There's a decent chance that the noise you're hearing doesn't have anything to do with your headset, but it's not going to hurt to give it a going over since your bike was bought used. The first thing that you're going to want to do is to drop the fork out of the frame and clean all of the headset's surfaces. You probably don't need to push the headset cups out for inspection and cleaning unless the problem persists after you do everything that's laid out below, but wipe off the bearings, the split cone up top, the crown race, and the inside of both cups. Next, apply a very thin layer of grease to all of the components listed above before you reassemble. As weird as it is going to sound, the noise you're describing actually sounds a lot like housing crackle from your shifter cable and housing. Over time the steel wire in the housing will tend to push out past where it was trimmed when first installed, and the bare ends are known for making the exact noise that you're describing as they are loaded and unloaded against the hosing caps as you turn the handlebar. Strange, I know, but I've seen this happen countless times, especially when metal housing end caps are used. You'll need to use a sharp pair of cable cutters to trim a few millimeters off of the end of the housing in order to stop this noise. - Mike Levy |
Ratty ends of the shift housing can make strange crackling noises as you turn the handlebar, but it's a simple fix.
I assume that you added a booster 42t cog to your existing cassette, and then paired it with a 32t narrow-wide chainring. Divide your original gearing (36 / 26 = 1.384), then do the same with your new gearing (42 / 32 = 1.312) and it shows that your original gearing was lower (your new gearing works out to about a 5.2-percent increase in climbing effort). Switching to a 30t chainring will net you a slightly lower low gear (42 / 30 = 1.4), which is very close to what you had before, while still giving you a taller top gear. You can push your 32 for a month or so, increase your strength and endurance, and save the cost of purchasing a 30t chainring - or buy the 30 and tailor your gearing to match your present abilities. The hills around my place are pretty steep. Using a 42t cassette cog, I ride a 30t on 27.5-inch-wheel bikes and a 32t for 26-inch wheels. For 29ers, I use a 30, although I often wish for a 28 for long slug-fest ascents. - RC |
Both the Pike and the DebonAir are top notch suspension products, and they also happen to be very easy to tune via volume spacers in order to get exactly the feeling you're searching for. Let's start with the front fork first. By adding one or two bottomless tokens into your fork, (a super quick procedure that involves letting the air pressure out, unscrewing the top cap, twisting on a token, and then reinstalling the cap and reinflating), you'll make it ramp up more quickly at the end of its stroke. In turn, this should allow you to reduce the air pressure, making it feel more supple in the beginning of its travel. The same tactic can be uses for the DebonAir rear shock. Inside the air can are rubber bands that can be added or removed to accomplish the same thing that the plastic tokens do in the fork. Adding two or three bands will be a good starting point, and should allow you to run a little less pressure without bottoming out. Don't be afraid to experiment with different configurations - the suggested settings for your fork and shock are guidelines, not hard and fast rules. Everyone's preferences are slightly different, as are riding styles and terrain. Take notes detailing all of your initial settings, and then keep track of the changes you make. Before long you'll have everything dialed in and feeling just as plush and progressive as you'd like. - Mike Kazimer |
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www.bikerumor.com/2013/12/31/found-ultra-light-and-very-carbon-comptonents-from-bk-composites
Seriously though if I didn't use a 34t I'd run out of gears to go back down with, so it can't be that flat here? I don't mind what gears people are using so please nobody take offence but my point is just that if you need the smalls to get up, surely you need the bigs to go down as well?
forget toe clips, its all about ' Powerstraps'
After it stops feeling harsh on square bumps then play with LSC, and finally once you start charging more, add tokens/bands as necessary.
(I am assuming the person doesn't have air trapped in the lowers and his lowers have oil)
Many have noticed that, over time, the Pike will ingest oil from the lowers into the cartridge through the rebound assembly seal head. This messes with the viscosity of the damper fluid, and also overfills the damper so that the bladder hits the walls of the uppers at the end of the stroke, providing resistance. Bigger hits feel like crap after it ingests too much oil.
I ride ten hours a week and need to service the damper every three months.
Fortunately it's pretty easy to bleed the damper. I just crack open the the lower seal head, replace the seal, poor out old oil, poor in new, and bleed, which is pretty easy to do if you get the syringe fitting.
@ryan83 seriously. That mountain goes straight up into the sky. I ride a 26" but that's irrelevant. I will most likely come down to a 34T, maybe 32T. I still want to have that pwr on the DH, since I mostly ride out here in the Springs.
@Scotj009 thanks for the info. I'm slowly finding out the intricacies of riding. I guess sometimes ignorance helps because I've mostly enjoyed my set up. Had no idea my 36t was considered outside the "norm." Like you said though, riding style.
@mobilechernobyl embrace the pain!
@ryan83 I've done lookout before and that was pretty steep. This time I was referring to White Ranch. It was a nasty climb for sure. But you're right...really gotta earn your turns out in the front range. You gotta look into doing Mt. Buckhorne-Captain Jacks-Chutes out here in the Springs. It's a doozy of a climb but one of my fav DHs.
forums.mtbr.com/shocks-suspension/air-pike-lowers-psa-929695-post11438107.html
The easiest fix is to gently create a small space in the seal using some soft plastic like the end of a ziptie, although you have to be very careful not to damage the seal. Do this on both sides. If significant air burps out, go for a ride and see if anything changes.
I know riders that are sub 150 lbs and sport 2 reducers. They just ride faster than the rest of us, but that's what the spacers are for, not to account for clydes.
Furthermore, the Pike test bike also had the CCDB, and it was freakin maddening. I'm sure it's a fantastic shock, but I gave up when I was still trying to dial it in on my 5th ride with the thing. I've learned there IS such a thing as too much adjustability. Decided on a Float CTD and had it dialed in within an hour on the first ride. It's been perfect ever since.
I'm not going to go around trying to kick these products off their pedestals, but I will remind prospective buyers that nothing is perfect, and EVERY suspension product has compromises. Too many forum threads have guys blindly slapping tons of money down on these fad products that won't end up solving the issues they started with.
CTD does have fans for it's simplicity, but my theory is that, just as a broken clock is right twice a day, CTD is eventually going to "accidentally" be perfectly set up for say, 1 out of 20 users. For the other 19 out of 20, a fork with more tuning options is a far superior option. Sure, it may start off worse, but over several rides, you dial it in, and it ends up being far, far better than a 1-size-fits all damper like the CTD.
Given your preferences, it's not surprising that you didn't like the CCDB either. It takes a LOT of tuning to get right (though my DB inline was immediately worlds better than the fox float ctd shock it replaced, even on the cane creek stock settings). It took me literally months of riding to finally get dialed in exactly how i like it, so i can understand why someone wouldn't want to deal with all that, but it is insane how smooth that shock is. The low speed damping makes rocky trails feel like rough pavement and it absorbs drops smoother than anything else I've ridden.
And I do disagree about your assertion about having more tuning options...it's completely dependent on the rider. A CCDB is completely wasted on 19 out of 20 riders (in fact I would say the figure is higher than that), when they could get an even better experience by having a custom tune performed on the shock they have (or the shock that comes on their new bike), for less money than a factory stock CCDB. That's what bothers me about all this hype - someone posts a thread saying "my rear suspension feels harsh", and the immediate response is OMG YOU NEED A CCDB RIGHT NOWZ, when the RIGHT answer would be something like "what is your weight and riding style, and what are your current settings?" or, even better, a link to PUSH, Mojo, Avalanche...etc. Instead of spending $600 on a CCDB and needing to be a suspension expert to set it up, they can pay $200 to have a suspension expert set up their current shock for them. So I assert that it's BOTH the CCDB AND CTD that are right for 1 out of 20 riders, everyone else needs to have a proper tune done by a capable tuner.
Also, I've noticed that an awfully high percentage of members of this site seem to think that they are suspension setup experts. We all know how close to reality that is. But that, also, is neither here nor there.
And finally - MONTHS TO GET YOUR BIKE SET UP? HELLZ NO. My schedule combined with the climate I live in gives me 6-7 months a year to ride. Each winter I tear down my bike and completely clean and rehab it, during which time I generally make a few "small upgrades" (as i'm sure you do too)...which means that I get 6-7 months of riding out of a given "bike"...no way i'm going to spend several of those months being not completely happy with it. Nope.
and i definitely don't consider myself an expert, but on the other side of the coin, i think there are a ton of mtber's, and even PBer's, who have never even experienced a properly (or even close to properly, which they could achieve on their own if they took the time with a fork or shock that allowed adjustment) setup suspension
and you're right that custom tuning is probably the most happy medium - i'm very happy with my Avalanche damper (it truly is setup perfectly for me and my riding style) and I probably would have done the avalance tune on the fox float shock as well had it been available at the time I bought my DB inline. But for someone who is buying a bike and choosing between 2 models, one more expensive but with a cane creek, i'll take that over a bike that comes with a fox product that I would immediately have to pull off and ship to PUSH/avalanche, etc.
On your second point, in my 20 years of "real" MTB riding, i've yet to ride with someone more knowledgeable about bike suspension than myself (and that includes two shop owner/mechanics), and I likewise don't feel like i'm an expert (thus the reason I encourage letting the experts handle the tuning). So I don't feel that a given rider would necessarily achieve a better self-tune on a CCDB than they would on a CTD. I think that would come down to which shock was closer to that rider's ideal setup out of the box.
And as for the new bike, you can buy the bike with the fox and send the shock off for two weeks to be tuned, or spend "several months" as you put it, to get the CCDB right (an assertion which my experience with the shock seems to support also). I'll take the fox and be having a great experience on the trails as soon as possible, thank you.
I love wrenching on bikes as much as anyone, but the idea is to be riding more than wrenching. At least for me it is.
seriously underrated and ignored by many.
Bought a Manitou fork when my latest Fox fork cr*pped itself just out of warranty, and never been more impressed by a brand I got forgotten about!
"And as for the new bike, you can buy the bike with the fox and send the shock off for two weeks to be tuned, or spend "several months" as you put it, to get the CCDB right (an assertion which my experience with the shock seems to support also). I'll take the fox and be having a great experience on the trails as soon as possible, thank you.
"
As I said before, my CCDB came out of the box worlds better than the best i could get my fox. months of fine-tuning is just months of it getting better and better, not months and months of pain and agony trying to tune it. it's not the big deal that you're making it out to be.
as for the new bike scenario, you said " you can buy the bike with the fox and send the shock off for two weeks to be tuned...I'll take the fox and be having a great experience on the trails as soon as possible, thank you."
doesn't having to wait 2 weeks to ride a new bike you just bought sound like a little later than "as soon as possible"? i'm not waiting around 2 weeks while my new, shock-less bike sits, taunting me, unrideable, when i could be riding a CCDB immediately, and fine-tuning it over time...
As for the new bike scenario, I suppose this simply illustrates a difference between you and I because i'd rather continue riding my trusty old bike than to be riding a new one that i'm not happy with. Now that's just playing along for the sake of discussion because in real life i'd just ride one of my other bikes (assuming I already sold the bike i'm replacing with the new bike).
I think we're doing a great job of illustrating why there can't possibly be one "best" shock for everyone. What it really comes down to for me is the big picture...I can have the CTD tuned to perfection for me for the same or less than I can have the CCDB factory-stock. I'm all for putting in the work to make something awesome (just take a look at my bike resto threads on the forum for proof), but that's supposed to be to SAVE money, not spend more.
yeah, as i said, if avalanche or push had the tuning for my evo shock available at the time, i would have gone with that. unfortunately avalanche just started working on them in the last couple of months, and push still refuses to (I don't blame them, apparently avalanche had to invest ~$25K in parts to work on the evo shocks since they have to replace so much of the internals to make it a decent performing shock).
of course the DBinline has a larger oil volume than the fox float shock, which I like, so it's not that simple of a decision, but i think i would have liked to save $200 if i could have
I was speaking in terms of the "real" CTD (factory). That could certainly account for alot of our disagreement.