Thanks for the reply Pommes (King = Konig!).
According to the Giant brochure, the Reign X1 is 14.5kg and retails at $88k ($70k after 20% discount). HA is 67.0.
The Faith 0 is 16.7kg/$108k ($86k) and HA is 66.3 or 66.8. That’s still pretty light, my STP is listed at 13.3kg FFS!
I would buy the Faith over the Reign simply because it has Totem forks as opposed to Fox and it looks better. I know Fox forks work extremely well as I’ve spent a few hours on a pair of Float 32s, I just LOVE to look of the fat 40mm legs on the Totems. That alone is worth adding 3kg if you ask me.
I did quite a bit of internet digging on shortening Totem Solo Airs. It seems that if you have the right spacers which are easily bought or made, you can shorten them as much as you like. I’ve seen on various forums people who have shortened then from 180 to 160, 150 and even 90mm! A lot of people claim to be able to do it in ten minutes because there’s nothing to them internally.
I calculated the leverage ratio from the travel and shock stroke, it’s about 2.87 I seem to recall, which I think means if you fit a shock with a 1mm shorter eye to eye length you will drop the back of the bike by 2.87mm. Obviously that will slacken the head angle and drop the bottom bracket a touch, but consistently with the standard compression of the suspension. This can be exrapolated to calculate the travel reduction by fitting a range of different shocks. I can’t see any reason why it won’t work, theoretically you won’t alter the geometry at all if you always drop the forks by the same amount as the back end.
The only thing is that the fully compressed length of the shorter shock could be shorter (indeed it is 3mm shorter with the shortest one I looked at) which would allow the suspension to compress a little bit more than standard when it’s bottomed out. It could cause the linkages to hit something on some bikes. I’ve seen a video of a shockless Glory being compressed all the way down so I don’t think 3mm will make any diff on the Faith.
Also as I said I’d love to have a go on a bike with a slacked out head angle, dropping the back and leaving the forks at 180 would allow me to do so! If I don’t like it, I just drop the forks.
I like the Transition just because it looks great (I like those small low swingarm designs) and I’ve read a lot of glowing reviews of the TR450 DH bike. They all said it’s built like a tank but the suspension is excellent for DH. Clearly there’s a reason why motocross bikes all use basically the same rising rate linkage - my guess is because in terms of pure supension action (i.e. not worrying about pedal bob) it’s the best system. The TR250 is supposedly lighter and better fun.
RE: The track at Hu Tou Shan. The problems with building a good track are as follows:
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No one here knows what a “good track” is. I thought that DH track was good! Having never been on one, I couldn’t build one unless someone else told me what to.
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There’s only one guy there actually doing most of the work and he prefers to work with pallets, a hammer and nails rather than a spade. I can understand it, it takes a very, very long time to make anything decent out of dirt with just a spade. I can’t see anyone driving a Bobcat up there any time soon with it being public land and all.
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Half of the mountain is “off limits”. They’ve been told not to touch anything on the East side of that track at the top of the course. I had a great idea for a wallride to drop at the top but I was told yesterday that it’s not doable for that reason.
They are pretty receptive to ideas though. Have you got time to come over on the CPI today for a while to walk the course and make some suggestions on how to make it better? I’m not leaving until this evening and I’d love to get your input, get it down on a map and try to organise some guys with spades next week to implement!