"The Lively Monster Truck"

[Couchy]

Lovely ride at black rocks but be careful of rogue brambles @millemille

[millemille]

Lovely ride at black rocks but be careful of rogue brambles @millemille

That's what happens when you ride slowly and considerately. If I'd been on my normal pace that'd never have happened!

[millemille]

New top yoke is still at least a week away but work continues...

Bought myself a proper works stand as I was getting fed up with grovelling around on my hands and knees around the bike..



Rear wheel out and tyre swapped for a Minion with a DD carcass.

Dropped the motor out, so that the Prion controller cable can be extracted from the bowels of the frame, and knocked out the Acros headset. Following a lengthy chat with the LBS I decided to fuck the Acros one off - as the lower bearing has shit itself in only a few months of riding - and fit a Hope bottom assembly and a Cane Creek top assembly. Only reason for the Cane Creek is Hope don't do a 56mm to 11/8th top assembly, but the LBS reckon Cane Creek is as good as Hope.

Fork crown/steerer in the freezer and crown race given a blast with a hot air gun and the crown race drops over the steerer without the need for any theatrics. Headset assembly's knocked into the frame. Cable for the Purion controller rerouted on the opposite side, couple of Ducati rubber straps to secure the cable to the bars, and jobs a good 'un. Full lock without any risk of damaging the cables/hoses..





New super huge front hub end caps fitted and the front wheel's in properly and the brake is bled...



Motor back in tomorrow and new chain to go on, rear mech to set up with the new axle position and back brake to bleed..



As soon as I've got the top yoke it's cut the steerer to length and bolt it all up and set the suspension up and then head over to Blackrocks for some fun and frolics...

[weeksy]

Nearly there!

[millemille]

Finally done...





Took it over to Black Rocks this afternoon for a shakedown and took my balls with me...



Pretty epic. Front end is much more solid and no more disconcerting flex in the forks. The lack of steering lock is an occasional pain, but a bit more body English in the right stuff overcomes it.

[weeksy]

Fab stuff... i love how it looks... i bet it's a proper steam roller and trail batterer.

[millemille]

Fab stuff... i love how it looks... i bet it's a proper steam roller and trail batterer.

It does descend with a certain inevitability...

[weeksy]

Fab stuff... i love how it looks... i bet it's a proper steam roller and trail batterer.

It does descend with a certain inevitability...

The fact that if anything gets in the way it will be instantly obliterated?

[millemille]

Went down to Devon on Tuesday to meet up with @porter_jamie for a pedal around Exmoor above Porlock.

During the ride the new forks started making some very concerning noises, a distinct metal on metal clonk, when they topped out which could be felt through the bars and heard by Jamie as he was riding with me.

I got the distinct impression the damping adjusters weren't doing much, if anything.

Went to BPW on Wednesday and something was definitely wrong to the point where I was pretty sure there was no damping at all. Did a couple of pedal ups and one proper run down a mix of red and black tech trails and then bailed on the second run down and rolled back down.

I was on the way from BPW to visit friends in the forest of Dean so on the off chance I called in at sprung suspension in Cindeford in the Forest.

They had a quick bounce and confirmed there was no damping and most likely the damper had little or no oil in it.

They were able to fit me in there and then, despite having a load of forks and shocks on the bench in various states of repair, and confirmed there was no meaningful oil in the damper thanks to rockshox's legendary build quality. 90 minutes and a very reasonable seventy eight quid later the forks were stripped, services and back together and back in the bike with massive difference in performance evident even mincing around the car park.

[weeksy]

They're great at Sprung, Rob is really helpful.

Excellent news.

[millemille]

A new job means a lot less free time and loss of flexibility to bugger off for a pedal when I want (the penalty of taking a higher paying job with a big multi national company). I've ridden it once in the last month and crashed my brains out in no small part down to a lack of practice.

I can't justify having the Focus AND the Ducati sitting around getting little or no use.

So the Focus is going up for sale and I'm going to devote what free time I've got to getting the Ducati back on the road and riding it.

[weeksy]

Oh man, that wasn't a thread post I was expecting and I like seeing it even less

[millemille]

Oh man, that wasn't a thread post I was expecting and I like seeing it even less

I know.

I've gone from being a big fish in a small pond to being a middling fish in a big pond, work wise, and there's a LOT of travel, in the UK and Europe, that see me away from home 3 or more nights a week. And I don't have the van anymore ( as you probably know me and @Couchy are the east Midlands Mercedes E class wankers association founder members) so taking the bike with me on the road isn't possible...or appropriate.

That only leaves weekends, and if I've only got a few hours for a hobby every week I'd choose motorbikes over mountain bikes every time.

I'm working with my mate the fabricator on the Ducati tank this weekend, instead of going for a pedal...

[weeksy]

Back to the Ducati thread it is then

Bring it on!

[MingtheMerciless]

Aww that's rubbish, from our viewpoint, but well done on the new job and looking forward to more Ducati posts. Who are you working for?

[Couchy]

On the plus side the Ducti is pretty epic, on the downside I'll miss the pointing and laughing as I slide on my face

[weeksy]

On the plus side the Ducti is pretty epic, on the downside I'll miss the pointing and laughing as I slide on my face

Hold my

[Couchy]

On the plus side the Ducti is pretty epic, on the downside I'll miss the pointing and laughing as I slide on my face

Hold my

Very fair point

[millemille]

Who are you working for?

Knorr-Bremse.

[millemille]

Went down to Devon on Tuesday to meet up with @porter_jamie for a pedal around Exmoor above Porlock.

During the ride the new forks started making some very concerning noises, a distinct metal on metal clonk, when they topped out which could be felt through the bars and heard by Jamie as he was riding with me.

I got the distinct impression the damping adjusters weren't doing much, if anything.

Went to BPW on Wednesday and something was definitely wrong to the point where I was pretty sure there was no damping at all. Did a couple of pedal ups and one proper run down a mix of red and black tech trails and then bailed on the second run down and rolled back down.

I was on the way from BPW to visit friends in the forest of Dean so on the off chance I called in at sprung suspension in Cindeford in the Forest.

They had a quick bounce and confirmed there was no damping and most likely the damper had little or no oil in it.

They were able to fit me in there and then, despite having a load of forks and shocks on the bench in various states of repair, and confirmed there was no meaningful oil in the damper thanks to rockshox's legendary build quality. 90 minutes and a very reasonable seventy eight quid later the forks were stripped, services and back together and back in the bike with massive difference in performance evident even mincing around the car park.

Realised I'd not updated the thread in ages.

The Focus attracted no serious attention when I tried to sell it. Which didn't displease me greatly as putting it up for sale was, kind of, a political exercise to appease Mrs. Millemille as she was unhappy at the prospect of BOTH a motorbike and an emtb in the garage that I wasn't using. So I could legitimately say that I had tried and no one had wanted to buy it. Plus she bought another sewing machine, so that's 3 now...and she can only use one at a time, so the ice beneath her feet was starting to crack a little.

So back in April I dug the Focus out of the storage unit and went out for a few rides. But the lack of steering lock was proving to be a real issue, several times on each ride I either binned it or had to get off and pick the front end up and lift round. The main problem was, despite Focus saying that frame was designed for a twin crown fork like the Boxxer, that the cable ports in the down tube were exactly where the fork legs wanted to be on full lock. I'd converted from the original integrated cable routing, where the hoses and cables went through the stem and through the headset and into the frame, because of the hassle it meant maintenance was as everything now involved dropping the motor and removing the forks but this meant the that ports in each side of the down tube were full of hoses and cables and this limited lock and was starting to damage the hoses and cables where they were getting slightly crushed even with the limited lock.

After picking the brains of the erstwhile technician, Malcolm, at my LBS (Stanley Fearns in Matlock) he suggested making a hybrid headset out of the aftermarket Hope & Cane Creek along with the OEM Acros and use the original integrated cable stem and then file a couple of slots in the top yoke and go back to the integrated cable routing which should allow as much steering lock as possible

Did this, and coupled with a some judicious filing of the top yoke where it was now hitting the top tube, we have a winner. A sensible amount of steering lock and since doing this not one lack of issue.

However, the forks are proving to be a total pain in the hole...

As was reported above, they went to shit within a few hours of riding and Sprung suspension got them working again after the damper lost its' oil. Which they attributed to Rockshox build quality issues.

But after about 10 hours riding since getting the bike back out of storage they'd gone back to the same shitty problem; no compression damping and clanging every time they unloaded or topped out. In fact, when @crust and @weeksy came up for a ride in the Peaks a few weeks ago they were utter dogshit so it did make me smile a little when @weeksy reported how good the forks felt on his, admittedly limited, test ride.

When I got home after that ride I whipped the charger damper out and it was clear it had, again, lost all its oil. There was no compression damping and the rebound damping was extremely erratic through the the rebound stroke, feeling like the piston was running in air then oil then air, and oil was coming out of the breather holes in the damper body.

So I posted it off to Sprung, explaining the history - how they'd serviced it about 10 hours riding ago - and described the symptoms.

When they told me the damper was ready for dispatch and I rang them to pay I asked what they'd found wrong and what they'd done to fix it. "Nothing" and "nothing" they said, they'd just serviced them as that was all they needed.

I was not happy with that, explaining that they had serviced them only 10 hours before and oil coming out of the breather holes is a sign of something seriously wrong with the separator piston/bladder IMO. The bloke I was speaking to said he'd look into it and later reported they'd now changed the separator bladder (which, looking back on it now seems a bit suspect as the price didn't go up from before to after he said they'd done that...) so I accepted that, paid and waited for them to come back.

Wasn't too impressed when they came back as they were leaking oil from the shaft seal, rang Sprung and they said that's because the damper is fully extended, the seals don't work well when the rod is fully out because when the damper is in the forks it can never fully extend. I did wonder why the fuck they don't just tie or tape the rod into the damper slightly then before they post it back?

Fitted the freshly serviced and repaired damper in the forks and went for a ride....and within 45 minutes riding they're back to exactly the same; no compression damping and horrendous noises when they unload or top out.

Whipped the damper out and exactly the same thing, oil coming out of the breather holes.

I've sent Sprung an email expressing my dissatisfaction.

Wondering whether to persist with Sprung or try TFTuned (although they're booking work for July)?

I could go for an upgraded charger damper - mine's the standard, single adjuster each for compression and rebound damping - with both hi and low speed adjusters for compression and rebound but when the standard damper is working properly it's great and it seems a cop out to have to pay another £400+ to fix the issue.

There's no point even thinking about warranty now, not with the age and the fact that Sprung have been in the damper twice now.