[Closed] CC HELM 29er fork - anybody got experience of?

Hey there, I had a quick go on Sam's FlareMax with the Helm last week and was pretty impressed with it. Rode a tricky long enduro race stage and just didn't have to think about it at all.

Better than the McQueen on the Solaris I demo-ed, but not sure what damper that had.

What's a FF?

Fat ***k 🤣

A friend who i ride with , who is very handy on a bike had them on his shan no. 5 . He rates them highly but seems to think its a little hard to get parts and info on servicing. Cane creek like to keep it 'inhouse' apparently.

To be honest , pretty much all the enduro forks i've tried over the last couple of years are awesome, so yeah if you fancy something differant try them

Got to be a bit more friendly than Bos though, right?

The Swarf contour i demo'd had them on and I was suitably impressed with them, couldn't quite justify the £800 myself but I was really tempted.

Really nice fork, we have sold quite a lot of them. No issues with them at all, they just work. Most of the time people end up running the damper pretty much wide open, maybe a few clicks of LSC but that's about it. With the air spring set the main pressure 7-8psi higher than you want, equalise the 2 chambers then drop it back down to the initial desired pressure. This makes for a nice supply initial stroke.

Cheers, sounds good.

I had a 27,5 set on a demo BFe for a weekend. They were sort of great, sort of irritating. They're hideously over designed - the axle needs 2 hands to remove. The air volume adjust is a work of art, but you still need a big socket & wrench to take the top off the fork to use it, so offers no benefits over simple, cheap, tokens. You have to manually rebalance the +ve & -ve airchambers, and its easy to make the fork lose travel whilst doing so. Too many adjustments, too much faffing, too much chance of getting it hideously wrong.

That said, once I'd got them dialled in, they rode lovely.

In the end I bought a second hand but mint set of Pikes from off here. Problem is, by the time I'd Luftkappe'd them AND then had them custom tuned to work half way reasonably, the cost wasn't far off the deal I could have wangled on a new Helm, and I still don't think my Pikes ride as nicely (possibly rose tinted glasses though)

Too many adjustments, too much faffing, too much chance of getting it hideously wrong.

This, this is my main concern... 7 way adjustment... seven...

as my other option was a pike, I’m, er, reassured...

Anybody know how to set the -ve air chamber higher than the positive?

manual just shows you how to equalise. Do you over pressure, equalise then remove 7-8 psi from the positive?

You just inflate the main chamber to the pressure you want the negative to be, equalise them (you'll lose 1psi as it does it) then drop the positive down by the required amount.  I find 3psi higher in the negative works for me on my 27.5 ones.

Agree with the amount of adjustments being overwhelming for some people and it is easy to get lost when initially setting up (I had to restart once when I went the wrong way) but just take it one step at a time and you'll quickly home in on the best setup for you.  The thing to remember is that they need to be pushed pretty hard to make them work, they feel a bit wooden otherwise.  Also they like to have fresh oil in the lowers regularly, mine get done twice as often as they should be done and it makes a difference.

Thanks milky, I’m on the right track then 🙂

their brand spanking, will be giving them a proper try out tomorrow (once I set the negative properly...)

7 flippin fandangled ways of fannying around on a set of forks is ridiculous but ridiculously good as having ran Bos Devilles which were an absolute amazing set of forks. I managed to setup v quickly and they performed amazingly almost like a coil - I couldn’t quite believe how good they were really! But they were indeed excellent.

I’ve gone the DVO route for my 29er now as had Bos Dizzys but they were too flimzy and only 100mm models at the time.

My first light bed in ride tomoz too.

@Dumbbot- did you get your Starling Swarf thing built yet with your DVOs?

I’ll pm you & check in 👍

~20% sag isn't enough...

Going to have to give it a go at 25%.

Pretty impressed with them nonetheless.

Tracks better than the McQueen's, a bit more low speed chatter (well I was kind of expecting that) and gets better the more their pushed (not that I'll be pushing them that much!).

Set up not as big a pfaff as I'd feared (but the equalisation procedure not the easiest trail side...).

I like them (fortunately!).

Do you over pressure, equalise then remove 7-8 psi from the positive?

Yes

What sag you riding pete?

20% working for me at the moment.

anyone running the coil versions? they're the ones i'm eyeing up.