TechKnowGN

Gang,

I'm moving over from my Trek 3900 disc to a Trek Fuel 70 full suspension. All the components except the rear shock are coming from my current hard tail.

The rear shock is a RockShox BAR with a 80 mm of travel. My understanding is that this shock is not particularly strong, and also lacks a lockout mechanism to enable hardtail style riding. As an "uber clyde" (320) Im looking for a rear shock that will hold up, and I'm wondering what everyone else is using in their setups. This is my first FS bike, as the hard tail is all I've ever known. Just couldn't pass up the opportunity.

Thanks!

Ben

sstorkel

Shocks, unfortunately, aren't nearly as interchangeable as forks. You'll need to know the eye-to-eye length of the shock as well as the travel distance; while the entire rear suspension will move 80mm, the shock moves less since it operates through a linkage. Once you know these two measurements, you'll be able to figure out which replacements might actually fit your bike. Chances are good that you won't have too many choices. Personally, I wouldn't consider anything other than Rock Shox or Fox. The Fox Float-series shocks used to be the "gold standard" for trail-riding. Dunno if they still are or not...

vesteroid

maybe jsi or SF will chime in as they seem to be the resident experts on MTB...but if you bought a frame with a shock installed, I would wager trying to put a real high quality shock on that frame will cost more than the frame did.

jsigone

as sstorkel said the rear shocks are more PITA to swap out. Not only you need to know the I2I dimension, but also the stroke. Those are the TWO main factors. But also the geometry of bike frames and links have made this more complex, Swapping out a general shock can over all change how the bike handles. The valving is different and can lead to more pedal bob.

I'd recommend a coil/air rear shock. With the coils, you can change out the LB# of the spring AND preload the spring, yet have the air part of the shock tuned to handle the compression and rebound.

Here's how you take the I2I and stroke measurements
https://www.pinkbike.com/forum/listco...threadid=54147

The biggest challenge will be FINDING a XC rear shock with coils. Most coil shocks are intended for downhill or free riders and have 5-8" of travel. You might have to go with a nice air shock from FOX but your talking $3-500 for that part.....


But I use a Fox Float RP-2 w/DRCV, 2-position ProPedal, external rebound that came with my Trek Rumblefish. No problems with me beating the crap out of it yet. I've done drops of 4-5ft on it w/o a hitch. The pro pedal helps allot for climbing faster.

Erwin8r

Both my FS mountain bikes have Fox shocks--like Jsig mentioned, the Fox RP2 is an awesome shock. I have an RP2 on my C-Dale Rize, and a Fox DHx 5.0 on the Yeti. These are both air shocks, and can be pumped-up quite firm. They do, however, top out at a certain point and too much weight can overwhelm them. The Fuel's typically use a 6.5" x1.5" shock--see if you can find something like that with a coil...