Whyte JW-2 shock removal advice please

In-laws?

Congratulations! How are the sprockets and cassette? With a bit of luck, if they're not hooked, you'll get away with a replacement chain. The tyres are going to have to go, I'd imagine. After a brief lube I'd give it a ride and see how it feels. Remember it's your body weight in pounds for the rear shock pressure and leave the front preload well ramped up to stop it bobbing.

Does the rear shock go that high then?

With my svelte figure I go for 180 psi. I just about bottom it out over jumps. Recommended max appears to be 215. I'd better lay off the pies or run out of range!

Er, about 240.........

No big jumps for the likes of us......

Great find Jas


Edit. And yeah, my Whyte-designed Marin also uses a 30.0ø post. Really wanted to fit a dropper to it a couple of years ago but not possible. Ruined it for me.

Anybody know the front shock length/spec for one of these if i'm upgrading??? thanks

My Kona Dawg uses a 30.0 post. Fitted a Tranz-x (same as brand x) cable port 27.2 post with a shim. Fits and works lovely, just a bit of a bugger to source as no one had the cable port versions in stock in the UK. It came from Ridewill in Italy in the end.

Carl.

The shock is a 165mm with (I'm pretty sure) 43mm of travel. The problem is that you can't have a shock with levers, dials or valves sticking out because there isn't the space, especially for the front shock. The original XFusion and Fox shocks work well. They're neat and tidy and I think an air shock must be the way to go because only earlier PRSTs and JWs had coil shocks. You need sufficient pressure, as mentioned above, to make the system work. If you use a coil shock you need to give it plenty of preload to prevent bobbing.
It's a very unconventional bike. You need virtually zero sag both front ant rear. The advice of body weight in PSI rear and 75% of that front works well in both my XFusion and Fox shocks.
I fitted a DNM shock at the rear but it didn't seem very good. I rebuilt my XFusions just by replacing the oil and they are like new.