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Just wondering how good people have found the Vorsprung spring choosing thing on the website. I’ve picked up a second hand Smashpot and need to buy the spring, and don’t want to get it wrong.
I’m 95kg on an Enduro bike- mainly doing a mix of red and some black runs at BPW. Nothing massive, A470 on one hand and black tech on the other.
Does 50Ib spring seem about right?
Im looking for comfy landings on the one hand but good small bump sensitivity for fast roots and rocks without battering my arms, 160mm travel.
Thanks!
I'm about the same weight as you and ran a 55lb on my E bike, so 50lb sounds about right for a normal bike. The old calculator gave way high recommendations for UK riding but the new one seems more realistic. Putting my details in the new one gave me a recommendation of 60lb, but I know I don't ride that aggressively so would still go softer.
Only big change I made was to go lighter than recommended on the oil to soften ramp on the HBO. Even then I'd to swap a couple of the shims to get full travel.
Fantastic, thanks!
They recommended me a 40 but I ended up on a 50. I weigh about 10 stone! That's in a 160mm 36.
They've revised the spring recommendations a couple of times, last time I checked it was either 45 or 50, can't remember which. I'm surprised to see they're back to recommending me a 40, it just didn't work.
Northwind 50Ib seems a lot! It would mean I need 75. Hmm, maybe 55 or 60, I’ll carry on looking on eBay.
If you go too high I guess you lose sag and small bump sensitivity.
Yeah usually I don't like saying things like that because riders vary so much and it's "just your opinion man" but I've had the 50 in for years now and there's just no question it's correct for me. The recommended 40 I took out the Mega and was literally bottoming the fork out on little steps and such, it was useless, I had to whack the damping up for miles and choke the fork up just to make it work at all. Lovely and smooth for fast chatter though. The 45 was sort of OK but still divey on steeps.
Where/how you ride makes a difference too, but the calculator's supposed to handle that. As an experiment I just went through and played with the settings and short of changing my weight most of the options don't actually change anything, I get 40 for almost every answer and 45 only if I go to extremes, I can't get it to recommend me a 50 without adding 30lbs and choosing options like "rampage" and "stiff"
I'm a solid enough rider but I'm not super fast or anything and I'm on a pretty normal shaped Bird AM9, my riding tends more towards the steep and horrible but the 50 works for me everywhere. So I don't feel like there's really any outlier stuff in there.
NW thanks for the detail. I’m off to the states next month I might try and order a spring there. I suppose you can see why air springs were invented!
Maybe worth contacting a dealer here and see if they offer a spring swap service. When I bought mine they offered to swap the spring if the supplied one was wrong.
Clubby that’s great advice. Forks are away at TFT having some love so I might see if they do that. It could be expensive otherwise!
I fitted a Smashpot to my Ohlins 38 170mm last week.
I'm 80-83kg and tried the 50lb spring first (Vorsprung recommended 45lb....middle of the road on the calculator questions). I liked the way it held the front of the bike up, but wasn't coming close to full travel (150mm) even with minimum HSC and minimum HBO and trying my hardest to bottom it out.
I fitted a 45lb spring this morning. I ended up with the HSC back to 2 clicks and the HBO 8 to 10 clicks. The fork felt like it used the travel well, allowed me to push into corners with more confidence and grips like crazy on rougher, flatter corners.
On descents that I have ridden 50+ times I managed personal bests on pretty all of them today.
Why put effort in when you can buy speed 😳
That’s good to know, sent the smashpot in to TFT as they are about to service the fork.
Ive gone for the 50.
They are also upping the travel to 170 as this is also an easy change when fitting the SP. The travel can go to the max for the fork chassis.
Pretty excited.
So far TFTUNED have been brilliant, happy to go over options, explaining things and really taking time to get the best result, and no problem fitting the second hand smashpot as part of the service.
Little update- forks fitted today, not ridden in anger but I think the 50 is fine, certainly doing the sag check put it at just below 20% without some bits on me and the bike.
looking forward to giving it a spin down at BPW.
Also, TFTuned were faultless, did everything they said they would and on time, and everyone I dealt with was very knowledgeable and really professional.