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I've really enjoyed my v1 EXT Era, which has a butter-cup-like little mini coil on the bottom of the air spring push rod. To me it feels very coil-like, but it isn't tunable and I haven't had a chance to ride the latest 38mm stanchion offerings from the big boys.
All that being said, the smoothest air shock I ever rode was a 2016 DVO Diamond, 160mm of travel. That thing really did feel like a coil. Its a shame the damping wasn't sorted out and it would brake dive just like the Marzhochhis of old (or when pumping, or in a corner). So much so I had to run high compression settings that mostly negated that butter smooth top stroke.
Having chassis sorted first is always a good idea.
Maybe a little on the side of the discussion, but i would like to hear your thougts on this:
Say you got two bikes with identical forks, bike 1 has a 66 degree head angle, bike 2 has 62,5 degree HA.
Would you use the same setup on both bikes, or have more/less air pressure in one of them?
The reason for the question is because on my Canyon Strive, when using the Shape Shifter, the sag on the fork changes quite a bit, and thats just 1,5degree of HA change. So internet, how would you go with the setups?
I personally wouldn’t touch the pressures if they were the same bike with different head angles. But then having 66 and 62.5 tells me that the bikes are going to be used for 2 totally different applications so then, yes technically you would need to adjust the pressures for each discipline. 🤓
No need to change pressure for the shape shifter.
I don't change anything mid ride, but i just got curious how "far off" recommended settings regarding head angle of bikes when i measured the differece my self.
It doesn't hurt, as long as you aren't using one of the crazy oversize tools some people are making. I always do it when a fork is apart since its quick and easy and usually makes a good difference.
What kind of QC issues are you seeing? That would imply parts made to the wrong size, not properly torqued or assembled wrong
More misaligned chassis, tight bushings and too much grease in the air chambers. These are known issues they should be checking for off the production line.
I get it, Proper QC costs time and money but in the long run, it saves money and reputation.
Hey everyone,
I’m currently running an Öhlins RXF36 M.2 at 170mm with a Vorsprung Smashpot. I absolutely love how this fork feels — I’ve had 36s, Lyriks, and even Boxxers in the past, but the ride quality of the Öhlins is on another level for me.
That said, I’ve started to notice a fair bit of flex in the lowers on rough enduro and DH tracks. It’s enough that it’s affecting my confidence in steeper, chunkier sections.
So here’s my idea: I want to keep the damper and Smashpot (I already have the Smashpot hardware sorted), and retrofit them into a RockShox ZEB chassis for the added stiffness. Has anyone tried something like this before? Mainly wondering if it’s even possible to adapt the Öhlins damper to fit the ZEB, or if I’d be wasting my time trying to fab something up. Cheers!
Possible? Sure. Worth the hassle? I don't think so.
Just Buy an Ohlins 38
The Super Deluxe Ultimate that came on my V3 Transition Sentinel blows through travel extremely easily, even while pedaling and pumping. Neither the HSC or LSC dials seem to mitigate this behavior, so I did some digging and found that the shock has a C26 compression tune (the lightest available), which seems like a strange choice for the relatively linear suspension design. I’ve also seen a few reviewers (blister, etc) note that the bike rides better with a shock that has more damping. I’m planning to have the shock changed to a higher compression tune, but I don’t know how much higher to go. For reference, I’m about 190 ready to ride, on a mix of flow/jump trails and natural rooty stuff.
I find transition almost always chooses very soft compression tunes, and always found the same feedback too. I recently tuned a rockshox for a V2 sentinel and settled on the C34 tune which is 2 steps up.
The other thing with the RS shocks is the main piston has a large effect at low speed but less change to the high speed rate, while the low speed adjuster works at relatively high speeds. So if you want to retain grip but have more support and big hit control I would suggest going no higher than the C34 and wind the low speed dial in further.
But if you prefer a more digressive feel then choose a stiffer tune with the dials open (which is kind of backwards to how most shocks are tuned but thats what I've noticed)
Okay, excellent feedback. I was leaning towards C34 anyway, so I’ll probably go that way. Thank you!!
Dunno if this is the correct forum for this but is it normal for the dust wipers to be puking oil after bottoming out the fork? I’ve bottomed out my fork a few times the past few rides at the park and the air spring side has been spitting out oil, damper side is fine. Wanted to check before I go through the effort of replacing the wipers since they’re brand new. I did use a seal driver to install them.
I should probably add a volume spacer too lol
Try to burp air from the lowers.
I pushed the bleeder buttons on the back of the lowers at the beginning of the day before it was leaking oil.
I tired it at the end of the day and air did come out but not an unusual amount of air. The fork did drop 3psi over the course of the day at the park so it’s possible it went into the lowers and when I bottomed out it built enough to bypass the seal
Yeah I'm leaning towards an air leak in to the lowers, there shouldn't be that much oil coming out. You shouldn't hear any air coming out of the bleeder if you had already pushed it at the start of the day
You're not using push low friction dust wipers are you? I had 2 sets for a 36 and 1 set for a zeb (38) that would weep oil both during rides, and also during storage (bikes are hung vertically on steady racks). I swapped to dual compound skf seals and have not had the problem since.
That’s exactly what these wipers are lol
Good to know, probably won’t buy these again.
Yeah, those weep oil and will not stop. I left them on for 6 months just dealing with it expecting it to stop at some point... it did not and I just replaced them. Oddly, I had previously used these with good results with no issues... only the sets I bought in the last 1.5 years did this.
what kind of oil are you using in the lowers? I've found WPL 20wt and super thick oils like supergliss 100k and fox 20wt can leak a lot easier than thinner oils
Just the Fox 20W on the air spring side (4W on the damper side). I've had a few Fox forks and I'm used to a little bit of oil on the stanchions the first few rides after a service but this is the first one I've seen leak this much. This is also the first one I've used non-Fox wipers on.
Could also be too much oil in the air spring lower, it reduces volume and increases the ramp that can "burp" the oil out when you bottom the fork.
But it would have to be a lot more oil than the standard 15/20cc for this to contribute.
It often only needs to be 10cc more than stock to start causing problems, also with the 38 you need to remove the air spring tube and drain the oil that gets trapped between the air spring and stanchion or that will add a huge amount too.
Since he was bottoming out I do think there is an air leak issue here
Thanks for mentioning that situation on the 38. I have yet to service a 38 air spring without finding nearly all of the bath oil trapped in that space between the air spring body and the stanchion. The interesting part of that for me, is that space is one of the things that helps the 38 air spring work so well. It makes me think that the 38 is going to feel very different as the lower leg/air spring service interval grows.
Regarding the push seals weeping oil... I concur that the stickier/thicker oils have more of a tendency of slipping past the dust wipers. In my case, they have done it with every oil I have tried in the lowers: Fox 20wt gold, Fox 4 wt, Fox teflon 5wt, Maxima 7 wt (I use this for smashpot hbo fluid), maxima plush dynamic 3wt and motorex supergliss. I think there is just a problem with those as designed... particularly the batches over the last 2 years.
Is there a way to get pdf service manuals for both general and full service for Intend forks and shock(s)?
I ask because if I was to buy any of their products I have to be able to fix it myself because it's completely out of the question to ship parts out of the country and back just to have it serviced.
I see a video here and there on youtube, but for someone who haven't done any form of suspension service before, I just want a detailed description step by step in a pdf so all the details are there. So often with the videos there are something here and there that are just not shown because of bad camera angle etc and I simply need to know all the steps.
The Hover Monocoque shock looks like a slightly refreshed unit over the previous one, and I cannot know for sure if the internals and servicing will be (mostly)the same.
Personally I'm considering either EXT Storia V4 or the Intend Monocoque(yes I know one is coil and one is air) and my impression at least is that the Intend stuff is easier to service. That's something that interests me, but first and foremost I obviously need to know the actual steps as I've never touched any of it before.
So, what rock do I need to look under to find this information, because I have a hard time finding it through searches online(maybe it's all over some german forums, I dunno. I don't know german)
Same goes for the Intend Hero fork as well. I get that they might want some extra revenue by recommending customers to send suspension components to them, but for me personally it's just too much of a bother + extra money + extra risk of things getting lost etc etc. I either find a way to fix the units myself, or I need to look elsewhere.
I obviously need to know what tools I have to have as well, which should be shown in a pdf if that is available that is.
What do other Intend users do?
We follow the Intend videos.
Intend Bicycle Components - YouTube
The bottom outs have very much been deserved lmao but Im monitoring pressures now to see whats going on.
But til on the air spring, I definitely did not remove that when I serviced the fork and added like an extra 5cc of oil because I read somewhere the 38 has quite a bit of extra room in the lowers.
okie dokie, once the seals thing is resolved I would recommend investing in a volume spacer or some high speed compression damping in that case....The best number of full bottom outs is zero, so getting a few of them means something is not right, either in the set up or the function
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