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

[mboy]

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

What tyre and wheel combo...?

Cos that is my actual area of expertise...

[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

What tyre and wheel combo...?

Cos that is my actual area of expertise...

Bontrager line 30 carbon and either a Hillbilly or today was an MM. I can get the standard Bontrager xr5 on with fingers, but can I buggery get the other fitted.
Wheel has quite a thick rim strip for tubeless from factory which I think kinda stops it going in the channel to help. Along with that they're quite deep dish rims too, which again I think doesn't help.
I've snapped 4 levers in the last 24 hours

Ive not snapped a lever in 15 years until yesterday

[mboy]

Bontrager line 30 carbon and either a Hillbilly or today was an MM. I can get the standard Bontrager xr5 on with fingers, but can I buggery get the other fitted.
Wheel has quite a thick rim strip for tubeless from factory which I think kinda stops it going in the channel to help. Along with that they're quite deep dish rims too, which again I think doesn't help.
I've snapped 4 levers in the last 24 hours

Ive not snapped a lever in 15 years until yesterday

You NEED to bin the Bonty rim strips...

This is no word of a lie, and I can't believe how often I have to tell shop owners and mechanics this either... But Bontrager tyres aren't made to the same tubeless standard as everyone else uses, so they put those rim strips in their own rims (I knew the answer you would give me before asking the question, but wanted to be sure) to make their own tyres work ok in a tubeless setup on their rims (which do work fine in any tubeless setup, but you have to ditch the plastic rim strip)...

Ditch the strips... Put a layer or two of conventional tubeless tape on (probably 32-34mm wide if your rims are 30mm internal), pop the valve in, fit the tyre (you will be amazed how easily even a super gravity Mary will go on now!), chuck some sealant in and inflate... Then curse at Trek/Bontrager for being such a ****ing PITA that have to do things differently to everyone else!

Anything else you'd like my help with...? Whilst I'm on the clock so to speak...

[weeksy]

Bontrager line 30 carbon and either a Hillbilly or today was an MM. I can get the standard Bontrager xr5 on with fingers, but can I buggery get the other fitted.
Wheel has quite a thick rim strip for tubeless from factory which I think kinda stops it going in the channel to help. Along with that they're quite deep dish rims too, which again I think doesn't help.
I've snapped 4 levers in the last 24 hours

Ive not snapped a lever in 15 years until yesterday

You NEED to bin the Bonty rim strips...

This is no word of a lie, and I can't believe how often I have to tell shop owners and mechanics this either... But Bontrager tyres aren't made to the same tubeless standard as everyone else uses, so they put those rim strips in their own rims (I knew the answer you would give me before asking the question, but wanted to be sure) to make their own tyres work ok in a tubeless setup on their rims (which do work fine in any tubeless setup, but you have to ditch the plastic rim strip)...

Ditch the strips... Put a layer or two of conventional tubeless tape on (probably 32-34mm wide if your rims are 30mm internal), pop the valve in, fit the tyre (you will be amazed how easily even a super gravity Mary will go on now!), chuck some sealant in and inflate... Then curse at Trek/Bontrager for being such a ****ing PITA that have to do things differently to everyone else!

Anything else you'd like my help with...? Whilst I'm on the clock so to speak...

Done. Removed and taped.

I'll throw a tyre at it tomorrow. One of the ones I was unable to fit

[weeksy]

Impatience got the better of me.

IMG_20231031_210610 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Using fingers and thumbs, no levers.

FFS

Thanks fella

[mboy]

No worries @weeksy ... It's literally my job!

You were meant to put the Magic Mary on though ffs!

But having just read your thread on STW claiming you can't tell the difference inbetween tyres... I am saddened and shocked, but also somewhat jealous... I have friends who are much faster than me that couldn't tell the difference from one tyre to another, or even what pressures were inside. I am the total opposite, could probably tell you exactly what tread and compound I was running even in a double blind test, yet am absolutely a mid pack rider at best...

Wouldn't be doing the job I do now though if I wasn't so pedantic about tyres I guess... So there is that...

[weeksy]

No worries @weeksy ... It's literally my job!

You were meant to put the Magic Mary on though ffs!

With this weekend coming up for the lad and a race at Windhill, arguably the MM is the best tyre we have for him on his front choices, depending on which bike he picks to race on. His Trek Session has an MM and a G6 as fronts, his 141 has a MM and an Assegai, so i've left him with that for this weekend then i'll steal it afterwards.
I was saving the Argotal and Kryptotal for the start of next season for him.
The only other 'new' 29ers i have is a Dissector and a Hans Dampf.

My comment on the other place was mis-interpreted a bit as you may have noticed. My point was, more along the lines of say an Assegai and a DHR2, rather than an Aspen and a Mud. Or the difference between 20psi and 23psi, which again, to me, i don't seem to notice.

[weeksy]

My re:active standard FuelEX shocks gets here today from Fox/Silverfish. I filled in the website as a 'please warranty' and a description, fully expecting them to come back to me with a "sod off, you're paying for it" and i'd have accepted that. But it looks like they are going to do under warranty as UPS are dropping it off shortly and no-one has asked foe any money for it

I'm not sure how useful testing will be at the moment with the conditions being horrific, but i'll have a go and compare to the DPX2

I'm just mildly curious but also wanted the stock shock for emergencies and maybe even just because in theory Fox know what they're doing and may have 'tuned' the Re:active shock differently than this DPX2.

[Mr Moofo]

@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.

I wish I really knew what that meant - but I am sitting , nodding my head, so I look like I do
How do you know how much progressivity you have

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...

@mboy re the comment about Trek above - the bike shop that I bought my Trek from (and I am still having a hard time thinking I bought Trek) said that the new Bonty trees were Pirelli made. This was after a conversion about how I was going to change them. He seemed to rate them better than the old Bonty offerings

[weeksy]

@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.

I wish I really knew what that meant - but I am sitting , nodding my head, so I look like I do
How do you know how much progressivity you have

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...

Privateer have charts on their Website with it all. Whether or not you/we/someone can translate that, i don't know...

I read a lot of this stuff recently on PB Endruo tests, they have all the discussions about the curves, the pedal kickback, the chainstay lengths, the regressive/progressive nature/figures... No idea

[MingtheMerciless]

Bonty have made some cracking tyres is the past Mud X, XDX (small block 8 copy) and my favourite was the FR3, fast rolling and grippy edges (but didn’t tolerate mincing into corners where they’d have you off faster than an HR2).

[Mr Moofo]

Privateer have charts on their Website with it all. Whether or not you/we/someone can translate that, i don't know...

I read a lot of this stuff recently on PB Endruo tests, they have all the discussions about the curves, the pedal kickback, the chainstay lengths, the regressive/progressive nature/figures... No idea

True - they do have it.
And I still don't know what that means in the real world

[weeksy]

Privateer have charts on their Website with it all. Whether or not you/we/someone can translate that, i don't know...

I read a lot of this stuff recently on PB Endruo tests, they have all the discussions about the curves, the pedal kickback, the chainstay lengths, the regressive/progressive nature/figures... No idea

True - they do have it.
And I still don't know what that means in the real world

You're not alone... I also don't believe these things 'matter' to you or I, or your average MTBer. I think you either like a MTB when you get on it or not, you either like how it 'feels' in the car-park test, or you don't. The suspension kinematics doesn't change that and i don't believe that despite many people letting us know how they can tell anything and everything about it on PB comments, that any/many of them can

[Mr Moofo]

^ that
We were discussing this the other night - once you have been riding a bike for about 10 minutes you adapt. I can understand that mega expert riders prefer something to others , but for most of us the different sets ups make very little difference when we come to ride at weekends and on Tuesdays!

All modern bikes are better to ride that my old Trek Y11 and Orange Patriot 66

[mboy]

@mboy re the comment about Trek above - the bike shop that I bought my Trek from (and I am still having a hard time thinking I bought Trek) said that the new Bonty trees were Pirelli made. This was after a conversion about how I was going to change them. He seemed to rate them better than the old Bonty offerings

I'm too involved professionally to comment with personal opinions, but let me put this point across...

This is a motorbike forum... Motorcyclists will sneer and turn their noses up at Maxxis tyres, whereas they are arguably perceived as one of if not the premium brand in MTBing circles...

Don't assume that because a particular brand is seen as an industry leader in one discipline that this is true in another discipline... Or even that there is a direct connection with the 2 wheeled side of a brand and the four (there is with Pirelli now, there wasn't for a while, they used to be made for them under license by other manufacturers though have now taken manufacturing in house now, Goodyear bicycle tyres is just a licensing agreement though and has absolutely zero to do with Goodyear car tyres other than a royalty cheque to be able to use the brand name and logo annually!). Also there's almost as few factories in the world churning out bicycle tyres as there are carbon bicycle frames (yet many many brands coming out of these factories)... Very few bicycle tyre brands actually have end to end control over the design and production of their tyres.

[weeksy]

Fitted and tested the Trek thru-shaft type shock that came back from Fox... It feels pretty good and quite happy with it... I set it to 220psi which ended up being a bit stiff, so i've dropped it to 210psi now which should be a little squishier.

Sadly the ride was cut-short as i had a bit of a tyre/valvecore issue, after all the swapping the other night one of the valve cores wasn't holding fully, so i sort of fixed it and then for the first time in many many years used a pump outside !!!! Luckily with the Trek having in-frame storage i had one with me, although it would have only been a 25 mins walk back (or get the wife to drive 2 miles in the van)
It does remind me that i need to order up some new valve-cores

I didn't do much off-roading as i was in the process of getting to the trails due to mud and the trails 'out that way' being better after the rain we've all had. But the Hillbilly felt good, if a little firm on the front, i stuck 23.5 psi in it, arguably i think i'd like it a little softer but time will tell.

[weeksy]

Went back out... bloody WET on the trails

IMG_20231103_140041 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[weeksy]

Back on the Trek today..

IMG_20231107_101946 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Debating on the shock though, i do prefer the feel of the Fox DPX2 over the standard shock... So i think that'll go back on this afternoon after work. Also going to steal a 27.5 rear wheel off a mate for some testing of mullet vs 29/29.

Lastly, i've rotated the bars back a fraction too.

[Mr Moofo]

^ Sold it yet?

[weeksy]

^ Sold it yet?

Nah not yet...