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My Spitfire is setup in 26" mode
At a cost of about £1100 and a net gain of 600g in weight, I can make it bang up to date with a set of 2018 Pikes and Boosted 650B wheels with wide rims, internal width 35mm, wrapped in Wide Trail, 2.5-2.6" rubber.
The weight gain would be solely on the rims and tyres, 300g each. Will I notice this extra weight or will the gains in traction and grip cancel it out? I like riding up hills as well as going down them
I'm obviously loath to spend a large amount of money making my bike heavier if the gains aren't worth it elsewhere. My starting point on this was looking at new/different forks. My current forks are Fox Float 32 RL 150mm Open Bath damper and the Pikes would be leagues above these. My current forks are killing my arms on long descents (e.g. top to bottom at Inners). They never used to but think it's because I now have a much stiffer stem and bar. I can't seem to set the fork to compensate.
Another much cheaper option is to seek out a nice set of secondhand 26" forks, but they seem quite rare and any like Pikes tend to have been well used.
Thoughts welcome....
a set of Lyrics RC2DH in coil or dual air or a Marz 55RC3 will add about the same be £400 less and still allow you to climb. You will also have more grip.
carbon bars are comfy too.
Nothing stopping you upgrading to 27.5 Pikes and runing the 26er wheels for a bit.
Equally, you don't have to go WT tyres and 25mm rims, you could get regurar width 27.5s and not add much weight, if any.
That said, the 2.5 DHF and Shorty are ace tyres, and very much worth it. I run mine on Mk3 flows, which are nice and light - just under 30mm internal.
The Pikes will be miles better than your Fox 32s. Is it worth getting 2018 Pikes though, rather than putting bigger rims on the same non-Boost hubs? The extra clearance is appealling though...
A 150mm Pike will be about 10mm longer A2C than your Fox 32 and with the bigger rims and tyres you'll be raising the BB by about 15mm (more than the extremes of the dropout adjustment) with the longer fork adding 3-6mm more height and taking 0.5-1 deg off the angles.
Not insignificant geometry changes!
My Spitfire set-up is 160mm Pike with Luftkappe, -2 deg Works headset and 27.5 wheels with 2.5 DHF or Shorty up front and 2.3 DHR2 or Shorty rear. It's great! Never tried it with 26" wheels.
You could just slap a set of 26" pikes on? Granted no deals about so you're north of £500 for an obsolete standard but if it works....? Personally I don't think fox 32's work at that travel, and are you tubeless? Tubeless and lower pressures might help your arms if not.
That's all mine is with a regular wheel set with 2.5 minions either end. I can't see the semi fat 650b upgrade being worth £600. TBH you could flog your bike for say a grand, add the £1100 you're thinking of spending and your into Capra money, which would be a lot more bike, all new for the same outlay.
Thanks for replies 🙂
The frame is the brand new bit and I'm running my old 26" stuff in it, but with 27.5 dropouts (non-boost).
If I was looking at cheaper fork options, the Manitou Mattoc 2 Pro forks look great, and similar weight to Pikes/Fox forks I have now. I could then have my hubs rebuilt onto some 650b rims... not sure what rims though? Might be able to get some complete wheels for the same cost as that, or at least not much more
You'll notice it back to back, but whether it's worthwhile or not is up to you. If you choose carefully and make sure the tyres roll nicely, it shouldn't make much difference at all to climbing.
I'd upgrade to the Manitous (great forks) and leave it at that tbh.
I've done very much the same to my '15 Spitfire, I made the change to 650b to gain a little extra ground clearance after fitting a 2 degree angleset. With the WT tyres and 35mm rims I am able to run much lower pressures, 21-23PSI rather than the 30-32 I was running. I can't honestly say that I can tell much difference between the wheel sizes though, fitting the slackset has made far more of an impact on how the bike behaves.
Before, 2014 26" pikes with c1600g carbon wheels
[url= https://c1.staticflickr.com/2/1641/25837844120_f0a4ff7197_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://c1.staticflickr.com/2/1641/25837844120_f0a4ff7197_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/FncGT3 ]Banshee Spitfire[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/le_grande_momo/ ]Matt Cotterill[/url], on Flickr
After, 650b Lyrics with Hope tech 35W wheels and WT Maxxis tyres - they tyres are actually lighter than the supergravity Schwalbes I was previously running
[url= https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2931/33481309402_d05ba0e85f_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2931/33481309402_d05ba0e85f_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/T1CsPd ]650B Spitfire[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/le_grande_momo/ ]Matt Cotterill[/url], on Flickr
I've offset a little of the weight gain by fitting carbon bars and a hope cassette (fitted for the range, weight saving was an additional benefit).
I can't honestly say that I can tell much difference between the wheel sizes though
I demoed the Spitfire frame built up with 650b wheels (Halo Vapour 35?) and reckon that I noticed a difference with the bigger wheels. Bit more grip and seemed to climb just a bit easier. Although my initial impression was the bike was quite heavy, although PBs on climbs and downs showed that not to matter 🙂
My Spitfire in 26" climbs really well too though.
Priced up rebuilding my hubs onto new rims (by a shop @ £30 a wheel plus spokes) and for the cost it would be cheaper to buy some Hope Tech 35w off the shelf, which may as well be Boost to be more future proof (hopefully), which in turn leads to something like the new Pikes or Yari.... The Manitou are not available in Boost. I could just Boost the rear end (for future proof reasons only) and stick with 100mm hub at the front
A 150mm Pike will be about 10mm longer A2C than your Fox 32 and with the bigger rims and tyres you'll be raising the BB by about 15mm (more than the extremes of the dropout adjustment) with the longer fork adding 3-6mm more height and taking 0.5-1 deg off the angles.
A BB raise would be welcome, as get a few more pedal strikes than I'd like with current setup. Slacker is also welcome as long as it still climbs ok
So... found a 2015 Marzocchi 350 NCR fork on Sport Pursuit for silly money so have ordered that! It's 160mm travel, which might be overkill. It can be adjusted to 140 or 150mm but don't know if that also shortens the a-c length too....?
On the look out for some wheels now
but don't know if that also shortens the a-c length too....?
yes, by 10mm or 20mm depending on how much travel you drop.
My old 26 XC bike had 1250g wheels and 450g tyres. My new one has 1800g wheels and 600g tyres; the whole bike weighs 27lbs vs 22lbs for the old one. It climbs so much better on rocky stuff it's hard to believe.
The main advantage of the super light wheels was acceleration. That 26er was so fast out of corners it was unreal.
yes, by 10mm or 20mm depending on how much travel you drop.
Seems logical to me too, but you never know. I wonder if its easy to do or one of those "you can do it but it voids the warranty". I saw that stated in relation to the Manitou Mattoc, i.e. you've got to send it away to a service centre to be shortened
The Mattocs are great and as far as I know they can be user serviced and have their travel adjusted without any warranty concerns. Part of the reason I went for them was that they are fully home serviceable. I bought some 350 NCRs before the mattocs but they were faulty and Merlin had run out of stock to replace them. They looked lush with the Espresso coating and the price you paid is just crazy cheap however, the 350 is not user serviceable as the DBC is apparently a PITA to bleed. Still a good move though.
John
Travel adjust of the Marzocchi forks seems straight forward enough [url= http://marzocchiworkshop.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/travel-change-for-350-ncr-cr-series.html ]http://marzocchiworkshop.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/travel-change-for-350-ncr-cr-series.html[/url]
Well I say that, the guy in the video has a fully kitted out workshop, with everything to hand and setup to service forks. My equivalent will be me scrabbling around in my shed using an old washing up bowl and my Park workstand, using copious amounts of kitchen paper to mop up the oil as I go
Have been hunting around for wheel set bargains. I've got British Cycling membership so get 10% off at Chain Reaction. That puts a set of Hope 35w not far off £300.
Looking at 'slimmer' rims, CRC also have Easton Arc 24 on Hope hubs which look good, they work out at about £270. These are much lighter than the Hope 35w and would be considered wide-ish rims until recently!
I could spend less on second hand set, not a massive rush as the forks won't be despatched from Sport Pursuit for a week or 2
The net result of this is I'm now on 650B and my bike weighs the same, if not slightly lighter. Plus it has longer travel forks and larger wheels 🙂
Ended up with Easton Arc 27 rims and the total spend was less than £500.
Really quite glad I didn't follow the trend for wider rims (i.e. 30mm+) and fatter rubber (2.6 WT). It's an option for the future but happy for now