A little bit of a back story. I spanner for a few people, and a couple of racers, one of which has now gone onto world cup dh events, and a few years ago both of these racers were on DHS mono's. The first Foes frame they had were '06 mono's, and they were fantastic, if heavy bits of kit. They pedalled like nothing else I have ever ridden, neither before or since. I always promised myself that whenever I saw a XCT4/5 on the trail that I would ask the owner for a short ride on it, as I was convinced that this was the bike for me.
When the later DHS frames arrived with the air shocks, although they were lighter they didn't seem to have that 'something' that the previous coil shock frames had.
These are rare machines in the UK and I had not seen one on the trails, and they very rarely show up on ebay or in the classifieds so when I saw this on ebay, I knew it was for me. This could very well be my dream bike.
Having spent the day that it arrived in the post looking adoringly across the workshop at it, as soon as i finished work the strip of the Cotic donor bike began. The strip and build took about two hours, and I rode the bike home, in the dark but was less than impressed.
The shock seemed to be lazy, and the rebound dial made no adjustment at all, being stuck on full slow. Not a good first impression, but a quick search on Google led me to a forum on mtbr and there is a thread that explains how easy the shocks are to service. I had never had one apart before, we used to use Guido in italy for service, and he was amazing. The shock was fairly easy to take apart, just a couple of special tools needed to fully strip the main body and remove the shaft from the bottom clevis. This evening the bare aluminium parts were polished and ball burnished and are ready to refit. 2.5wt oil is ordered and should be with me tomorrow.
