Dammit’s adventures in mountain biking

Don't pretend you no longer own a pair of kitchen scales

Well, I can say with authority that the Cane Creek coil is 406g, but I never weighed the Ohlins.

It arrives.

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Ok, couple of runs in, neither very aggressive as it’s very wet- using 47 of the available 55mm and that’s compressing the bottom out bumper to half its usual height.

Oddly feels really good- a platform you feel you can push into and the bike springs back in a nicely controlled, predictable way.

Having a coffee now and will then fit the progressive coil.

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Yeah but did the dungarees work properly?

I would say that they are ok, but POC and I do not share the same meaning for the term “waterproof”

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That's not as muddy as I was expecting. I'm riding there tomorrow and half expecting to drown, an inch of rain predicted during the window of time I've got

Difficult to take a photo of my back - it was wet out there, but not as wet as I thought it was going to be.

Springs! Performance was interesting, the Ohlins felt ok to me, the Cane Creek I'm going to say felt better but that may be partly because I went faster.

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However, looking at the travel used I'd be hard pressed to point out which one has the additional ~100lbs of spring rate when you get deeper into the travel. I did use very slightly less of the Cane Creek, whilst going faster, so it's the winner of this test, but I'm not sure I should be using this much travel on Supernova and John the Baptist.

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TBH I think that the O-ring marks where the top-out bumper compresses to under load, rather than were the spring-rate would stop travel if the bumper wasn't there.

Sag was the same for both coils (as you'd expect with the initial rate being the same) at ~13mm, which works out to ~24%.

Dungarees ‘ok’ doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement at £450.

Being able to wear them at a Cotton Eye Joe fancy dress party, while niche, has to count for something though

At least it helps me strike a potentially costly purchase off my wish list. And I already have workwear dungarees so properly prepared for the Rednex revival.

Yes, I will be writing an email to POC suggesting that the price gives certain expectations of the description being accurate.

I had a different POC clothing malfunction today. I wore one of their body armour T-shirts. I could not stop it riding up my torso, which meant on descents the back protector was up to my cervical spine making it hard to look at the trail ahead. Annoyingly I have bought the additional elastic belt/cummerbund for it but that didn’t stop the problem. But it did make me feel like Shatner in TJ Hooker when he was clearly wearing a girdle to try to cover his expanding waistline.

How are the GTex 5 10s in the wet? Tempted to splurge on them.

They’re great, can’t see myself wearing anything else now until late Spring.

Anyway, more coil chat. Those of you who know John the Baptist and Supernova- would you expect to bottom out your rear suspension if you hit all the jumps available?

Thanks.. I'll shuffle out as an impoverished hardtail owner..

Edit to add.. shit forgot to ask.. Does one need to size up with the GTex? Have a pair of the normal trailcross.

You might want to go up a half size for winter socks, otherwise as the normal ones.

If that's what I'd tuned my suspension for, yes.
Personally, no.

What's your compression and rebound settings? Assuming your spring rate is correct (which it sounds like it is?) Just wondering if you're packing down so it looks like you're using all the travel

Rebound is 7 clicks out from max, compression is 3 in from minimum.

Ok, so maybe not that then. Does it feel good, and do you actually notice it bottoming out?

I think you should bin all the measuring devices, and just tune it yourself on feel and natural frequency, as an experiment. I think you might be surprised how close your own gut feeling is compared to all the widgets which just spit out numbers and make you question everything

https://www.shockcraft.co.nz/technical-support/setup-suspension/suspension-setup

I’m wondering whether it’s bottoming out because I have a habit of giving a big pump into the face of jumps and on the exit of corners. It doesn’t feel like a harsh stop, if that makes sense, when I land- at which point I’m guessing the high speed compression is coming in. IDK. It feels good, the CC does feel stiffer, the Ohlins more plush. Neither feel like I’m suddenly slamming the suspension to a hard stop.