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

79.9kg this morning

Snap. Well, this evening.

I bought some Withings scales as the Salter ones that I had were, how can I put this, flattering me.

The Withings ones do the body composition thing, and cheerily inform me that 18.8% of my mass is blubber, which I find invigorating to be confronted with post shower.

18.8% of my mass is blubber

Yeah, I've got the Withings scales. Not snap. More aspirational.

I take it you've elected not to turn on the 'Automatically post weight to Facebook/Twitter' option as well?

No, but I did have to connect the Withings/Nokia app to the MyFitnessPal app so that it could pass my weight to the Garmin Connect app. Which struck me as a bit Heath Robinson, but there you go.

There’s an “athlete” setting which apparently makes the fat estimate much lower, but I’ve left it in “coach potato”.

Aaaannnnndddd.....

Back to mountain biking

I'm toying with the idea of getting one of those for my bike. Albeit probably not with the Ti spring.

The advice that I've received was
Cotic - no boi, air spring
J Tech - not the Marzocchi, the Cane Creek.

So I'm still a bit none-the-wiser

The Contour has a pretty progressive linkage. I'm guessing your gen of FlareMAX doesn't.

I didn't really have any complaints with my McLeod tbh, the damping was great, I just wanted ultrasensitive coil bling.

It's progressive but not loads, which is where my concern is really. But on the other hand I prefer the suspension firm in the rear, so could always step up the spring rate.

Given your weight (or lack thereof) it's probably a risk worth taking. But yeah, maybe with the Cane Creek, given it's the same price as the 'zoch. You'll likely want the high speed adjustments to compensate for under or over springing

Or get a progressive spring, I guess

My new fork wiper seals are blue, which is new and exciting

What defines whether your rear suspension kinematics would suit a coil?

Not that I’m going to swap mine, but it’s interesting.

Also, if anyone wants a metric RT3, hit me up.

A normal coil spring has a linear rate - the bike needs a progressive kinematic to provide the bottom-out resistance. Bikes designed for air shocks can have linear or even digressive curves to take into account the increasing rate of an air spring.

Bigger aftermarket air cans exist to make air springs play nicely with progressive bikes.

Your photo skills have really declined with your mtb skills improvement

leogang xco looks lols...

https://www.redbull.com/int-en/live/uci-mtb-championships-2020-leogang-xco-women-english-only

I'm going to take some decent photographs of the bike when it has the correct rear brake.

For now blurry iPhone shots disguise The Zee of Shame.

Looks like the worst conditions imaginable.

SMart :-)

I'm watching it on the BBC iPlayer, quality is a lot better

Lots of questions - What brand is that Ti spring?
What size is it? What does it weigh? There's no denying phat Ti springs with wider coil spacing look sooo much better than all other steel springs.

@BareNecessities I run the ext arma on my dh bike and have just got another for my nomad. The hydraulic bottom out control really is great.
Its especially good if you run one on a trail bike, you can get away with running a slightly softer coil and not worry about blowing through to a harsh bottom out.
The rrp is a hard pill to swallow but does include two coils.
Both mine are second hand, mojo know this and sorted out leaky seal on one under warranty as if I was the original owner. I've heard of other having that same experience too.

That one doesn't even have a spherical bearing!

263g for 450lb/in 57mm. DSP, but they only make motorcycle stuff now.

Should be undersprung for me by at least 50lb/in but seems fine, so...

Ah I used to have a dsp back in the day!
Its seems no one is really making proper ti springs for mtb any more.
Theres a Taiwanese company doing them on ebay but they seem to have a high coil count compared to the wider spaced stuff like dsp and don't have a huge weight saving.
Part of the appeal of Ti for me was that wider gap between the coils.

Yeah, the eBay ti doesn't appeal. If this one hadn't come with the shock I wouldn't have bothered and just got an Öhlins spring, but it's nice that I don't have to paint over the stupid yellow colour

A higher grade stainless spring should/could be lighter than a Ti one, which is probably why they're not so common these days.

@TvH which size shock are you running?