Posting this in 'Lounge' as it's not an Ebike thing, but honestly a VERY interesting day.
With a looming trip to Morzine me and a mate were at FoD last weekend and chatting with Rich Simpson who owns/runs RSR Bikeworks. We've known rich for a few years now and had the boys bikes done once upon a time and really gelled with him and his setups.
Anyway i was chatting and saying "i wouldn't mind getting my Status 160 done" where [smention u=609]Weeksy08[/smention] laughed and sniggered. But Rich thought at any level a decently setup bike is better
So we booked it in and had it tweaked.
IMG_20240801_120927 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr
IMG_20240801_120918 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr
IMG_20240801_120923 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr
It starts with attaching some electrical gubbins to the bike that does the measuring, that's all directed into a phone app which is configured with various parameters to get your setup.
Consistency is key for the setup so we used the same trail for every run. It's a trail we locally know as "sharkfin" from one of the features. But it's fast, flowy, jumpy, rooty, pretty much everything we wanted in a trail and a trail i know well. It's not as techy/gnar as some i may ride, but it's closer to what i ride most than they are.
First was setting the sag and we were slightly thrown by the shaft on the Fox Float X which is a 60mm stroke.. When we looked at the data for the sag it was showing a lot more than it looked. It turned out that the shaft is a 60-65mm shaft and the stroke is adjusted internally, so when it was at a sag of say 45% it looked a lot different. I was running 215psi in the back and 80psi in the Fox 36 on the front and i've always really liked it.
Rich noticed that 210 was as i say above nearly 45% sag and we started upping the rear pressure to get to a sensible figure, in the end we settled at 260psi... year really, that much of a difference. I thought it'd feel horrid on the trail and i was pleasantly surprised. A couple of runs and we changed a click here and there, then removed a volume spacer from the forks, then changed the pressure down in the forks to 77 and added a volume spacer, then back out, then some more air here and there...
In the end we reached the point where it was too much and i was feeling the back end chattering on the root section, which really pleased me that i noticed as i don't see 'feel' as being my strong point. We then dialled the rebound back slightly and the final run was honestly the best run i'd had on the trail in hundreds of runs. I guess it helped that Rich is also a National level DH racer and ex-GB Champion in BMX, so with him and the boy chasing me (or getting bored) i had to bring my A game.
But the back of the bike felt SO much more planted and stable in the corners with the higher pressures and the root section i was going through like it didn't exist now.
We were working on a particular right hander which i'd been struggling on all day and braking too hard into it, nearly stalling and holding them up, on the last run i let myself go in a fraction slower and carried more corner speed through it, popping me out WAY nicer.
I wasn't clearing the final gap/table/jump, but i never have and i wasn't doing badly on it actually lol.
A big chunk of the process wasn't just the bike, but as much about picking his brain and learning a bit for weeksy08 in terms of when he comes in with "oh the bike feels a little XYZ" then i can arguably have a little more knowledge about what we may think about adding/losing a click of here or there and why
All in all i felt it was time and money really well spent, not only because i have a bike that feels awesome now and i like even more than i did befoe i started, but because i've learned a fair bit about the process and suspension in the process. I've also learned that despite me thinking i have no feel of what a bike is doing, i may actually have some.
With a looming trip to Morzine me and a mate were at FoD last weekend and chatting with Rich Simpson who owns/runs RSR Bikeworks. We've known rich for a few years now and had the boys bikes done once upon a time and really gelled with him and his setups.
Anyway i was chatting and saying "i wouldn't mind getting my Status 160 done" where [smention u=609]Weeksy08[/smention] laughed and sniggered. But Rich thought at any level a decently setup bike is better
So we booked it in and had it tweaked.
IMG_20240801_120927 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr
IMG_20240801_120918 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr
IMG_20240801_120923 by Steve Weeks, on FlickrIt starts with attaching some electrical gubbins to the bike that does the measuring, that's all directed into a phone app which is configured with various parameters to get your setup.
Consistency is key for the setup so we used the same trail for every run. It's a trail we locally know as "sharkfin" from one of the features. But it's fast, flowy, jumpy, rooty, pretty much everything we wanted in a trail and a trail i know well. It's not as techy/gnar as some i may ride, but it's closer to what i ride most than they are.
First was setting the sag and we were slightly thrown by the shaft on the Fox Float X which is a 60mm stroke.. When we looked at the data for the sag it was showing a lot more than it looked. It turned out that the shaft is a 60-65mm shaft and the stroke is adjusted internally, so when it was at a sag of say 45% it looked a lot different. I was running 215psi in the back and 80psi in the Fox 36 on the front and i've always really liked it.
Rich noticed that 210 was as i say above nearly 45% sag and we started upping the rear pressure to get to a sensible figure, in the end we settled at 260psi... year really, that much of a difference. I thought it'd feel horrid on the trail and i was pleasantly surprised. A couple of runs and we changed a click here and there, then removed a volume spacer from the forks, then changed the pressure down in the forks to 77 and added a volume spacer, then back out, then some more air here and there...
In the end we reached the point where it was too much and i was feeling the back end chattering on the root section, which really pleased me that i noticed as i don't see 'feel' as being my strong point. We then dialled the rebound back slightly and the final run was honestly the best run i'd had on the trail in hundreds of runs. I guess it helped that Rich is also a National level DH racer and ex-GB Champion in BMX, so with him and the boy chasing me (or getting bored) i had to bring my A game.
But the back of the bike felt SO much more planted and stable in the corners with the higher pressures and the root section i was going through like it didn't exist now.
We were working on a particular right hander which i'd been struggling on all day and braking too hard into it, nearly stalling and holding them up, on the last run i let myself go in a fraction slower and carried more corner speed through it, popping me out WAY nicer.
I wasn't clearing the final gap/table/jump, but i never have and i wasn't doing badly on it actually lol.
A big chunk of the process wasn't just the bike, but as much about picking his brain and learning a bit for weeksy08 in terms of when he comes in with "oh the bike feels a little XYZ" then i can arguably have a little more knowledge about what we may think about adding/losing a click of here or there and why
All in all i felt it was time and money really well spent, not only because i have a bike that feels awesome now and i like even more than i did befoe i started, but because i've learned a fair bit about the process and suspension in the process. I've also learned that despite me thinking i have no feel of what a bike is doing, i may actually have some.
