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Pretty sure i am buying this bike (a 29"er)

N8 v2.0

Not the sharpest tool in the shed
Oct 18, 2002
11,003
149
The Cleft of Venus





Full spec:
*Aslyum/Titus RX Frame
*upgraded RP3 rear shock
*upgraded Carbon Rocker swing-link arm
*Thomson Elite Layback post
*Titec OS Pluto Ti 1" rise bar (crazy expensive), new for '05
*Stem: your choice: Control Tech w/carbon front, or Thomson X4 OS
*Cranks: FSA K-Force Mega Exo Carbon ($475 crankset)
*brakes: Hope Mini's, w/gold inserts
*X9 shifters
*XTR front derail
*XO rear derailer
*Titec Ti Gove saddle/Or Moots
*King Green wheelset (both my front wheels are Green King - thru-axle for Mav, or QR for REBA)
*Green King HS
*new-ish SRAM pc99 chain w/powerlink
*XT cassette
*new WTB Nano raptor, kevlar of course
*XTR skewers - or Salsas
*Mav SC32 (match with King thru-axle front and matching front wheel)
 

N8 v2.0

Not the sharpest tool in the shed
Oct 18, 2002
11,003
149
The Cleft of Venus
dvasis said:
looks like the tire will hit the fork crown a little more than halfway through the travel... i didn't know that fork was 29er compatible. but i may be wrong.

It won't, it is and you are...
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
narlus said:
that fork is gonna be flexier than a fully boiled ramen noodle...
I agree with that. Unless it's actually made out of steel and weighs fifteen pounds :p

The bike looks sweet, though!
 

N8 v2.0

Not the sharpest tool in the shed
Oct 18, 2002
11,003
149
The Cleft of Venus
Price of all this blingage is a under $5k.

I can save $500 and go with a RockShox Reba fork up front but won't have the bling of the Mav.

:dancing:
 

MtnbikeMike

Turbo Monkey
Mar 6, 2004
2,637
1
The 909
MMcG said:
why would that fork be flexy as a ramen noodle? It won't get full travel in 29er mode, but it should be stiff enough and light as hell too.
If the noodle is cooked in a wok...then it should be plenty stiff.

Sweet bike. The drool smilie is an understatement.
 
J

JRB

Guest
What is wrong with 26" wheels? I dig on that fork, but think it would be better on a Moto-lite. Your bike, and you will dig it any way. Congrats. Is it in a shop? No lead time? Titus sucks for lead times.
 
J

JRB

Guest
Incubus said:
They aren't beamed here from Tiawan afterall. :devil:
Uhm - our lead times rock compared to China stuff, but ok. It's not bikes. Lead times are cool. Lying about them is crappy. :mumble:

*not an I hate Titus rant. I will look at a Moto-lite next. Still crappy to not be straight up. I hate when mfg tells me something will be ready, and it's not, and I have to call the customer.
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
MMcG said:
why would that fork be flexy as a ramen noodle? It won't get full travel in 29er mode, but it should be stiff enough and light as hell too.
Well, there's a reason they don't make very many inverted single crown forks. Without the added stiffness of the brake arch, it's very difficult to make the fork sufficiently stiff - especially without adding a lot of material, which will add to the weight. The Dorado SC ended up having an enormous arch for a single crown and paid a weight penalty for it, in order to get it stiff enough.

An inverted single crown, at less than 4 pounds, with that pinner arch on it will make for a pretty flimsy fork. It may ride great, but it just isn't going to be very stiff. The Shiver SC was almost universally panned as being a pretty flexy fork, and it was up around the 5.5 lb. range.
 

douglas

Chocolate Milk Doug
May 15, 2002
9,887
6
Shut up and Ride
too bling for me, if it was mine, after a month of riding all those shiny parts would be scratched, rubbed, bent, dented, scraped, etc, etc
 

I Are Baboon

The Full Dopey
Aug 6, 2001
32,383
9,287
MTB New England
douglas said:
too bling for me, if it was mine, after a month of riding all those shiny parts would be scratched, rubbed, bent, dented, scraped, etc, etc
Well you've seen mine. Mark and MBC keep telling me to buff and shine that thing. Meh...I'm too damn lazy.
 

N8 v2.0

Not the sharpest tool in the shed
Oct 18, 2002
11,003
149
The Cleft of Venus
I Are Baboon said:
Sweet bike, N8! You say you are "pretty sure" you're going to buy it. So when will you know for sure

:monkey:

Sept 4th then I get a chance to check it out in person and test ride it...

MtnBikerChk said:
What are you gonna do with that? Do you ride?
I'm *not* stosh
:rolleyes:
 

N8 v2.0

Not the sharpest tool in the shed
Oct 18, 2002
11,003
149
The Cleft of Venus
Comments on the Mav shock from someone who rides one on a 29"er...

The Mav is supposed to be STIFFER than anything on the market...and ride like a Fox fork.

Chris, at speedgoat, who invented the Asylum, installed one on his personal bike a couple weeks ago, say's it's the cat's meow. Everyone who's ridden one reports that it rocks.....Note that Travis Brown won the SSWC last week (Single Speed World Championship) on a custom 29front/26rear Trek 29er, and what did he have on the front? A maverick.

I rode the RX last night for the first time in nearly 3 weeks. 1 dry lap at our local trail, 6 miles. My first thing I noticed is that my thumb is still jacked. I can ride slowly, but I can't go fast, bomb technical sections, stand up and go hard, nor brake well with my left hand.

However, while I was totally unable to push the evenlope, or even cycle the fork through all of it's travel, did have some reactions to the fork. Stiffness: no question, it's stiff as hell. Plushness: definately has a more plush feel to it..don't know if it's running a tad more sag, so it's like you're cushioned on a bed of air or what, but it's definately noticable...small and medium bump response is phenomenal (I didn't hit any big bumps, or go fast enough to make a medium bumb "feel big"). Now, I'm not sure how familiar you are with the forks function, but it has a travel adjustment knob, which, like the Marzocchi ETA travel adjust forks, will drop the travel down to 2" on the fly. It also has, of course, the damping dial knob. Now here's where it gets interesting. While standing over the bike in the parking lot, I couldn't tell that much difference between the extremes of damping adjustment. In fact, i was confused as to which way was all the way on, and which way was all the way off. However, when you drop the travel down to 2", and try the 2 damping settings, there's a DRAMATIC difference between damping settings. The fork feels straight up RIGID when it's fully damped on the 2" setting, while at the same time, it feels like a quick acting short travel susy fork on the 2" setting with damping turned all the way off. Once I figured this out, my excitement about the fork went up exponentially. I'm way stoked. What this means is this: The fork is fast acting and responsive to all small/medium bumps no matter what when in full travel mode, and in the top part of the travel. When you go deep into the travel range, the damping fucntion really starts to work based on how you have it set. So I can get response to small hits with a very fast rebound, but if I take a header into a huge bump, it will dampen that hit....all at the same setting..

...am I making sense? It's pretty apparent when you see the fork, feel it, mess with the settings, and ride it...
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
N8 said:
Note that Travis Brown won the SSWC last week (Single Speed World Championship) on a custom 29front/26rear Trek 29er, and what did he have on the front? A maverick.
...means nothing at all. A lot of pros run a Sid Carbon, too, and that doesn't make it a stiff fork. There are plenty of reasons that pros have for choosing their equipment, and typically, weight and sponsership are at the top of the list.

I don't know what kind of damper the fork uses, as I haven't looked into it much, but the phenomenon the guy is describing of the damper working better when the fork is dropped to 2" mode, and thus associating it with how the fork will act in the last part of the travel of 5" mode, sounds inaccurate if it uses any kind of normal cartridge damper. How it's acting in 2" mode doesn't represent how it acts in the last 2" of the 5" mode.

If it uses some kind of floating piston, like TPC+, it might be true, but I can't find any evidence that it does.
 

MMcG

Ride till you puke!
Dec 10, 2002
15,457
12
Burlington, Connecticut
narlus said:
plus, a 29" fork has a longer lever, as compared to a std one.
Not so - 29er forks have less travel compared to standard ones. I think 100mm is the max for 29er forks and most are 80mm. Whereas it seems like the standard mtb single crown forks are creeping into the 100mm and up range. Heck aren't many of the new 2006 Fox forks Vanilla, Talas, Float etc. coming stock as 130mm forks with the ability to add spacers to lower the travel in them in the case of the Vanilla and Float?

BV - it may not be as stiff as a Z1 FR or some other single crown fork with an arch, but who's to say it won't be stiff enough for the intended purposes of a bike like that (which leans more towards the 29er FS race bike spectrum, if you ask me)?

Just my two cents.