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

Thanks, I've been toying with the idea of selling it and moving back to Full Sus, but ££ and kids conspire.

The frame was designed with an axle to crown of 505mm and a 120mm reba is 526mm.

Is that sagged or not for the Reba? Once you're on the bike, you should be shortening the a-c by about 25-30%.

That's a good point. I guess unsagged. I'm going to stick with it for the foreseeable and if time and money allows I'll go back to full sus.

Add bottomless>reduce pressure>more sag but without increasing likelihood of bottoming out?

Thats definitely hope it felt flipping between my Fox (no tokens) and RS (3 tokens) forks. I was running the RS at lower pressure so it felt plusher and got into the travel more easily but bottomed out less than the Fox which was at a higher pressure. For full disclosure, the RS has 10mm more travel.

Singapore off road trails are full of short, sharp technical climbs over roots and rocks.

I find these difficult and it’s frustrating- getting a clean lap of Bukit Timah requires being able to clear these sections and I just don’t seem to be making a lot of progress.

You have to climb seated due to the incline and the surface, but that means I tend to put a foot down (far) earlier than I would if I was out of the saddle, as I’m going over sideways before the foot hits the deck rather than just putting the foot down.

The trail is often narrow with a fall to one side, which focusses the mind somewhat.

I think if I could hit the sections faster and maintain speed it would help- I often stall, and even in the lowest gear I either don’t have the power to get up and over, or (more commonly) the tyre spins on the wet stone.

Advice please?

Ride with a friend where you can blame them for holding you up. Until you swap. Then they blame you and it’s all funny. The rest is just making the most of the downhill.

I’m usually riding on my own sadly. Today was unusually dry so I got up 4 of the 6 out of the saddle/saddle down, and I think I would have got the other two with a little more commitment. Maybe I just need a softer/grippier rear tyre.

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The constant dance of trying to balance support, bottom out and tokens, whilst it always feeling rubbish, is exactly why I pulled all the internals out my fork and put a Smashpot in instead.

These chunky bois arrived yesterday, might try and fit them later

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This crossed my mind too. But as @TooTallTim says, it sounds like a dance. And I'm time starved. So I think I'll just start with reducing pressure a touch first as I'm yet to bottom out on local trails. And see how I go.

Personally (and with suspension, it's always personal) I found air forks work much better when run as linear as possible. Removing all the tokens, running the pressure so you get decent mid support, and ignore the arbitrary sag figure.
More tokens, less pressure is the common mistake that actually makes your fork feel worse. Initial stroke is too soft, there's no mid stroke support because there's not enough air in it, then it hits a wall of progression in the end. 90% of suspension setup is getting your spring rate right, and by right, I mean it just feels right

Thats the thing, i like to be able to just do it to the reccommended numbers and just forget about it. Part of the reason for going back to HT tbh, less faff. I'll take my pump with me and session the same line. It can be my interval training for the year.

I found myself thinking that my RS fork was much plusher and then I noticed that despite that, wasn’t getting right through the travel. I played about with the pressures but never got the Fox feeling as initially active without making it so soft that I just hammered right through the travel. I thought 10mm more travel can’t make this much difference can it? Then opened up the RS and discovered it had a load of tokens in. I’ve now fitted some to the Fox but admittedly I’ve not ridden it in anger with them in yet.

I need to air up the Scott properly. It's so fucking low I keep scuffing pedals on super easy turns.

It's very plush though :D

This. I feel like it's too much spend to stomach at the moment but I'd love to go coil fork and shock on my YT...

Good you ridden it. What a bike!

Yeah, it's officially dirty now.

I'll have a set of 175mm (I think) SLX cranks to get rid of when the 165s go on.

Has anyone experienced an unusual amount of hose expansion with Hope brake lines? I've just replaced the brakes on my Bullitt and used it on the front run (because it's cheap and sold by the meter), but while the brake bites at the normal point the lever pulls all the way to the bar with rather too little effort.

I think you've got air in there.

This isn't my first bleed rodeo. It doesn't feel the same kind of spongy as a bad bleed.

Double check all the fittings, make sure you've not cracked something when tightening it all up. I've got braided hoses and only noticed a bit of flex on the rear, but definitely very firm lever still.

They're not braided hoses, just the bog standard ones. The ubiquity of braided hoses on Hope brakes is making me wonder, and it's almost 3m of the stuff

For sure. But I think you've got air in there, or another issue.

I've hope brakes and lines and they're rock solid.

I thought this whole “braided lines don’t expand like normal ones do” thing had largely been debunked as being marketing hype

Could be a "bubble" forming in the hose, like a split in the side that blows out as pressure increases? Change hose?