Let's offroad / mountain bike / mtb / ride dirt

I don’t use waterproof shorts (probably should given the weather in South Wales).
If I was I’d look at Endura stuff, always like their kit, fair price for the quality and good customer support.

Also you’re probably near a dealer where you can try them on.

Out of interest what do you wear when it’s raining hard and the ground is soaked? The only thing spoiling my ride today was every time I sat down my bum squelched and my shorts stuck to my legs!

Just put up with the same tbh.
Have been mountain biking for decades and good waterproof shorts haven’t been around that long.

That said I’m tempted to have a look after getting so wet the past couple of weeks

Yeh same, it’s also got be easier to clean up after- I hosed my jacket today and all the much came off, whereas my shorts are still a bit gritty after a wash!

I think I saw a video praising the MTB Onesie once. Made perfect sense.

https://www.dirtlej.com/dirtsuit-classic-edition

I love the colour options:

Blue / lime green

Slightly different blue / almost lime green yellow

I was at BPW all weekend and it was fantastically wet and muddy - but that's just more motivation to ride harder and you can warm up in the uplift vans. Managed to clear all the drops on Insufficient Funds which I haven't managed previously, and then repeated it a few times, so much fun.

Wrists are aching today though. My Fox 34 fork gives great grip but seems too harsh on small bumps (compared to the Pike on my other bike) - how can I soften it? It's already basically on the minimum recommended air pressure.

What's your compression damping like? Can you borrow/rent a shockwiz?

Anyone around to ride tomorrow or Wednesday?

I think that's the "open mode adjust" and I've got that fully open which the Fox tuning guide suggests should give me the lightest compression damping. But it still feels firm on the high speed small bumps.

Seems I could perhaps remove a volume spacer (2 installed) to give it a bit less resistance - I'm only getting 85-90% of the travel and don't really want to remove any more air.

Shockwiz might be the way forward.

If anything, you'd add a volume spacer to allow you to lower the pressure without bottoming out hard.

Oh ok that makes sense actually, thanks. I'll give that a go. I'm actually running it below the lowest 'recommended' air pressure already but I guess that's not an issue if it's not bottoming out.

What is the size and pressure of your front tyre?

I'm actually running it below the lowest 'recommended' air pressure already

How much do you weigh?

27.5 x 2.3 and running at around 24-25psi I think.

About 65 kg

Ok, and when you say 'lowest recommended air pressure' do you mean for your weight, as I can only see a max pressure for the fork itself?

Oh yeah, there isn't a minimum in that sense, but based on the recommended 'starting point' in the tuning guide I've got it set at a lower pressure than the lightest rider weight on their chart: it's around 55psi at the moment.

What sort of sag does that give you? I'd be surprised that you didn't get full travel on a trail like insufficient funds

On 'old fashioned' forks, I'd suspect too much, or too heavy an oil in there, but without knowing the ins & outs of your damper, I'm unsure

If you've never spent time setting it up before, I'd recommend first removing the volume spacers ( even if you eventually use them ), getting the correct static sag, putting the compression and rebound settings somewhere in the middle, and then do repeated runs of a trail where you know you should bottom the forks out at least once.

It's a faff, but you only have to do it the once on that fork, and you won't have to be second guessing

You could of course borrow a shockwizz, if you like graphs, but you'd still need to go through a similar testing procedure

Or just buy another Pike fork ;-)

Sag is ok, 25% ish. I should probably spend some time setting it up and trying things out as you suggest. I was being lazy and hoping for a 'quick fix'.

buy another Pike

Yes that's the obvious answer which I'm trying to resist.

I was being lazy and hoping for a 'quick fix'

This is probably why I use a rigid fork most of the time now :-)

*I know this would kill me at BPW / on actual mountains

Or just buy another Pike fork ;-)

Pikes are the same if you are light; great on big stuff, but just chatter over small stuff.

Which kinda makes sense for a 'big' fork. To me, anyway. Getting the front tyre pressure right was key to making it feel great.

That said, @t_w added that negative spring enhancer* thing to his lyrik to get a better feel, and seems to think it works.

* not actually a forum meme

not actually a forum meme

This forum has memes?

Angry, angry memes