Anyone have anything they'd like to rant about?

[Roxtar]

^^^ it seems like that "festival" is more driven by bike companies that want to get first crack at putting a bunch of dentists on their brand new demo fleet. They want it timed at the beginning of bike buying season so everyone goes home from Sedona and buys the new$8,000 wonder rig. If they push the event further into the spring, those dentists will have already bought a Specialized and/or Santa Cruz.

Yeah well, this year no one got on those bikes.
I'm pretty sure beginning of April will still get them first shots. And a far better chance of a successful event.

[Touring_Sedan]

I guess I didn't realize bikes were still a part of the festival. I just thought it was a 4 day "content" creator wank off.

[Roxtar]

When the weather allows it's a great riding event.
Awesome trails with awesome groups. I've had great rides on Hiline and Hogs with the Transition pros. I've hung out with THE OG Master, Hans Rey. There is a multitude of women's rides for my wife. Plus free shuttles everywhere.
Example: this year I was signed up to ride the 3Hs with Wade Simmons, a cool ride with Tippie, and a ride with Remy. Hells Yeah!
They really do put on a great event. That's what has kept me coming back until now.
If only they would stop banging their collective heads on early March

[joetron]

In addition to what Toast said, once spring breaks start, which is pretty much right now, Sedona is a complete and utter clusterfuck.
Look on the bright side, now that there’s been multiple years of bad weather, the odds are your favor for glorious weather next year!

I will admit that I chuckled after driving through gnarly snow on that Thursday on I17 and spotted “Uphill Will”s sprinter headed northbound in Phoenix traffic. The world missed out on so many YouTuber collabos that weekend.


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[muted reborn]

I will admit that I chuckled after driving through gnarly snow on that Thursday on I17 and spotted “Uphill Will”s sprinter headed northbound in Phoenix traffic. The world missed out on so many YouTuber collabos that weekend.


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i don't know who that is, but that is funny.

Somewhat related -I think there is going to be a lot of moaning and groaning from people traveling down south to bike anywhere in the desert this month and into early April. It's not going to be like the past few years.

[Roxtar]

This was the aftereffects of our attempt at getting into our regular dispersed camping site on Thursday.




Front and rear lockers are the only thing that got us turned around and back to the pavement.

[grskier]

i don't know who that is, but that is funny.

Somewhat related -I think there is going to be a lot of moaning and groaning from people traveling down south to bike anywhere in the desert this month and into early April. It's not going to be like the past few years.

We'll be in Moab week after next. Hoping at least some of the easy riding is opened up for the kids.

[joetron]

Moab seems to be shaping up. Folks rode Klondike last week, and Falcon Flow is g2g. Not sure about Mag 7, but it’s getting there


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[muted reborn]

Moab seems to be shaping up. Folks rode Klondike last week, and Falcon Flow is g2g. Not sure about Mag 7, but it’s getting there


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Good to hear. I often look at the Island in the Sky webcam to see how Mag7 is doing, and yeah it could be decent soon. http://eldesierto.org/Isky.jpg Just looking at satellite maps of Canyonlands south a few weeks ago and it looks OK too. I didn't mean people are going to get shut down everywhere across Utah like in Sedona, just not the same trails are going to be open as they were last year, campsites may be a muddy mess in higher places, big rainstorms will come and go. I'm cancelling our desert trip in two weeks but we are not biking, big difference I know, but we need a lot of really remote desert roads to be dry and that is looking like a big gamble.

I can say for certain driving highway 6 at night down from SLC is a fucking nightmare with the amount of wildlife on the road down low, hopefully they all go up with the snow as it melts rapidly in the coming weeks. Some glassy eyed Montana boy is going to have a rude awakening 11pm at night trying to do the full pull from MT. There's been over 1000 reported roadkills of deer/elk this year so far around UT, and 6 was scattered with kill yesterday according to the wife.

[Canada1]

Drive through the storm to the city to pick up a super short dropper for my super short daughter. Get home and install and it won’t extend. Take it off and it won’t extend on its own. Call retailer and get sent to what sounds like a foreign call center to be hung up on twice. Drive back through the storm to the local store and return and order the one up off the web like I should have from the start. All in, about 70 miles driving and several hours to get back to square one, when I could have been working or skiing.

End rant .

[jm2e]

The bugs are coming out.

[Andeh]

I just got a chance to ride my EXT Storia after sending it in to get retuned for the new bike. It rides worse than it did before (and hadn't been serviced in 15 months). I asked for a light tune, gave them my spring rate, and answered all the questions accurately, but got something so firm on first run I thought the climb switch was on. Their suggested settings for the tune put me at 2 clicks from open on LSC, which doesn't give me any room to work with. What's the point of custom tuning if the tuner doesn't listen to what the rider wants?

[toast2266]

I just got a chance to ride my EXT Storia after sending it in to get retuned for the new bike. It rides worse than it did before (and hadn't been serviced in 15 months). I asked for a light tune, gave them my spring rate, and answered all the questions accurately, but got something so firm on first run I thought the climb switch was on. Their suggested settings for the tune put me at 2 clicks from open on LSC, which doesn't give me any room to work with. What's the point of custom tuning if the tuner doesn't listen to what the rider wants?

Syndicate?

I sent them my 38 for a rebuild and they did some weird stuff on the tune for me too. I asked for more high speed compression. They said they couldn't get the right parts to revalve the HSC, so they just put heavier oil in. So now I'm wide open on both LSC and rebound. Debating whether I send it back to them and make them fix it, deal with swapping the oil myself, or just ride it as is.

[jm2e]

Syndicate?

I sent them my 38 for a rebuild and they did some weird stuff on the tune for me too. I asked for more high speed compression. They said they couldn't get the right parts to revalve the HSC, so they just put heavier oil in. So now I'm wide open on both LSC and rebound. Debating whether I send it back to them and make them fix it, deal with swapping the oil myself, or just ride it as is.

Suspension Shop: Yea, we can fit you in. Our turnaround is 48 hours.
Same Suspension Shop: Got your shock disassembled, but we're backordered on little washers. Have been for months. Gonna be another week or two before we tell you we don't know how much longer it'll be. Want us to put it back together again with new oil? That'll be $250.

[hick]

Suspension Shop: Yea, we can fit you in. Our turnaround is 48 hours.
Same Suspension Shop: Got your shock disassembled, but we're backordered on little washers. Have been for months. Gonna be another week or two before we tell you we don't know how much longer it'll be. Want us to put it back together again with new oil? That'll be $250.

Oh, I feel ya on this one! Last time this happened to me they had my rear shock for 6 months, then it was $150 (not as bad as 250…, but was originally told it would be covered under warranty since the shock only functioned for a week). Ugh.


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[Andeh]

Syndicate?

I sent them my 38 for a rebuild and they did some weird stuff on the tune for me too. I asked for more high speed compression. They said they couldn't get the right parts to revalve the HSC, so they just put heavier oil in. So now I'm wide open on both LSC and rebound. Debating whether I send it back to them and make them fix it, deal with swapping the oil myself, or just ride it as is.

Yes.

I think I figured out the root of the problem. They suggested I use a 450 lb or 475 lb spring, which didn't sound super out of line since the DHX2 that came on the bike had a 450#. But I forgot that Fox springs are super inaccurate and lightly damped, so even though 450 felt ok on the Fox, it felt awful on other shocks. I put my 450 EXT spring on a Super Deluxe (with sag markings), and figured that I was <25% sag. "Well there's your problem!" Put on a 400# EXT spring, and am more like 28% sag now. Which coincidentally is in line with what SC lists on their shock setup page for a rider my weight, and they say 26-28% sag for coils. The SD with 400 feels really close in the driveway, and the Storia with the 400 actually feels like I could close compression. So it could be the tune is fine, but the spring recommendation was out in left field.

[toast2266]

Yes.

I think I figured out the root of the problem. They suggested I use a 450 lb or 475 lb spring, which didn't sound super out of line since the DHX2 that came on the bike had a 450#. But I forgot that Fox springs are super inaccurate and lightly damped, so even though 450 felt ok on the Fox, it felt awful on other shocks. I put my 450 EXT spring on a Super Deluxe (with sag markings), and figured that I was <25% sag. "Well there's your problem!" Put on a 400# EXT spring, and am more like 28% sag now. Which coincidentally is in line with what SC lists on their shock setup page for a rider my weight, and they say 26-28% sag for coils. The SD with 400 feels really close in the driveway, and the Storia with the 400 actually feels like I could close compression. So it could be the tune is fine, but the spring recommendation was out in left field.

The whole spring rate inaccuracy thing is super annoying. I got a couple of fox springs to dial in my dhx2, but they both sag exactly the same.

I have this brilliant business plan of manufacturing and selling springs by their actual, tested spring rate. But every time I mention it to someone that works retail, the scrunch their face up and mutter something about hundreds of sku's. But anyway, I think the idea's worth millions.

[evdog]

Oh, I feel ya on this one! Last time this happened to me they had my rear shock for 6 months, then it was $150 (not as bad as 250…, but was originally told it would be covered under warranty since the shock only functioned for a week). Ugh.

Sounds like I got off lucky. Dropped my SIDluxe shock off for service after confirming the suspension shop had the service kits in stock. Was told lead time was 12-14 days. Get a call on day 14 saying "we ran out of service kits before getting to your shock and there is no ETA for more stock." Um, you couldn't have counted the number of kits in stock and the number of shocks in line when I dropped it off? No charge of course. Call back a few months later - still no ETA on service kits. Somehow I found the 50 hr kit and 200hr kit online and bought a couple. Call them up - I have the kit, can you do the 200hr service for me? (Bike is now 2yrs old, only had oil changed). "No, we can't do it. We have never even received the special tools needed to do that service." So how did you guys service those shocks a year ago that were ahead of me in line? Guy couldn't answer, suggested having my LBS send the shock in to Rockshox to deal with.

[Andeh]

The whole spring rate inaccuracy thing is super annoying. I got a couple of fox springs to dial in my dhx2, but they both sag exactly the same.

I have this brilliant business plan of manufacturing and selling springs by their actual, tested spring rate. But every time I mention it to someone that works retail, the scrunch their face up and mutter something about hundreds of sku's. But anyway, I think the idea's worth millions.

I Am Intrigued By Your Ideas And Wish To Subscribe To Your Newsletter

Seriously though, how hard would it be to run a quick test on each spring and print out a report? It couldn't take more than like a minute or 2 per spring once you built a test rig. Like how you get with a CDI torque wrench? I mean, all these fancy super light springs cost like fucking $130-150 each already for a hunk of steel.

Edit: this is one of the reasons I don't use Sprindex. Yeah it'd be neat to buy 1 spring to bracket, except apparently their ratings are 10%+ off like Fox, and are not actually progressive like they state but digressive. 10% variability is awful when your spring rates are typically 400-600, and 25# can correspond to 1.5-2% sag. So being off by 10% spring rate can mean you are off on sag by 4%, which even the least sensitive rider would feel. The EXT / Eibach / SAR springs aren't perfect, but they do seem to be mostly consistently inconsistent in my experience, so usually I can trust that going down or up a spring rate will correspond to a similar change in sag that a calculator suggests.

[McShortyShorts]

My Banshee Paradox vibrates like mad when braking with a 203mm rotor in the back. Basically makes me not want to use the rear brake at all. I tried a few different brake adapters, sanded my pads, but today I caved and bought a 180mm rotor. If this one vibrates too...

Why am I running 223/203 rotors on my 130mm hardtail? Original plan was to build up a big boy bike (probably a GeoMetron G1) and share the wheels. But I guess now this gives me a reason to invest in some WA1 Unions...

[jackstraw]

Creak creak creak. Ahhhh! My '22 Bronson. It was a frame build up. I did the seat, seatpost, lower links. I cannot figure out where it's coming from. Time for a pro mechanic. Pia

[californiagrown]

My Banshee Paradox vibrates like mad when braking with a 203mm rotor in the back. Basically makes me not want to use the rear brake at all. I tried a few different brake adapters, sanded my pads, but today I caved and bought a 180mm rotor. If this one vibrates too...

Why am I running 223/203 rotors on my 130mm hardtail? Original plan was to build up a big boy bike (probably a GeoMetron G1) and share the wheels. But I guess now this gives me a reason to invest in some WA1 Unions...

I had this happen about 9 years ago. Had to replace the brakes and rotors. It was like the rear brake achieved harmonic resonance with the bike frame... it did teach me to lay off the brakes quite a bit more.

[bamboocoreONLY]

Not a bad rant but I did notice that most of the service manuals for Rockshox forks have been updated to have you use their new Maxima Plush Light oil instead of 0W-30, etc. Asked the rep about it and she confirmed that they've noticed slight performance benefits using the new oil, but mostly to consolidate the amount of different you have to have in the shop, which I'm a fan of!

[HankScorpio]

Creak creak creak. Ahhhh! My '22 Bronson. It was a frame build up. I did the seat, seatpost, lower links. I cannot figure out where it's coming from. Time for a pro mechanic. Pia

Try grease or a little friction paste under the seatpost collar. That did the trick for my Hightower's mysterious creak.

[jackstraw]

Seatpost collar...hmm. I did that on the seatpost, but not the collar. Thanks!