I ride a canyon spectral with lyrik/superdeluxe and my buddy rides a fezzari signal peak with sid/sid, we ride XC terrain with some roots, rocks, nothing particularly crazy. Is there a way to tune the XC bike to feel like a buttery trail bike? I don’t use all 160/150mm of travel except on the occasional bigger drop, usually I’m using 60-80mm of actual travel plus about 40mm sag so 120-ish mm in total. The spectral feels great and pedals extremely well even with the shock wide open but it’s a lot of bike so it’s got me wondering if you can have the best of both worlds…lighter weight and a little bit snappier handling in the twisty stuff AND marshmallow soft suspension sucking up everything in sight. Thanks :slight_smile: Joe

I agree, but what I’m picking up from Joe is that he wants the suppleness of a trail fork and general small bump compliance whilst not needing 160mm of travel. (Forgive me if I’m wrong here Joe) To me that means either play with pressure and tokens, or something like a Vorsprung Luftkappe. The people who I know that use them absolutely rave about them.

There are so many more factors other than the fork to consider - tyres, pressures, bars, wheels… I thought an XC bike was built for out right speed, and the sacrifice is often comfort. A trail bike is a little heavier, but more travel, able to tackle more difficult terrain and generally more comfortable.

[image] AndyGajda: I thought an XC bike was built for out right speed, and the sacrifice is often comfort. I wouldn’t say comfort, they put you in a different position and that might be more or less comfortable for you. I prefer more aggressive positions on both, my road bikes and my mountain bikes. The most significant difference is how the ride feels to you, whether you enjoy it or not. XC bikes usually have quicker handling. Whether you think of that as an asset (because the bike is more nimble) or a detriment (the handling is more nervous and less stable at speed) is up to you. [image] Joe: Yeah the new one. We’re both 190-200#’s and in order to limit the sag to 25% the little Sid shock needs a whopping 300psi. It is incredibly cute though. 300 psi?!?! I am not sure my shock pump goes that high. And if it does, I am pretty sure it is its max pressure. When I wrote my previous responses, I wasn’t aware of your weight. If I were you, I’d definitely go for a beefier bike: a fork with wider stanchions, 4-pot brakes and larger rotors, etc. [image] Joe: And yeah the spectral is working super well but it’s quite a bit more travel than I’m using. It makes me wonder…who uses all of that travel? How insanely hard are they hitting stuff? Trust me, people other than myself are :wink: In any case, if you prefer to ride a bike with more travel, but you don’t use all of it, who cares? It isn’t a bad thing to have something in reserve should things go wrong. :slight_smile:

[image] OreoCookie: I wouldn’t say comfort, they put you in a different position and that might be more or less comfortable for you. I prefer more aggressive positions on both, my road bikes and my mountain bikes. Sorry, I cut that reply short. When I was talking about comfort I was meaning things like less travel, stiff frame, maybe hardtail over full suspension rather than position.

[image] OreoCookie: When I got my new-to-me XC hardtail, it came with a top-of-the-line XC fork from 2018. We have lots of tactile pavement tiles for the blind here in Japan, and I almost don’t feel them on this fork. [image] Likewise, on fire roads, even very rough ones with ruts, the front end purrs along and remains super comfortable. I reckon with a larger travel fork, you’d lose that suppleness. Out of interest, what bars/stem do you have on the bike? I recently changed out my bars and stem to a RSL integrated cockpit and have noticed that it soaks up those kind of vibrations really well.

[image] AndyGajda: Out of interest, what bars/stem do you have on the bike? I recently changed out my bars and stem to a RSL integrated cockpit and have noticed that it soaks up those kind of vibrations really well. I have an aluminum stem and a carbon handlebar, but I forgot the make and model. I’m sure, though, that the biggest component is the fork, though, because the ridges are too tall to be absorbed the by handlebars alone. Still, the handlebars absorb quite a bit of the buzz. I’ll replace ithem very soon with a Shimano carbon handlebar — I wasn’t careful enough when I fastened the screws on my stem and cracked the bar. (I torqued it up to spec with a torque wrench, but still, a cracked bar is a cracked bar.) However, you are right that carbon handlebars have some vibration damping properties that makes them more comfortable. I really love my 3T handlebars on my road bike. I’ll see how I will get along with the Shimano handlebars, but I’m sure they’ll be fine. Geometry-wise, they are spot-on. (The previous handlebars were a bit too short for my liking, 670 mm, so I ordered 720 mm bars.)

[image] mailman: I agree, but what I’m picking up from Joe is that he wants the suppleness of a trail fork and general small bump compliance whilst not needing 160mm of travel. (Forgive me if I’m wrong here Joe) yep that’s exactly right and I have a 2018 specialized epic pro hardtail with the brain sid (definitely NOT supple!) and have ridden my buddy’s signal peak and recently a SC tallboy. (The tallboy pedaled great btw) [quote=“mailman, post:18, topic:73916, full:true”] What and how are you riding? [image] AndyGajda: I thought an XC bike was built for out right speed, and the sacrifice is often comfort. A trail bike is a little heavier, but more travel, able to tackle more difficult terrain and generally more comfortable. I’m skeptical of that, I’m not convinced a firm ride is faster off road. I’m halfway convinced a more supple ride is faster. I have different power meters (so…who knows right?) on my bikes (carbon hardtail vs. the spectral) but if I ride a loop with each bike the hardtail at the same power the hardtail takes more power and isn’t as comfortable. As for position, I’m in an XC position, the only difference between the spectral and epic is that the reach is 1" shorter on the spectral. Setback saddle height handlebar drop…all identical. The XC bikes feel more “slicey dicey” and the spectral is more “monster truck” but the handling doesn’t bother me either way. I’m kinda wondering if weigh even matters. Ready to ride my buddy’s signal peak is 28.5#'s (with pedals, computer, bottle mount…you know, ready to go) vs. my spectral at 30.5#'s. I did some runs up a climb on my spectral…one run “normal”, the next run with a 10# backpack on. I alternated zero weight and plus 10#'s every other lap The data is below…I’m not entirely sure the runs are statistically different (didn’t do well in statistics back in the day…). Joe [Screen Shot 2022-06-30 at 9.32.54 AM]

[image] AndyGajda: Out of interest, what bars/stem do you have on the bike? I recently changed out my bars and stem to a RSL integrated cockpit and have noticed that it soaks up those kind of vibrations really well. [image] Talk to me about comfortable carbon mountain bike bars Equipment You know, those look pretty nice and a great idea, thanks slight_smile Joe and on the basis of that…on one bars in shipping now! Joe

[image] Joe: I’m skeptical of that, I’m not convinced a firm ride is faster off road. I’m halfway convinced a more supple ride is faster. I have different power meters (so…who knows right?) on my bikes (carbon hardtail vs. the spectral) but if I ride a loop with each bike the hardtail at the same power the hardtail takes more power and isn’t as comfortable. I agree, a firm ride isn’t necessarily faster. But I think there are many more factors at play. I do suspect that ultimately the SuperCaliber would be faster than my ProCaliber on account of the rear travel, and this would negate the weight penalty. But I suspect the SuperCaliber will be much faster than the Fuel Ex. Might put my XR2 tyres on the Fuel Ex and see how it goes!!!

[image] AndyGajda: But I suspect the SuperCaliber will be much faster than the Fuel Ex. Might put my XR2 tyres on the Fuel Ex and see how it goes!!! If you can just run the same wheelset, give it a shot. I tell you what, the big bikes feel way slower…like as in “this thing is a pig” but then you ride a lap at the same power (or you can even go average heart rate if you want) and look at the times and they’re just as fast. It’s crazy. The most consistent data I have between tires is on a twisty 14-ish minute loop, the paper thin XC tires consistently run 20 seconds faster than the lightest “trail” tires on the same power/same bike/same rider. But put the soft sticky jumbo knob stock tires back on and it’s another 30 seconds slower and feels like pedaling thru mud (spectral came with maxxis dhf and something else super sticky). You rail all of the turns and think it’s the tires and then you find out that it’s just because you were going so slow. Joe

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Can you tune a SID to feel like a Lyrik?

Equipment

Joe June 30, 2022, 1:40pm 30

and on the basis of that…on one bars in shipping now!

Joe

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