NBD. The "didn't you have one of these?" Trek Fuel ex9.8

[weeksy]

With the noisy seat-post removed and the new Raceface dropper in it's place i went out for a quick test and as expected, the bike is 100% silent and sweet

Wasn't the longest ride ever as the rain started and then got worse... so i called it fairly early on... but i'm most happy

[weeksy]

IMG_20231024_144317 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Swinley forest today with teen crazies who just pedal, corner, power, pedal, power. I may collapse!

[Mr Moofo]

IMG_20231024_144317 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Swinley forest today with teen crazies who just pedal, corner, power, pedal, power. I may collapse!

Hell, you are a long time dead ...
Use those joints before they stop allowing you to!

[weeksy]

i’m thinking of whipping the shock out this week and throwing in a volume spacer or two. It’s running a Fox DPX2 which i’m happy with, but even at 225psi i’m getting to the bottom of the travel on many many times in a ride, so would like to be able to keep the pressure around/less than that and get a bit less through the travel at times.

edit.
Vol spacer installed and set to 210psi this time...

[MingtheMerciless]

What does shock wiz say?

[weeksy]

What does shock wiz say?

Nowt mate, it's in Crusts house

Good point though as i'm seeing him tomorrow.

[weeksy]

Well it's officially on the wintery side now the clocks have changed. Yesterday at Windhill was sooo wet, it wasn't massively muddy, but really dirty.. It was too dark last night when we got home to wash the bikes as we couldn't see them... So they were blow dried only to get the moisture off them.

Despite that, my lower jockey wheel didn't want to play ball when cleaning at 7.15am this morning, so it was stripped along with the other upper one and the bearings re-packed with some of @millemille new grease... so we'll see how it does.. Other than that i think we're pretty good.

[millemille]

Despite that, my lower jockey wheel didn't want to play ball when cleaning at 7.15am this morning, so it was stripped along with the other upper one and the bearings re-packed with some of @millemille new grease... so we'll see how it does..

No pressure then

[weeksy]

Despite that, my lower jockey wheel didn't want to play ball when cleaning at 7.15am this morning, so it was stripped along with the other upper one and the bearings re-packed with some of @millemille new grease... so we'll see how it does..

No pressure then

It's all good man.... i bought a 400ml tube of it, came in like a mastic gun type thing and i lobbed into a decent container. I then syringed a chunk of it into a TF2 tube with nozzle to make it easier to work with... I'm sure it'll be pretty decent. After the next meeting at 10am i'm going to spend a bit of time while working, showing the boy how to do all the bearings on his Privateer.

[MingtheMerciless]

Despite that, my lower jockey wheel didn't want to play ball when cleaning at 7.15am this morning, so it was stripped along with the other upper one and the bearings re-packed with some of @millemille new grease... so we'll see how it does..

No pressure then

The Curtis BB, pedals, and wheel bearings are getting packed with @millemille special grease today. Might even do the headset. Though LBS have told me NOT to use it on the rear wheel sprag assembly, that's got to be a horrendously expensive corrosion inhibitor paste.

[millemille]

Despite that, my lower jockey wheel didn't want to play ball when cleaning at 7.15am this morning, so it was stripped along with the other upper one and the bearings re-packed with some of @millemille new grease... so we'll see how it does..

No pressure then

The Curtis BB, pedals, and wheel bearings are getting packed with @millemille special grease today. Might even do the headset. Though LBS have told me NOT to use it on the rear wheel sprag assembly, that's got to be a horrendously expensive corrosion inhibitor paste.

Will it never end?!?!?!?!

[weeksy]

Still getting the FuelEX to my 'nice' sort of feeling... it's not far off but i would ideally like a little less air in the front end. So just picked up some volume spacers which should help there.

[mboy]

Still getting the FuelEX to my 'nice' sort of feeling... it's not far off but i would ideally like a little less air in the front end. So just picked up some volume spacers which should help there.

Contrary to popular belief... You want less spacers in the fork ideally, not more... Run less sag with less spacers up front, and fine tune with a little compression damping to stop the fork blowing through its travel.

Air forks have a naturally increasing spring rate as they go through their travel anyway, increasing this by artificially reducing the spring volume chamber normally just results in an overly active fork in the top half of its travel and an overly harsh one in the bottom half...

I found best setup on a 150mm Fox 36 with GRIP2 damper to be 1 volume spacer and around 20% sag, with a little low and high speed compression added to assist bottom out resistance. Even 2 volume spacers (which increased the compression ratio from 1.9 to 2.3 as measured with a shockwiz) made it feel too progressive... I had a go on a mates with 5 in once @ 150mm travel. He was running 35% sag (so giving up all his useful travel, not to mention about 1deg of head angle too) but still couldn't access the last 30mm of travel!

If you want the best of both worlds... Plush off the top, controlled bottom out resistance and oodles of mid stroke support, then get one of these...

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/review-di ... idge2.html

Absolute game changer for me... I now have mid stroke support I could only dream of previously, along with super supple off the top feeling and perfectly controllable bottom out resistance.

[mboy]

The Curtis BB, pedals, and wheel bearings are getting packed with @millemille special grease today. Might even do the headset. Though LBS have told me NOT to use it on the rear wheel sprag assembly, that's got to be a horrendously expensive corrosion inhibitor paste.

Just sourced and built up an Onyx rear hub for one of my bikes... You suggesting it's a bit of a "fair weather only" affair...?

[weeksy]

Still getting the FuelEX to my 'nice' sort of feeling... it's not far off but i would ideally like a little less air in the front end. So just picked up some volume spacers which should help there.

Contrary to popular belief... You want less spacers in the fork ideally, not more... Run less sag with less spacers up front, and fine tune with a little compression damping to stop the fork blowing through its travel.

Air forks have a naturally increasing spring rate as they go through their travel anyway, increasing this by artificially reducing the spring volume chamber normally just results in an overly active fork in the top half of its travel and an overly harsh one in the bottom half...

I found best setup on a 150mm Fox 36 with GRIP2 damper to be 1 volume spacer and around 20% sag, with a little low and high speed compression added to assist bottom out resistance. Even 2 volume spacers (which increased the compression ratio from 1.9 to 2.3 as measured with a shockwiz) made it feel too progressive... I had a go on a mates with 5 in once @ 150mm travel. He was running 35% sag (so giving up all his useful travel, not to mention about 1deg of head angle too) but still couldn't access the last 30mm of travel!

If you want the best of both worlds... Plush off the top, controlled bottom out resistance and oodles of mid stroke support, then get one of these...

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/review-di ... idge2.html

Absolute game changer for me... I now have mid stroke support I could only dream of previously, along with super supple off the top feeling and perfectly controllable bottom out resistance.

Interesting... I'm not convinced i agree i'm afraid... but deffo interesting.

[MingtheMerciless]

The Curtis BB, pedals, and wheel bearings are getting packed with @millemille special grease today. Might even do the headset. Though LBS have told me NOT to use it on the rear wheel sprag assembly, that's got to be a horrendously expensive corrosion inhibitor paste.

Just sourced and built up an Onyx rear hub for one of my bikes... You suggesting it's a bit of a "fair weather only" affair...?

I abuse my kit VERY badly, from riding down streams/waterfalls to riding through thigh deep flooding, the shop reckon I can kill just about anything. The Onyx hubbed wheels have been through about three winters, 3700miles and my "care". The wheels tend to need new free hub bearings and wheel bearings after every winter (I'm going to try and stay on top of the maintenance this year). If it's a Vespa Onyx hub the weakest part is the Sprag cylinder bearing which is quite small.

Don't whatever you do, lube the sprags, its a corrosion inhibitor they require. Yes I've killed a sprag assembly as well due to er lubing it and excessive contamination killing the carrier (wasn't warranted, not surprised).

I've also got a set of Nobl hubs which are just rebadged "Classic" hubs and they are heavier but seemingly more durable, after 2500 miles and 5 years(ish) they only needed a set of bearings each in that time (got a new hub body under warranty for a cracked spoke flange 4years 10 months or so into a 5 year warranty)

Compared to the i9 rear wheel which I murdered after 3 months (did include a trip to Dartmoor helping the submarine rescue service it was so wet) they are more durable.

Despite the maintenance loading, which TBH I'd suffer with pretty much every wheel made I'm a real fan, I've now got three Nobl/Onyx Vespa/Onyx Classic rear wheels and two front (Onyx Vespa and Nobl (classic copy)). If you run the ceramic expensive bearings the rolling speed is like cheating, the standard bearings aren't to bad either and I cannot say enough good things about the instant engagement and silent rolling.

[mboy]

Interesting... I'm not convinced i agree i'm afraid... but deffo interesting.

I have a fair bit more vested time effort and knowledge in this than most, but suffice to say I've had long conversations about this topic with the people who know a lot more than I do, those who actually design top notch suspension as well as those that service and maintain them too...

"Tokens" are a cheap and easy way for the end user to "tune" their suspension... Put it this way, motorbike tuners might suggest you add 5ml of oil to a fork leg to make a drastic change to bottom out resistance, yet you're adding several 10ml volume spacers into a much smaller chamber on your MTB fork!

They exist to make the fork feel more "plush" off the top on the shop floor... At the detriment of actual control and performance on the trail... All because most forks have an overly sticky or ineffective negative air spring.

I know Chris Porter pretty well professionally these days... Top bloke! His knowledge on suspension is second to none, but also a really nice genuine guy too. Anyway... His story about when Fox came to him to help develop their volume spacer system in response to Rockshox having released tokens... He said he knew the writing was on the wall for their relationship when it became all about marketing rather than actual performance! Needless to say, first thing Chris does when setting anybody's Fox/Rockshox fork up is remove ALL the volume spacers and then set the sag... If the desired bottom out can't be achieved with zero spacers, even with adjustable compression damping and/or adjustments to the oil and shim stack, he will begrudgingly add a single spacer.

The Diaz Runt I listed to above is basically pretty much what Ohlins and Manitou have been doing for years (and ironically, Marzocchi back in the early 2000's) with a dual positive pressure chamber that equalises part way through the travel. It was a major design feature on the EXT Storia fork that CP helped develop too...

@MingtheMerciless I won't be too worried then... It's a Vesper hub, bought it brand new off ebay, had been laced but unridden. I accept there's no comeback on it etc. but I've built a few of these for other people now and was mega impressed with the performance from new, so wanted one of my own. I doubt I'll put it through anything like the abuse that you do by the sounds of it, so I'll just keep my eye on it if it starts making any undue noises...

[Mr Moofo]

Interesting... I'm not convinced i agree i'm afraid... but deffo interesting.

I have a fair bit more vested time effort and knowledge in this than most, but suffice to say I've had long conversations about this topic with the people who know a lot more than I do, those who actually design top notch suspension as well as those that service and maintain them too...

"Tokens" are a cheap and easy way for the end user to "tune" their suspension... Put it this way, motorbike tuners might suggest you add 5ml of oil to a fork leg to make a drastic change to bottom out resistance, yet you're adding several 10ml volume spacers into a much smaller chamber on your MTB fork!

They exist to make the fork feel more "plush" off the top on the shop floor... At the detriment of actual control and performance on the trail... All because most forks have an overly sticky or ineffective negative air spring.

I know Chris Porter pretty well professionally these days... Top bloke! His knowledge on suspension is second to none, but also a really nice genuine guy too. Anyway... His story about when Fox came to him to help develop their volume spacer system in response to Rockshox having released tokens... He said he knew the writing was on the wall for their relationship when it became all about marketing rather than actual performance! Needless to say, first thing Chris does when setting anybody's Fox/Rockshox fork up is remove ALL the volume spacers and then set the sag... If the desired bottom out can't be achieved with zero spacers, even with adjustable compression damping and/or adjustments to the oil and shim stack, he will begrudgingly add a single spacer.

The Diaz Runt I listed to above is basically pretty much what Ohlins and Manitou have been doing for years (and ironically, Marzocchi back in the early 2000's) with a dual positive pressure chamber that equalises part way through the travel. It was a major design feature on the EXT Storia fork that CP helped develop too...

@MingtheMerciless I won't be too worried then... It's a Vesper hub, bought it brand new off ebay, had been laced but unridden. I accept there's no comeback on it etc. but I've built a few of these for other people now and was mega impressed with the performance from new, so wanted one of my own. I doubt I'll put it through anything like the abuse that you do by the sounds of it, so I'll just keep my eye on it if it starts making any undue noises...

Blimey - I obviously channel the spirt of Chris P.
Being slightly bigger that the Scousemeister, I sometimes find myself on the limits of air suspension effectivity. I always care open the forks , remove the tokens and set up the sag. And if that kind of works then I am okay. I have never understood why reducing the effective volume (hence making the fork more progressive at the end) is ideal. I can see that as bikes manufacturers are looking at riders of 75kg as the norm, that if you are much lighter then maybe tokens are the way to go.
Oddly , despite being a bit bigger than the norm, with no tokens in and 25% front sag, it is still very rare to use all the travel. I general run with no compression and relatively slow rebound.

On the back end , I know the CC in my Cotic has no volume reducers , no compression, runs at the right sag , has been to TF Tuned, and still I probably only get 60% of the travel. But Cotics are meant to be progressive rear suspension.
The Trek and 161 have similar rear suspension set ups ( and shocks) - both are much more plush and move through their whole travel so seem much more planted at times. I have no idea if the have volume reducers or not. The eeb runs at about 25-30 psi higher on the rear than the non-eeb

[mboy]

@Mr Moofo progression from the linkage is FAR more preferable than creating progression in the shock. Geometron G1 is designed with approx 33% progression for instance, meaning it can run a coil shock natively for best results. Most mainstream bikes have less than 20% progression these days, but to be fair, that is still a lot better than where we were 20yrs ago where many full suspension bikes had a regressive suspension curve to help deal with the teeny tiny air shocks that they mostly used to run back then.

Oddly , despite being a bit bigger than the norm, with no tokens in and 25% front sag, it is still very rare to use all the travel. I general run with no compression and relatively slow rebound.

This isn't at all odd... It's how it should be. Those of us who've eaten a few too many pies have the added advantage that our weight helps minimise the effects of the negative air springs on modern forks, the "problem" that tokens are trying to overcome for smaller/lighter riders in general. Anyone who's ever ridden a fork with a coil negative spring (even with air positive) will know how ridiculously pointless the whole exercise is, other than being able to market next years fork that has a "bigger/better negative air chamber for reduced stiction"... Get rid of it altogether FFS! Job done...

The other benefit to getting rid of volume spacers/tokens and running less sag, is you're not giving away all your ride height, your fork is staying further up in the travel, precisely where you want it to be. I want to give away the absolute minimum of available travel in negative travel (without it topping out harshly), I have paid for my 160mm of travel, I want to bloody use as much of it as possible, not give 60mm of it away in sag as many people do...

[weeksy]

Mmmmm interesting thoughts.

I've been having a bit of a mare, trying to get a sodding tyre fitted to these carbon wheels, FFS I'm going insane.

So I've fitted his Hunt wheel to my bike and I'll experiment with forks based upon the above