it’s been rather damp around here the last week or so. unfortunately it’s all been useless moisture: it just fell on our trails but carefully avoided the dams and reservoirs sydney draws its drinking water from, i.e. we can’t ride but water restrictions are still in place. go figure.
luckily mama bee took me and a few brothers to canberra to escape the weather and to shred tuggeranong pines and stromlo (thanks!). we only went for a day and unfortunately the weather hadn’t improved much but i managed to rack up a little more time on the bike.
i have that little app (for those of you interested it’s called probikegarage) that measures how much i ride and keeps track of when parts of my bike need to be looked at and it kept telling me that the fork wanted attention.
when i rebuilt nat’s fork i didn’t have the tool to change the damper oil. it’s nothing too special really, just a little adaptor, but without that it’s impossible to bleed the damper.
with that little addition to my endlessly growing set of suspension service tools it was logical to remove both sides of the fork, the air spring (left side) and the damper (right leg), so that includes all the seal and o-rings of course.
that’s what it looks like. moving the suspension fluid between the damper and the syringe gets rid of the air that would otherwise mess up the dampening circuit. it’s very satisfying, pushing the oil back and forth, seeing the air draining out. it was pretty easy, too. did i mention satisfying?
there you have it: another important milestone. i have proven beyond any doubt that i can service the pike (remember nat and i have two of those). i hope i don’t forget how to do that by the time i’ll have to do it again, in about half a year.
and of course i’ll have to teach nat, too. plus i can’t wait to try my plush new fork.