Sort of off topic but this is the best place to ask. I have the RC3 SID on my 2020 spark (the not new damper) which I am sure many of you are familiar with. It felt exceptionally harsh on small bumps and I put 2 volume spacers in it which made it much more compliant, and I may put a third in. I’ve only gotten 1 real ride in on it due to weather/trail conditions (upstate NY), but another spacer may balance it out even more to keep it from diving.
Anyone else have a similar experience? I’m coming from a Fox factory 34 2020 and was just immediately surprised how much harsher the SID felt. I felt like I was getting beat up just rolling over bumps in the snow, let alone real trails riding fast.
I went down the rabbit hole with the 2020 SID Select+.
It was harsh, and I never used full travel. I ended up putting thr maximum spacers in and that made the fork worse at speed. It felt good on slow stuff but the dive and lack of support was terrible and I mever used full travel. I learned my lesson that spacers are not for plusheness or support, only changing the spring rate.
The damper basically has zero compression adjustments, but one time I didnt bleed the damper after service. That was the best the fork ever felt. Maximum plushness at all speeds, no spiking, and awesome support. Bled the damper and it sucked again.
I gave up trying to use all the travel on that fork and make it feel good. I chalked it up to being a race fork and sold the bike (previously on a Pike).
I have the new SID in 120mm flavor. It definetly feels better, but thats probably the 20mm more travel. The fork is still harsh especially at speed and I get random HSC spikes. And I still cant use full travel when trying. Not a lot of tuning options for the Select model either.
The take away is I wouldnt expect the Rockshox fork to feel like the 34. Different forks for different purposes. A Pike would feel more inline to the 34. The 2021 SID is a kind of in between but still race oriented (xc racing damper tune).
As far as I know, yeti is going with the 115 for a while. I dont think a new xc inspired rig is coming out anytime soon. The source is reliable - they work at yeti
Ok back to XC bikes - I have the opportunity to purchase a 202o spark 900 rc world cup for 3500. Just needs a dropper. Pretty good price all things considered. Not sure I really want an xc bike that bad, but would be fun to get back to my pro/expert racer days. I just hope I have time to actually ride it with racing road and trying my hand in some enduro races this year
I bought a slightly used 2018 Spark 900 RC World Cup for this $3500 about a year ago. I just put an AXS shifter and dropper on it. It seems awesome but I’m relatively new to MTB so I don’t have much to compare it to. If it is new that is a great price and I would go for it.
I have a hardtail with a Fox Factory SC 100 and a Supercaliber from last year with a 100m SID. The SID was a lot harsher on small bumps, and coupled with the super stiff Bontrager 35 XXX bar, really beat up my hands and wrists when I first set up the bike. What you did is the right move - adding spacers and then dropping PSI. I did this and also swapped from a Bontrager cockpit to and Enve cockpit with the M5 bar. This made a huge difference and I’ve been really happy with the set up.
The Quarq Shockwiz can be really helpful for tuning some of this. If you can get access to one, I’ve found it helpful in getting PSI and rebound dialed in.
Thanks for the feedback. FYI spacers 100% change the curve, they just probably don’t have as much obvious effect on shorter travel forks. It’s quite evident on my 34 that the top is plusher and ramps up faster as it goes through the travel. The spring rate of an air fork is moderated by the air pressure.
EDIT: Sorry new to the forum didn’t realize how to quote!
Do you have the FIT4 damper in your 32? I know some people have some issues with it but I like it a lot. If I keep riding my spark I have considered switching. My only complaint, out of the box with 3 spacers I believe my 34 was great in the open and trail position. However, It dived too much relative to my CC DB air unbalancing the bike so I added a 4th spacer. While open feels perfect now, the trail position has too little LSC, and is pretty harsh on small bumps. It does ok enough on larger impacts I think, but it ramps quick.
That’s the exact bike I bought. I put a one-up 120 mm dropper on mine. Hate the fox 2x lever i got but i was not willing to fork out 200+ for the twin-loc lever that has a dropper lever too. Scott really dings you on every little thing they can, that’s my biggest complaint. Had to buy a new topcap and they make you buy the entire spacer kit alongside it. Same with the plastic cable inserts in the rest of the frame.
Yes - have the Fox SC 32 100 with FIT4 on my Air 9 RDO HT. I also have the Fox SC 34 120 with FIT4 on my older Niner RKT 9 RDO, but right now that one doesn’t get much ride time with the Supercaliber being my “go to” FS. I really like both the SC 32 100 and SC 34 120, and similar to you thought about swapping the SC 32 100 onto my Supercaliber. However I ultimately was happy how I got the SC dialed in.
I am going to be doing some back to back rides on the Niner Air 9 RDO with SC 32 vs the Supercaliber with SID this spring on some hilly, bumpy gravel routes. There is still about 3 - 3.5 lbs difference between these bikes and I am really interested to see how they preform on some 60 - 100 mile gravel rides. I’m planning on racing Wilmington Whiteface and Leadville later this year. For Wilmington I’m leaning hardtail and for Leadville FS, but it will be interesting to see how the training rides go this spring.
I’m glad you just mentioned that whiteface race. I live in Syracuse NY and didn’t know about this race. Looks like fun and seems like registration still available, thinking of doing the 50k.
I did it once before and it was a really fun event. Beautiful area and the event seemed really well organized. The course is not technical and you don’t hit the first singletrack until about the halfway point and most of it is quite basic. There was one little section of singletrack right near the end that was trickier, but its very short.
2004? I think it was on it’s way out then. I wish I had done more riding in the ADK, although I can probably give the park credit for my love of bikes in general as I vacationed a lot in Raquette Lake as a kid and we always brought bikes, I wore my tires out around the camp ground and area gravel roads. I have a big place in my heart for that region.
Where I am, we have Class I-II gravel, and Class V gravel, with not a lot in between. I’m fine riding my road/all-road on the former with 28-32mm tires but have yet to find a gravel bike that I enjoy riding on the latter. I’m primarily a roadie so my interest in riding off-road is getting in training miles and stress relief and enjoying being out away from traffic while getting miles in… I’m not interested in super-fast, super-technical MTB riding, enduro stuff, etc. I enjoy climbing more than descending.
With that in mind, I just bought a high-end XC hardtail, figuring it would allow me to ride the fire-roads and double-track around here without feeling heavy and slow (it’s sub-20lbs). But, it’s not going to be super fast descending on the technical singletrack here or playful or whatever the latest terms are for XC’ing on the enduro side of things. In fact, it’s going to be challenging to ride on anything more than buffed flowy singletrack (which we do have also). It also isn’t going to be much fun if I have long road or smooth dirt-road sections mixed in on the gravel rides.
Anybody else made that same calculus and landed on a top-end XC hardtail for the rough end of the gravel spectrum and some light, maybe old-school non-technical MTB?
Yeah, I had a Felt carbon hardtail that I set up almost exclusively for gravel, and CX. I liked it a lot. The only place where it wasn’t the correct tool for the job was long road sections, and only because I was limited by the gearing (too low, spun out on descents/flats). I had made that decision to go hard tail v. gravel bike after I did a very technical gravel race. I don’t have that bike any more and my go-to gravel bike is set up about as aggressively as I can make it and still be fun on the road. I can say I don’t really enjoy riding trails on drop bars (and I’m a mountain biker first), fwiw. Long story short, your choice is a good one.
How big have you gone with the tires you have ridden? I have 45s on my Diverge that I’ve ridden on a wide variety of gravel. Including forest roads that aren’t “gravel”, just dirt roads with embedded rocks of varying sizes.
A bike like the Salsa Cutthroat is the next step up from a gravel bike, before you get to MTB. Although it is basically a drop bar MTB, and you can even put a suspension fork on it.
