clean crap out of the outer? You boys got super long thin pipe cleaners?

Did you charge + or – chamber first?

Ss4
http://video.mpora.com/watch/8wOwfO4Pt/

Ss5
http://video.mpora.com/watch/E146tSmf8/

Ss6
http://video.mpora.com/watch/mNFTHsfiX/

Is that a GoPro chest-mount?

yep, gopro hd. As yet im not sure how to edit the hd video and upload it (without files being around 2gb).

Nice. Looks quite fast as well. I don't remember SS1 being as easy as the music suggests. were you being held up?

Yep. My fault though, crashed and got held up a little in seeding. Thanks to charlie for letting me go first on the rest of the stages!

Closing the gap jump may have disappointed a few of you but I reckon it was teh right thing to do. We saw the guy that faceplanted off there shortly after and he was a bit of a mess. Hope you've patched up well mate.

Was speaking to that guys mate…apparently he hit it blind, came round the corner and changed his mind last min and fell off the lip. Accidents happen. What it needed was a big sign to say it was a gap to let folk know it was there. Hope he recovers fully.

Anyway, first 3 videos for now…not quite got the hand of editing and the like so they are pretty rough!

Ss1
http://video.mpora.com/watch/M2WPmdNnm/

Ss2
http://video.mpora.com/watch/JiMQGSY10/

Ss3
http://video.mpora.com/watch/5bYBir1q9/

The question is…if they were all volunteers, where did my £55 go? I think it was more the system that was at fault…i had a cam on for all my runs and the official times were out by 5secs to 1 min 19…some up, some down…infact they only got 1 stage right!

i decided against the spicy in the end; cos i couldn't get on with the bent-back seat tube. i've got long legs, and with the saddle at a comfy climbing height i could barely reach the handlebars and the front end would go a bit 'wandery' riding up steep stuff.

Did you not think of trading the layback post in for a straight post? Or was that too much trouble? 😉

just out of interest.
can you fit a normal threaded bb in these frames.

No, the shell is longer as the cups sit in, integrated.
BB wise next time mine goes im going to get one of these…then when the bearings fail replace with normal bearings.

No gate duty for me this week…working wed eve.

And brake jack is only a bad thing if you're a shit rider.
If you apply the brake on the straight, allow the bike to sit into it's travel and release the brakes to load the front end into a bend, you weight the front tyre and get more cornering grip and carry more speed through the bend.
Tossers that don't understand this basic principle cause braking bumps and complain about brake jack while they ruin the trails for everyone else.
It's poor technique not poor bike design. A bad workman……..

You say that yes, but if you ride steep and fast stuff (like the old school dh trails just off the black at inners) then it really brings that brake jack to life. There are sections of trail out there that you simply have no choice to brake on (unless you're a top wc level rider), and at the end of the day a 5 aint gonna cope with that as well as a 4 bar, etc. Guess it depends on what you ride and how hard you push it.

Test rode one side by side to an anthem. Blur fealt dead and pretty un-fun to ride. Anthem felt full of life and strangely faster even though its heavier. Depends on what feel you like, but the blur was not for me.

Not fat for me. Im on shimano brakes, bled using the little yellow spacer so i have te right amount of fluid in the system. Try a re-bleed with a spacer in as you may have too much fluid in the system.

i ordered yesterday, arrived 9.30am today…

My Kinesis…bathroom scales say its 23.7 lbs. So much fun to ride!

Faces to usernames…anyone help me out!

thebikechain = mojo with spokey dokeys!