Weird feeling from rear wheel

Is it possible the rim needs truing?

You didn't mention the spokes... all nice and tight?

How's the cassette/freehub feel, any play in there?

Disc bolts all tight and no movement on that side?

Thanks heaps for the input guys.

The rear wheel is within about .5mm out of true. The rims, hubs and spokes are brand new. The spokes sound fairly similar and all have very similar tension when squeezed together. No loose spokes.

I actually forgot to add a critical point of information *slaps back of own head*;

I had this problem with my old wheels as well. I thought it was the hub on the old wheel as I couldn't tighten up the axle any more than finger tight or it would lock up (generic shimano hub). Hence me buying the new wheels (off a bloke through Rotorburn for a bloody good price, he bought them for a bike that he had sold and no longer needed the wheels. They hadn't even had a tyre on them). But the problem remains. So it could be tyre pressures as I am relying on a guage that changes everytime I hook it up to the tyre. So I check it with the other guages and they all read different (as said above).

Pivot, that's good advice. Cheers. The rear shock has 220psi in it and has 36.7%sag. The thing with this rear shock is it's the 5.0 specificly made for the Spec enduro. It doesn't actually have a boost chamber valve to seperately adjust the boost chamber pressure for small fast bump compliance, they removed the valve because it fouls on the seat tube with the high BB mount bracket, which I run due to the excessive sag. Unfortunately it is set at the FOX factory specific to Specialized specs. For some reason, you have to run a heap more pressure in these 5.0's to stop them bottoming out. I thought my shock was buggered until I did some research on it and heaps of people are in the same boat.

Ladytoast, the movement I get is sideways movement. Like the tyre is flat. As above the sag is 36.7%. It doesn't have lock out. I ride with the propedal about half way (it's a dial rather than a lever). If I run it harder, small bump compliance is too harsh and it's too difficult to adjust on the run. So it just stays where it is.

As for the riding I do, I built to bike to be able to do anything. But my main riding trail is the following. From Elanora, Down Chiltern, up Center track, then over to Duck holes and down, then back up chiltern to home. I also do Manly dam and love a good drop off here and there. I weigh around the 90kg mark, pending how much I've eaten.. haha So it is looking like possibly a tyre pressure problem... Maybe. I hope so lol

Rob, Yeah, spoke tension appears fine. No loose spokes etc. The cassette barrel appears fine, it is a bit tight and when the wheel freewheels on the stand with the chain connected, it doesn't spin anywhere near as well as the front wheel. But I put that down to the ratchet mechanism. I believe the Hope Pro2's have a four pawl 24 point engagment setup. Possibly the spring tension on the pawls is slowing it down? But with the chain disconnected, it spins just like the front wheel. Smooth and silent. As far as play goes, I can't detect any. The cassette doesn't have any movement apart from rotaional. As does the wheel when in the frame. The rotor bolts are tight.

Hawkeye, Yeah, a dodgy hub was the reason I bought a new set of wheels. But since the hubs are of good quality and they are new, and they don't show any signs of movement or play. I'm pretty much ruling the hub out. Spoke tension seems fine. The pivots appear fine and I can't get any movement out of them. But I'm not ruling them out. I plan on pulling the forks and shock down for a service in the not to distant future and I think I might replace all of the pivot bushes. Although when I bought the frame (off ebay, but picked up in person) the guy seemed nice and genuine enough and worked at a bike shop on the south coast. He had put a new rear chainstay on as the original one had a ladder drop on it and dented it. When he replaced the chainstay he put new bearings in. He was keeping it as a spare frame for himsell. But the story goes, since they just had a kid, the missus told him to get rid of his surplus bike crap to get some money to pay for baby stuff. How true it all was I don't know, but he seemed genuine enough and I believed him. So I trust that he has put new bearings in. But for the sake/cost of a few bearings I might just do it anyway. The swing arm appears to not have any cracks in it (I just went and checked it now). Good idea on the check it out whilst riding. It is only noticable on smoother trail stuff. I try not to pay much attention to it whilst riding and I'm usually concentrating on gulping in as much air as possible... hahah But I might go for a ride specifically to check out this problem.

So, plan of attack;

- Get my pressure guage back from calibration.
- 5psi higher pressure in the rear tyre on my next ride (after I recover from this damn lurgy...)
- Check wheel out whilst riding
If No Fix;
- Add more pressure to the rear shock
INF;
- Try different tyres
INF;
- Try someone elses wheel
INF;
- Replace pivot bearings

If it's still not fixed after all of that, would going to tubeless possibly help? Going tubeless is a plan for the future to try and curb some weight off the bike. My tubes alone weigh 295g each. What sort of tyre would you guys recommend for around the trails I mentioned above? Something light weight.

The plan was to put my current tube and tyre combo onto my original wheel set and have that as a bash around, thrash wheel set for redhill, jumping, light DH etc. Then have my good set of wheels for everything else, running a tubeless lightweight setup. As my bike currently weighs around 17.2kg.

Thanks heaps for the help guys! Much appreciated.

Cheers

Tark

Hrmmm

It is an intermittent problem. But I couldn't really pin point exactly the circumstances. But I know it is very noticable on flat smooth trails. But as I said, I am generally too busy trying to get air into me and playing catchup, that I really haven't concentrated on the actual circumstances.

I will get the bike out on the weekend (if I'm feeling better) to try and get a more accurate description of what's going on with exact trail details and senario etc.

Cheers

Tark

For sure man. It'll be a really easy ride as I'm getting over this damn flu... Man it's boring at home when you're crook and got no spare coin to spend on bike bits... LOL

yeah i've had a bug for the last week as well. I was wondering what you were doing on net during the day!

Little update. I got really bored whilst being sick over the weekend.

Sooo...

I've pulled my rear shock down (main air chamber). I found the surfaces inside the shock were brand new, no wear or anything. There was a slight amount of oil and all of the seals still looked brand new also.They all still had a rounded outer edge on them and there was no flattening off of the seals. So I didn't replace them, I just lubed them back up again and slipped it all back together. HOwever, when I assembled it, I inserted a 2.5mm thick 135mm long 35 (ish mm wide plastic strip inside the outer main air chamber, to bring the volume down a bit. I read on MTBR that this helps with the mid stroke ramping. I also read, that the shock can take up to 300psi. So I'm going to give it a bit more pressure and see how it goes to get my sag nearer to 25%. Unfortunatly, I can't try it out, as I've pulled the suspension apart.

The pivot points on the shock and the pivot bolts all look brand new. There isn't one bit of wear or scuffing or anything. It was all lubed up still from when I assembled the bike. Also, the little spacers and cups etc were all brand new looking. All were either still shiny or had the machined look. No wear what so ever. I did however, find the forward upper link bolt loose. It wasn't flop around loose, but it wasn't anywhere near tight either. I also found that from the 8 bearings I checked, half were gritty as hell (I tried cleaning and re-packing them but to no avail). So I'm going to get a full new set of bearings. Hopefully the bearing shop stocks or can get them for me. Then I'll put it back together and hopfully all will be solved...

I'll leave the tyre pressure as is for the first ride to see what difference the changes have made. Then I'll go from there.

Tark