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2014 GT Fury

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,030
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local cannondale shop had this one marked at 50% off, it was going to be a demo for people to take to highland and such, but nobody ever took it out. So, I got a demo bike that was unridden.

You can get them for still very cheap online at Jenson and Pricepoint. PP has frames for 1400 and Jenson has this bike complete for 2800, which is still a good deal.
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
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berkshire east is probably what pushed me over the edge. There are now three mountains that are day trippable from home, and that makes me a happy boy. I can take a saturday and not ruin my marriage.
 

Jim Mac

MAKE ENDURO GREAT AGAIN
May 21, 2004
6,352
282
the middle east of NY
Yeah....will tink about it- have to do some maintenence that's long overdue & haven't ridden DH in 2 yrs... still trying to work out time investment in this as opposed to that:
 

gemini2k

Turbo Monkey
Jul 31, 2005
3,526
117
San Francisco
This. Definitely check the numbers. They a run definitely a size larger then most of the other DH bikes out there.
Yeah, but most bikes are speced too small anyways (as in the suggested height is too tall). 49" WB is probably about right for someone ~6'2". L fury felt probably ~2inches too short for me.
 
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kickstand

Turbo Monkey
Sep 18, 2009
3,441
392
Fenton, MI
are the adapters now readily available?
No, not that I am aware of.

Kidwoo did it, my buddy and I were looking at my 40 and his boxxer over a 6 pack to see how difficult it would be. Though neither of us really needs it.

I was more or less just being a smartass.

Though my pike feels pretty damn amazing.
 

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
85,558
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media blackout
No, not that I am aware of.

Kidwoo did it, my buddy and I were looking at my 40 and his boxxer over a 6 pack to see how difficult it would be. Though neither of us really needs it.

I was more or less just being a smartass.

Though my pike feels pretty damn amazing.
i think Udi was who made the ones for 'woo. It's another great option, but just not really available yet.
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
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Udi didn't make those. He just made fun of the idea because the two dampers are the same basic design (and must therefore be identical).

Steve from Vorsprung took the plunge with me and got the adapters machined.
Do you feel that the charger offers a significant advantage in the 40 chassis after riding it? Just curious as you'd have the experience and the knowledge.

As for the bike, I love the length. I want my shorter stem back, but I found it easy to pitch it around in the tight stuff but the faster it got the better. I'm a happy boy.
 

TrumbullHucker

trumbullruxer
Aug 29, 2005
2,284
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shimzbury, ct
Do you feel that the charger offers a significant advantage in the 40 chassis after riding it? Just curious as you'd have the experience and the knowledge.

As for the bike, I love the length. I want my shorter stem back, but I found it easy to pitch it around in the tight stuff but the faster it got the better. I'm a happy boy.
How bout that rux though
 

kidwoo

Artisanal Tweet Curator
Do you feel that the charger offers a significant advantage in the 40 chassis after riding it? Just curious as you'd have the experience and the knowledge.
Significant enough for me to want to leave it in. You can duplicate the rebound stack in a 40 damper I'm pretty sure. My buddy who loaned me the charger damper is going to want it back at some point and those things are pretty expensive.......so I might try to do that. There are some bits I'd have to fabricate though.

It is telling that the newer fox stuff is/will be almost an exact replica of the rockshox stuff. A friend of mine saw the guts of the new 36 damper and said it's now literally a copy of the charger setup. So I also might just wait and see what's available from fox and put their new cartridge in instead.

Either way, I've seen the light and I'm not in any hurry to put the stock FIT cartridge back in. At least not the one I have.

I see the ravens are already out. Let's just call my fork the FUXXER and get it over with.
 
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gemini2k

Turbo Monkey
Jul 31, 2005
3,526
117
San Francisco
It is telling that the newer fox stuff is/will be almost an exact replica of the rockshox stuff.
Convergance. At a given pricepoint, all designs will eventually converge. There's no magic in this stuff. There is a single "ideal design" at some point.

Maybe Fox/RS will eventually figure out the whole chassis business like DVO has.
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
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Thanks dude. I don't know that I'm calibrated enough to care; I was quite pleased with my 40R outside of not being able to fine tune the compression today. That might change as the speeds get faster, but then again I'm making the jump from 2010 to 2014 in quick fashion, so there are other factors at play. Either way I don't have the wherewithal nor time to machine up some fitting caps, just curious on your experience.
 

kickstand

Turbo Monkey
Sep 18, 2009
3,441
392
Fenton, MI
If you really feel you need to up your damper game, a new 40 damper would probably suffice, and be a lot easier to convert.

While I do really appreciate the new charger in the pike, and my buddies brand new boxxer feels awful nice. I have no complaints from my 2014 float 40
 

kidwoo

Artisanal Tweet Curator
When was the first 40 released? Like 10 years ago now?

My complaints with those forks has been the same since day one. They're light years better now for sure but they still don't have their dampers completely dialed. I still haven't ridden one of the air 40s since they supposedly got their air spring figured out though. I'd like to try one. And you can probably do with the air spring what the damper can't.
 

TrumbullHucker

trumbullruxer
Aug 29, 2005
2,284
719
shimzbury, ct
That was a nice touch! ;)
Thanks dude. I don't know that I'm calibrated enough to care; I was quite pleased with my 40R outside of not being able to fine tune the compression today. That might change as the speeds get faster, but then again I'm making the jump from 2010 to 2014 in quick fashion, so there are other factors at play. Either way I don't have the wherewithal nor time to machine up some fitting caps, just curious on your experience.
it was hysterical being heckled by you guys with Rux sayings.. i was dying mid-trail.
just got back home from day two.. soreness feels good

good to see @StiHacka, nice to meet you @Sandwich, and your other monkey friend :cheers:
 

Udi

RM Chief Ornithologist
Mar 14, 2005
4,915
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@kidwoo
The FIT RC2 cart is better in compression because you can adjust HS preload and that lets you generate a shape of curve that you can't control externally on the Charger (specifically: a stronger mid-speed support region without a tendency to be excessively harsh at either very low shaft speeds or higher shaft speeds), and to do this internally you'd need a shim cutter to create specific preload shims (Steve has a cutter). It would still be a preset value that you couldn't easily fine tune.

The other problem is that most people don't actually know how to extract best performance from the stock FIT damper settings - what LS / HS click counts were you running?

I think to confirm an actual benefit in rebound you'd need to dyno both cartridges, which Steve hadn't actually done last time I asked him about this - so whatever you feel is an improvement could be down to a myriad of things. I didn't say they were the same thing, just that I doubted you couldn't achieve the same thing on the FIT cartridge with either some mild re-porting on the piston or simply a thinner oil and stiffer valving on the piston - which I believe is all the new 36 actually did in terms of rebound changes. Does anyone know if they actually changed the rebound piston?

For whatever it's worth, the new 36 got an updated lower seal head which should also fit the 40 cartridge. If they lose oil / gain air (which they can) they lose performance naturally - something I've seen on both the RC2 and Charger. A company here made an aftermarket seal head for the Charger to fix that also.

Just in case I wasn't clear originally - my point was, it's easier to change a few shims or oil to make a cartridge do what you want over buying a whole new damper and getting custom adaptors made. It's cool to see experimentation but making performance claims with words like "dialed" without any indication of the setup you used when you felt it was "not dialed" is somewhat misleading.
 
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Udi

RM Chief Ornithologist
Mar 14, 2005
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For whatever it's worth, I've ridden the RC2 and Charger back to back on the same track, I think they're both excellent and any differences between the stock dampers when set up correctly are minimal.

Making adaptors to use a RUX damper would be a different story though, now that'd be a game changer.
 

kickstand

Turbo Monkey
Sep 18, 2009
3,441
392
Fenton, MI
It could be that I'm a hack, but i've been primarily satisfied with my 40 float, and it's probably one of the earlier shitty ones.
 

kidwoo

Artisanal Tweet Curator
@kidwoo


Just in case I wasn't clear originally - my point was, it's easier to change a few shims or oil to make a cartridge do what you want over buying a whole new damper and getting custom adaptors made. It's cool to see experimentation but making performance claims with words like "dialed" without any indication of the setup you used when you felt it was "not dialed" is somewhat misleading.
Which is why I never used "dialed", dropped the mic, and walked out the door. Take the thing apart man. You'll see what they did. It's not the compression stack that's so awesome on the charger, and I never said it was. All it is an extra bypass port by the rebound piston. It's the HSR that ends up quicker, not the other end, which is what you were assuming when I first mentioned this. Honestly, I thought the same thing based on what they were claiming but then looked into one while rebuilding a pike and talked to one of the RS guys that designs this stuff. There's a reason I kept half joking about that rapid recovery crap because I really didn't want to get into it with you......but yeah......it's that.

Yeah it's kind of ghetto compared to the FIT one, just like everything RS VS. Fox in terms of manufacturing quality but well.........it works better when nailing holes at high rates of speed at the base tune of each. And that's all I ever said. If you want to get in touch and we can figure out a cheap way to do the same to my FIT cartridge, I'm game. I'm going to have to give this charger cartridge back at some point. I'd rather not spend the money on a new one. I'm sure you can duplicate it but like I've said over and over again......it was January, I was spending as much time working on bikes as riding them, and it was just a fun thing to do. There was something I wanted to duplicate in the new boxxers I'd ridden and just wanted to see what happened when separating the damper from the air spring.

By the time I'd put that RS damper in there I'd run most of the way into the LSC and all the way into the HSC on the FIT, with the preload maxed out on the stock spring on some trails, all at a massive 160lbs rider weight. It varied a good bit depending on how tight a trail I was riding but I usually hung out in the deep end of both if I was riding fast. It was the only way I could keep the fork up in it's travel and still maintain at least a little damping on the rebound side.

I've thrown the FIT damper back in my fork and no it's not a bad setup. But they are subtly different in an area where I thought the FOX had a weakness. That's not 'dialed', that's just the truth. No it's not a universe of difference but it IS a an improvement. Whether or not you think it is doesn't really matter to me because as far as I know I'm the only one who's ridden both in the same fork, with a good amount of time on each. You and I probably buy different shoes too. That's okay.

Remember also, I'm also basing all of this on a FIT damper from two years ago now.
 
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iRider

Turbo Monkey
Apr 5, 2008
5,648
3,089
For whatever it's worth, I've ridden the RC2 and Charger back to back on the same track, I think they're both excellent and any differences between the stock dampers when set up correctly are minimal.
Curious, did you also ride the Avy cartridge? Any comparison?
 

Udi

RM Chief Ornithologist
Mar 14, 2005
4,915
1,200
I never said it wasn't HSR related?
That's the only plausible benefit "rapid recovery" could refer to - recovering quicker from deeper in the stroke, which = HSR. Also, are you sure you mean "extra bypass port"? An extra bypass port would just be the same as backing off the rebound adjuster - I'm guessing you mean more port area facing the shimstack (i.e larger non-bypass porting) which would push the rebound curve towards being more linear or digressive rather than progressive.

It's cool to mess with things and I appreciate your conversion for sure (you're talking to a guy who put a TPC damper in a Boxxer, and more recently a Vivid IFP in a BOS shock) - but saying a damper is weak because you wouldn't change oil weight or shims but you would machine custom topcaps is a bit ???. You could speed up the HSR by opening up the holes on the rebound piston pretty easily.

What you claim is entirely plausible, I just think it's possible there might be other reasons behind the changes you personally felt (given the magnitude you claim) and you're probably being a bit unfair as a result. Then there's this:
It is telling that the newer fox stuff is/will be almost an exact replica of the rockshox stuff. A friend of mine saw the guts of the new 36 damper and said it's now literally a copy of the charger setup. So I also might just wait and see what's available from fox and put their new cartridge in instead.
Did you by chance notice which damper the Charger was "almost an exact replica of" when it came out? I'd also call BS on your friend because the Fox rebound piston is tiny (this is actually why I believe you about the HSR) and thus it would be impossible to "literally copy" the Charger - any change would be miniscule given that the FIT piston is the size of your thumbnail:


Anyway to be more constructive, I do think the FIT rebound piston could be restrictive in HSR like you say, but without measurement it's hard to know how much. My rule on the stock compression damper is if you're running HS shut and LS past 1/2 you need it valved firmer, otherwise it gets too harsh.

So if you have to go back to your awful FIT and want it to feel better, I'd try these things:

- Change compression stack face shim from 16.7x0.1 to 16.7x0.2mm (no less)
- Swap seal head to updated 36 item, I think it's better sealed
- Larger rebound piston porting, which I'm keen to try out too!

I think if you bug Steve about it he'll make some. He was interested last time I mentioned it, plus the bikepark just opened and he has a new ride with a 40 on it, so tell him we're mostly just suggesting this for his own benefit.
 

Udi

RM Chief Ornithologist
Mar 14, 2005
4,915
1,200
Curious, did you also ride the Avy cartridge? Any comparison?
Only a long time ago sorry, but I do think both the Charger and FIT are superior because they are sealed cartridges with air separated (unless you mean their 40 damper, which is sealed, but very expensive - I've only done a carpark spin on that and it felt underdamped in compression, but may have been valved too lightly for me). I've personally found open bath and semi bath cartridges to exhibit some inconsistencies due to aeration - it only affects mechanisms which are higher in the fork (as air rises to the top). So in Moco/Mico/etc you tend to lose some compression later in the run, and in full OB carts like the Avy/888 it tends to happen in rebound.

Current stock DH dampers really are excellent, @kidwoo and I are just bickering about milking that last 2% out of them.

If you did mean Avy's 40 damper though, that does do one cool thing in particular that I think is better than the Charger/FIT and that's the floating piston backed air chamber instead of a bladder. The ~03 TPC+ Dorado did this too (one of my favourite dampers), it should reduce cavitation and increase long term reliability.
 
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