I have the incessant desire to install a sid sl flight attendant fork on my Epic World Cup, which for those who don’t know has a proprietary rear shock, so its basically the same scenario as putting flight attendant on a hard-tail. According to rockshox, in order to enable the automatic adjustment feature of flight attendant, as opposed to just manual toggling of lock-out, you need to have a pedal sensor, fork, and rear shock. I would have the full axs system besides the shock, xxsl, reverb, power meter, the lot. While I would accept manual wireless lockout because its kewl, I realllly want to get the automated working with fork only, like you can see Keegan or Blevins running on hardtail/epic wc respectively. I contacted Rockshox and asked them if this set up will work and they said it would not, but what do they know lol,sigh…
A short version of my rambling could somebody with flight attendant do me a favour and see if the auto works on the fork only without the shock battery in?
I have all my power data, so I want to believe I can just plug this into the app and it will work. but probably not ):
I’d appreciate any info or experience people might have with this and if anyone could do a few quick tests
Thank you!
Okay. What if it can still connect to powermeter and it has all your data already? Just not the shock? Or did i read that wrong and you meant either the fork or shock missing would break the system?
The fork uses a sensor in the shock to help orient itself in 3 dimensions. That’s why you need to do the calibration step. Without the shock it can’t know its orientation and you’ll never get it out of manual mode. And it’s not a one time thing. On mine I need to occasionally re-calibrate it.
Bottom line, what you are trying to do won’t work.
That would be ideal, since then there would be the full system. I asked Rockshox specifically about it and they said they are not currently planning to make one, but who knows
Unfortunately, it doesn’t even work in manual mode without the shock (or PM/pedal sensor) connected. Seems kind of dumb that you can’t still control the fork manually if your shock or PM battery goes dead, but that’s how I see it behaving.
If you pull the battery out of the shock after everything is already connected, the automated and and manual stuff still work for a little bit (maybe 30 seconds), but then it goes into search mode and nothing works. I assume SRAM has overridden that requirement on these pro bikes we see running a front shock only.
One thing I have not tried - I remember when I initially put a battery on my fork control unit (brand new out of box), the lights indicated it was in manual mode. Maybe if you never pair it with a shock it might work as a manual control only on the fork. I’d offer to run a test to confirm if it could work that way, but the setup process was a bit clunky for me and I don’t really want to mess with what’s working.
No worries, thanks for the info. Rockshox was pretty adamant that it would still do manual mode with fork only so I would assume you are right in the assumption that if you never pair it it will default to manual…
Unless they explicitly said it would work with a paired remote controller, you might just double check on that to be safe. Having to push the buttons on the fork to change the modes would be pretty crappy. I’d bet on it working with a paired remote. And it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s how the pros are using it on the bikes we’re seeing with fork only.
It works perfectly fine in manual mode on a hardtail. And in case you think I am some rando on the internet just inventing stuff, this is my bike. It has the normal Isostrut in the rear, and a Flight Attendant fork. Before, I ran this exact setup on a Scott Scale hardtail. I change fork modes by pushing both SRAM Force shifters at the same time.
Pretty sure those “brootal gravel” dudes you see it running on their dropbar hardtail do what I do and just switch manually. Budget is not an issue for them and it avoids cable clutter and installing some weird remote lockout switch on your dropbar bike.
Thanks great info! Thanks for sharing! So it works, but how do you like it? Do you feel like it meets your needs? My concern is it would be less practical for a xco softail rig, but I suppose it would be the same setup as a cable actuated 3 pos lockout…
For starters, I don’t believe in the concept “gravel bike” as we know it. If you want to ride off-road you are out of your mind if you think it’s a good idea to do this without suspension. The fact that people buy more compliant/vibration absorbing/suspension-simulating bar tape, stems, handlebars, seatposts, gloves, tires (every year width and max frame clearance goes up …), seatstays/chainstays etc etc shows to me that people are trying to solve something that mountainbikes solved 20+ years ago, it’s called suspension.
I do love riding off-road on non-technical tracks. The surface can be quite brutal (we don’t have curated gravel), but no single tracks with crazy rocks/roots/drops. And since I ride on the road a lot with a race bike I really prefer dropbars when you don’t need the precision of a straight bar. Hence my MTB to gravelbike conversions I did (first hardtail, and I liked it so much I went full-sus with the same parts).
What this means is I’m a lot less picky about how my suspension works than your average skilled MTB’er. How I use FA is that depending on the terrain I either leave it open or in pedal, and when I want to get out of the saddle or I’m riding on paved roads I lock it. I never played with the rebound settings for instance. I just set them once and that’s it.
I’m still considering replacing the Isostrut with a Flight Attendant version to experience the full automatic system, but it’s a 5 month delay before I get the shock and even in the open stand I don’t really experience bobbing on the rear when pedalling hard right now, so I don’t know if it’s worth the cost.
Your bike is absolutely hilarious to me (in a good way) because literally 2-years ago my buddy (who had a SC) and I were talking about converting his bike to a gravel rig in exactly the way you have yours (Minus FA).
He decided not too because he thought it was “more than needed” or would be “weird” or the trends didnt point to it etc.
It is awesome to see someone who actually did it and with even more updates then when we B’Sed about it.
Great looking bike and makes so much sense in modern terms.
From what ive heard…Sram will be putting out an update early next year for the flight attendant fork to work with hardtails. When this gets pushed out flight attendant will work perfectly with a workd cup epic. Hence why im building a drop bar flight attendant workd cup as we speak
