So I took my new bike out for it's first ride this past weekend and now I'm curious if all $6k DH bikes are assembled this poorly from the factory? My problems started 100 yards into the first ride when I was catapulted over the bars by what felt like way to little rebound damping. So I started adjusting the rebound and found my problem right away. ALL the suspension adjustments front and rear were set full soft! Is this normal for a new bike? I proceeded to ride and tune the suspension and after swapping the fork and shock springs I got it pretty dialed for the wisp at least.
The next issue was the steering head started popping during hard breaking. The bike came with a cheap set of 1.5 degree head angle cups installed that I opted to remove and install the 0 degree cups that Giant supplied instead. I figured the bearings and races just needed to seat completely so I readjusted the head set and the popping went away for a few runs but shortly after it returned again. I've read complaints about this issue somewhere but never found a resolution. I continued to re torque the head tube throughout the day and eventually the popping was minimized to only once or twice when riding the front wheel down the trail.
Then the issue that caused the second crash happened. I was getting ready to do a wheely drop and when I went to pedal off the drop I found I was in the wrong gear. So over the bars I went lol.... I picked myself up and was annoyed because I was sure I was in the right gear but I figured I would try again and found out when I tried to shift that the derailleur cable was no longer secured to the derailleur so it came to rest on the stop screw in the lowest gear. After re torquing the derailleur bolt that holds the cable and adjusting the derailleur I was back to riding.
The final issue came towards the end of the day. I was adjusting the ending rebound stroke adjuster on the Rock Shok R2C2 and was amazed to see shock oil seeping from the adjuster. WTF? It only seeped during adjustments so I let it be until I can contact them today.
So my Sunday night I was tasked with going over all the remaining bolts to assure there proper torque and wandering to myself if every high end DH bike is assembled so poorly. Thoughts?
The next issue was the steering head started popping during hard breaking. The bike came with a cheap set of 1.5 degree head angle cups installed that I opted to remove and install the 0 degree cups that Giant supplied instead. I figured the bearings and races just needed to seat completely so I readjusted the head set and the popping went away for a few runs but shortly after it returned again. I've read complaints about this issue somewhere but never found a resolution. I continued to re torque the head tube throughout the day and eventually the popping was minimized to only once or twice when riding the front wheel down the trail.
Then the issue that caused the second crash happened. I was getting ready to do a wheely drop and when I went to pedal off the drop I found I was in the wrong gear. So over the bars I went lol.... I picked myself up and was annoyed because I was sure I was in the right gear but I figured I would try again and found out when I tried to shift that the derailleur cable was no longer secured to the derailleur so it came to rest on the stop screw in the lowest gear. After re torquing the derailleur bolt that holds the cable and adjusting the derailleur I was back to riding.
The final issue came towards the end of the day. I was adjusting the ending rebound stroke adjuster on the Rock Shok R2C2 and was amazed to see shock oil seeping from the adjuster. WTF? It only seeped during adjustments so I let it be until I can contact them today.
So my Sunday night I was tasked with going over all the remaining bolts to assure there proper torque and wandering to myself if every high end DH bike is assembled so poorly. Thoughts?