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so bit a of a long story
I recently frame swapped to a sonder transmitter, i brought across my pike ACS3 converted forks @140mm, charger 1.
the trasnmitter is designed around 150mm.
I instantly noticed i felt way too soft so bought hte next spring up.
In the mean time, i won a set of Mnnitou Mattoc experts, gave them a quick service, set to 150mm and put them on the transmitter. the bike handled impecibly, reflected in my times on my regualr trails and the grin factor i had.
fast forward to now
i picked up a charger 2 damper and a 10mm lower headset spacer, fitted the pikes back on the transmitter.
Instantly noticed everything was substantially firmer and had to put the softer spring back in, which, is stil lo nthe firm side nad sitting at 25% sag.
I'm two rides in riding my regular trails.. i'm consistently slower... and on both rides i had incidents (3??) which felt like the bars just turned under me, on essentially straight sections of trail. once i nearly went over the bars, and once i did...this isnt me typically. a crash or near rash to that extent is fairly rare.
So im super confused...
am i having handling issues becasue my charger 2 "upgrade" is massively over damped on the compression from the box? and the front wheel is skipping/staying light?
could slight differences in offset be at fault? i have no idea wha the offsets are on my a1-a3 pikes aor random year mattocs
i have a 35mm stem atm, am waiting on a 40, not sure if that will help in anyway
I've had the same sensation of the fork "tucking under" on corners.
How heavy are you? The reason I ask is because it was always on longer (150mm) Fox 34 I experienced it. This was on 3 different bikes and 3 different forks.
I put it down to the flex because of my weight. Might not have been though, could have been a setup issue but it's just from my experience.
Saying that, I had a 150mm Pike on my Hightower and it was great and never felt like a noodle.
78kg before kit
so not massively heavy. and i did look at he front wheel and think that doesnt look as rigid as what im used to, but also thought it could be because its wasn't maintaining the best ground contact
Hmm, could possibly be a tuning issue then.
My current fork (Yari) felt great at 160mm with the MoCo damper. I rebuilt it and took it down to 130mm travel for my current bike and it was awful. Wouldn't grip on corners and was skipping all over the place.
Fitted a charger 2.1 RC2 and it transformed it completely. Can maintain grip in bumpy corners, soaks fast hits up and stays composed etc.
You've not fitted the lowers on the wrong way around have you (so the crown is facing backwards)?
haha excellent question, and that would do it
youve got me second guessing myself now.. the lowers havent been off in 10 months, im hoping i would have noticed 🙂
the dials are definitley on the correct side, and the wheel is definitely in front of the forks 😀
im going to do some subjective testing, doesnt take long to swap dampers again.
I assume the wheel and Pike were used on the previous bike with no issues?
mattocs are a lovely fork, for reference see all my previous posts on lovin the Manitou. 🙂
How much has the overall geo changed new bike to old?
e.g, to take one factor - IMHE on a bike with a slacker head angle than previous, I need much less air in the fork spring than either what is recommended or when used on a previous steeper HA bike. But, the fork needs more mid stroke support and low speed compression damping for it to keep working well.
maybe something in there?
Haha good stuff, you never know 🙂
so lets jsut say im swapping forks on the same bike
i think theres a 5mm difference in axle to crown, although the pikes are 140 coil, and the mattocs 150 air.
as for wheel, the pikes are none boost, mattocs boost, so ive got a dt swiss e1900 for the pikes, and an m1900 for the mattocs, both 30mm internal, i have been swappign the smae tyre between (dissector 2.6) and runnign same tyre rpessures.
the old bike, i used the pikes on for 6 months o nthe softer spring, charger 1, was probably a degree or 2 steeper (dmr trailstar)
If the bike works better with the mattocs then why not run them and ditch the pikes?