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

cheers

Where's best to look for used MTB other than Pinkbike or Ebay?

@platypus will know

as always never buy a used MTB as a full bike from someone you don't know

Sage advice.

I've done this loads of times over the years but still never learn. It's almost always fucked in some way. Rear shock leaking and needs £180 in service and parts etc etc

edit - but I still think its worth a punt for @no_mates

I'd prefer to buy brand spanking for that very reason but things as they are make that quite difficult compounded with living in NI which limits choice at the best of times.

If your more into going down than up you could check out something like a second hand nukeproof scout or pace 529 could fit the bill. Not expensive, capable of getting lairy and bomb proof.

The rear shock on my 2015 YT Capra has been losing air for a while and I've identified it as leaking from around the air inlet / valve area so I booked it in to TF Tuned and sent it off yesterday.
It all looked fine elsewhere until I turned it over and spotted the dreaded wear marks on the bottom.
This is gonna cost me isn't it.

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New bike time

#thumbsup

Yeah that's fucked. New shock tiem!

New bike time

Correct.

Push elevensix time!
Erryone knows coils are the real deal these days

Here's the edited video of my cold Leith Hill ride on Sunday. See how much you recognise

https://youtu.be/e5cQLK4DsiU

Push elevensix time!

I like what they’re doing, but the bikes they post on the gram are so ugly.

Erryone knows coils are the real deal these days

Yeah, but they don’t work with every bike. I asked Cotic about putting one on mine and they were like “hell no, but get this instead”

Yeah that's fucked. New shock time!

I just had the dreaded phone call from TF Tuned.

We've had a look at it and there's a few things wrong with it.

1/ The shock body/stantion is scored. We can replace it but only with a silver one for £37

Me: okay that's not too bad, go on then do it.

2/ The piggyback shock piston is scored too. we can replace that for £33

Me: okay, let's do that too

3/ Something, something that I didn't quite catch but a main piece in the middle of the shock is also badly scored. As the Monarch RC3+ is a bespoke length (222 x 66) for YT industries then spare parts aren't available so we can polish it and replace it but there is a risk it will leak so there's no warranty.

So including service charge that would be £200 for a shock with no warranty so our recommendation is a new shock

TL:DR? It's fucked.

So the recommended replacement is the Marzocchi Bomber CR3 coil shock (222 x 70) which he reckons will increase the travel without negatively impacting the geometry and will be a vastly superior ride so for circa £400 including bushings and correct weight spring I've gone for this.

That hurt...

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Dual suspension is dumb?

Yeah. When outside is scuffed up, the inside is worse. Same thing happened on my habit; left it too long, inner shaft got scratched up, shock ends up porting gas and oil from the damper in to the main air chamber....can't be fixed economically.

Got a DB Inline air though and it's sick.

in many ways yes but in terms of allowing me to ride stuff I want to ride then not so much.

I've had probably eight weeks DH'ing in the alps on that bike since i bought it in 2015 (some years it was used twice by me one week and my son with his mates a different week) so its not like it isn't being used

Fair. If you're riding DH trails and shit. I just keep seeing comments like "don't buy used MTBs", "get a hardtail", etc and hate the thought of adding shock repair to my list of things I hate doing with bikes.

true, I've sold two bikes during lockdown 2020 and they were both full suss. One, the SX Trail deffo had a fucked shock and I told the bloke that but I had factored that into the price plus he was circa 5 stone heavier than me so was going to buy a new shock anyway.

The shock on the Big Hit probably just needed a service

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Hippy how come you don't try and buy a rigid 29er? Kona unit X, planet x bigdog, Sonder frontier, I only know cheap options, I'm sure there are boutiquer ones but something like that? It seems like the good inbetween for someone who wants to ride far, off road, in relative comfort, but doesn't want/can't afford to mess with shocks ? Isn't there a flatbar alu alpkit bike that's pretty cheap and has pretty good clearance?

I ask because I feel the same as you re: shock maintenance.

Yeh the alpkit is good. I nearly got one but then built a rigid 29er just because I got a frame for £30 and loved it, only sold because I needed space. Any modern hardtail + identiti or similar fork and you’re set for 29x2.3 tyres which I found enough.