Not one for the purists

[Cass]

Sorry to hijack, would a 98 Hei Hei be more suited to 68mm of travel, I have some 05 (I think) Sid WCs on mine at the moment and it doesn't quite feel right, I was thinking about changing the travel to 68mm but wasn't sure whether it would have the desired effect on the geometery, ie: droppping the front down a bit for a tighter position.

Thanks

Cass

 

[Kestonian]

I have to say (and I am biased as I have one) that the Merlin Mountain is, for me the Gucci Black Dress of the mountain biking world.

You can dress it up or down and it just looks "right". Dressed up you can take it out for dinner at The Ivy, or you can tone it down and impress your mates down the local.

Stunning.

 

[Kona Paul]

That's a good looking bike! Looks like something me and my friend's would ride. Anthony's dead on about ti and XTR; match made in heaven. He also makes a good point with the forks. I'm sure it handles fine, but you might find it sloppy in tight cornering. It's also not an optimum angle for the fork during compression, so it's about the fork's performance as well as the bike's handling. You can get away with a little slackening, but if you check out your chain stays, you can see they are angled up towards the BB instead og being level with the ground or angled slightly downward. Aside from that it looks like a dream (of course, I love Merlin's too, so I'm biased )

Is that a King ti water bottle cage I see?

 

[Huntso]

I will look into the fork situation and see what can be done, quite hard to find good forks with a 1in steerer and the only others I have are also 80mm

Only just finished putting it together so a bit of fine tuning won't go amiss and thanks all for your thoughts. Always good to get views and suggestions, sometimes blinded to things when you are looking at it through rose tinted specs

Sorry, not a King cage, just a plain old Ti coloured one from the LBS

 

[Kestonian]

Blue SIDs came in 1" flavour. I have some in the garage .... but they're lined up to go on my Merlin if I ever get fed up with riding the RC31s that are on there at the moment (I freely admit this is unlikely to happen)

 

[Andy R]

I will look into the fork situation and see what can be done, quite hard to find good forks with a 1in steerer and the only others I have are also 80mm

Only just finished putting it together so a bit of fine tuning won't go amiss and thanks all for your thoughts. Always good to get views and suggestions, sometimes blinded to things when you are looking at it through rose tinted specs

From experience of running "longer than designed for" suspension forks on various bikes I would say that the only negative aspect you're likely to have to deal with is a tendancy to "push" the front on fast sweeping corners (especially on hardpack surfaces). This has at least as much to do with weight distribution as slacker angles and you just have to adjust your riding style a little to compensate - a bit more weight forward over the bars to actively help pin the front end.

But then I'm talking about 100 or 120mm forks on frames designed for 425mm rigid forks, not the difference between 63mm and 80mm travel. IMHO you won't notice that difference - you'll just automatically compensate. Move the saddle forward 10mm to effectively restore the seat tube angle with the bonus of a little more forward weight distribution at the same time.

All this frame angle business is a bit subjective anyway, to say the least. There are some fine handling modern frames about with head angles around 68 degrees, so slackening a 71 head angle a degree or so is hardly a disaster. You might actually prefer it - I generally do

 

[spudgun]

Can't think of anything bad to say about that,it looks fine

 

[Huntso]

Thanks for the reassurance Andy, got to say it feels spot on and bit wary now of changing anything
I'm not a very aggressive rider so should be fine at my pedestrian pace and we are after all talking about a very small change

I am going to experiment with some old Bombers I have in the cupboard. Got a crappy one with a 1in fork and nice ones with 1 1/8th, sods law
Might be able to make something nice from them both and if so I have a plan
Used some old ones before and overfilled the oil thus reducing the travel and they worked fine on an old Kona, might try that again, not a lover of air forks

Blue SIDs came in 1" flavour. I have some in the garage

Didn't realise the 1 inch steerer came as standard on some Sids, bet they are quite sought after especially originals not cut and shut like mine
Although these were done at TF Tuned and are in very good condition

I did have a Pace RC30 with the bike, but got a feeling that would have rattled all my fillings and teeth out, that was some rigid looking and feeling thing

 

[Andy R]

Used some old ones before and overfilled the oil thus reducing the travel and they worked fine on an old Kona, might try that again, not a lover of air forks

But you'd be restricting the travel in the wrong direction - surely you want the extended A/C length to be shorter, not limit the compressed length ?

Plus, if you overdo the oil quantity there's a risk you'll just blow the seals - something has to give.....

To reiterate - I think it looks just fine as it is (and if it looks right, it usually is right...).
But then I'm certainly no purist - you only have to look at my bikes to realize that....

 

[Huntso]

Didn't explain myself very well, of course you are dead right about the extended and compressed lengths
Just felt better with less travel, seemed to dive too much otherwise and the handling felt tighter with just a couple of inches travel

Agree with you though about being ok and not intending to change anything. Would like some coil/oil forks though and that's the next project