Cassidy / Blackthorn thread

rmedved84 said:

Interesting, it kind of sounds like it was coming from the shock mount. I tried tightening with no change. Maybe I'll try adding some grease

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i pulled it apart today and it was the rear connection to the shock. It was a bear to get to but I was able to barely slide it out and apply a bit of grease to the connections between the shock, flip chip, bolt and linkage. It helped a bit but not 100% better. Before I took it apart I was able to pinpoint that it was creaking from side to side motion. I could hold the handlebar and apply side pressure with my hand to the rear linkage and make the sound. I could also generate it by just leaning the frame side to side while slowly pedaling.

tank19 said:

i pulled it apart today and it was the rear connection to the shock. It was a bear to get to but I was able to barely slide it out and apply a bit of grease to the connections between the shock, flip chip, bolt and linkage. It helped a bit but not 100% better. Before I took it apart I was able to pinpoint that it was creaking from side to side motion. I could hold the handlebar and apply side pressure with my hand to the rear linkage and make the sound. I could also generate it by just leaning the frame side to side while slowly pedaling.

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I also found a Salsa Article about split pivot maintenance from 2014. It said that grease can actually worsen the creaking by promoting movement of these parts and attracting more dirt. They recommend just cleaning everything and applying blue loctite. That may be my next step in troubleshooting.

tank19 said:

I also found a Salsa Article about split pivot maintenance from 2014. It said that grease can actually worsen the creaking by promoting movement of these parts and attracting more dirt. They recommend just cleaning everything and applying blue loctite. That may be my next step in troubleshooting.

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I think mine is coming from the front mount


Sounds like salsa recommends grease on the bolt shank and loctite on the nut

Built up a Blackthorn for a media project (this will be my own bike) - took it out today and its creaking terribly bad. Seemingly at the BB but only under major climbing stress for example. I'll dig through this thread as it seems I'm not the only one.

The tube-in-tube cable rattle isn't my favorite either - need to see if we can get some self-closing wire loom around it and down inside the frame with the housing. Its loud.

Felt great otherwise, but I have to figure out the noise issues.

Only 6 months in but this is going to be a long post, hopefully worth while.

I bought a Carbon SLX about 6 months ago, I have now had the bike in a variety of conditions including, Sedona Az H trails. Flagstaff Az private reserve DH trail - a little known jem that feels like being in british columbia with steep rock slabs. Also hit Angle fire NM, Pajarito bike park and Glorietta jagged axe, chili dog. Pajarito is sick, a double black there would be a proline by angel fire ratings some serious gaps and woodwork. So this bike has taken some proper hits now. Suspension tune is very good. Still playing with tokens.

I am 5'11" with long arms and legs and dont regret going with a large the 490 reach dosnt feel that long. I do ride mine with flip chip high and it has made a difference with pedal strikes. That said I did immediately add an mrp xcg iscg05 taco. I cant fathom riding a bike with out some bash protection and it boggles the mind they didnt include something.

I did not expect this bike to climb this well which is great. Its not quick and light but its better than I expected.

I think its a good fit for me because its a softened enduro bike not a beefed up trail bike. It is very stout and sturdy and stiff and over built for a 140mm bike. This suits me well. My previous bike had a fox 34 and I HATED it, the lyrik select plus is amazing, so impressed.

On to the setup issues, fixes other observations.
The bottle mounts - I see a lot of theses bikes being set up less than they could be in this department. The bottom bolt that holds the cable clamp is also a lower bottle mount people, this thing has a 3 pack mount and easily fits a full size bottle. I bet an anything cage works with a 1Liter bag or bottle but i dont have one to try.. I see so many leave the cable mount and mount a cage on 2 upper holes, hah. I may get a custom wedge shaped little frame pack made that uses the 3 pack mounts it would have some decent volume and be pretty clean with the 3 pack mount.

I have a little roll bag made from custom tortilla printed fabric and a full size 29er tube is about the same size as a burrito. Seeing a burrito strapped to my bike above the shock is great.


Cable rattle issues.
The carbon frame does have internal tubes- they are a little bit large and the cables are not clamped where they enter the head tube. This leads to some rattle. For now I zip tied my cables together one bundle for left side brake / dropper one bundle for right side shift cable / brake hose. The over sized internal tubes make it super easy to yank out a cable / line and push in a new one. What I did for now in addition to zip ties is I slid the cables / lines forward out of head tube and put a few wraps of vinyl electrical tape on them and then shoved them back in. Better but not perfect. I will probably try heat shrink and or rubber tubing. Hopefully some one can make some cone shaped rubber bits with a hole in em that go over cable / line and shove into head tube I could see that being clean and effective / simple enough. The front brake line is also a little short for my liking but rear is good, shift / dropper housing is cheap so no big deal but they got it right.

The top cap as a split pivot tool is genius as it adds little if any weight. This makes a trail side Derailler hanger swap possible, also you can get the chain out with out breaking it - always nice.
I dont have any thing on the top tube mounts but I do naturally store spare clip less cleat bolts here.

Creaking
I have re torqued and blue lock tited practically all bolts on the bike as i trust no one and no one cares about my bike more than me. This may have helped some. It did give me an appreciation for the hardware, my previous bike a trek had a lot of cast magnesium that broke frequently.
After a while I got some serious creak - it did turn out to be the flip chip shock mount pinch set up. Clean and blue lock tite and its gone for now. May try some fiber grip in these areas next time as its not just for carbon and I already use it on saddle rails aluminum bars / stems and of couse dropper posts, I like the anti corrosion and the better clamp grip.

Also these new SLX hubs are prone to creaks - there are a lot of youtube videos on regressing them.

The loam chute plastic guard is brilliant.

Dropper post
The shimano lever is great glad salsa did not cheap out on this.
These posts are made by tranzX as are pnw and other posts.

The YSI05 part number salsa lists yields nothing. Same with the J2OH1 part number printed on the lower of post.

I have disassembled and re-greased mine which was super easy and satisfying.

Where is gets weird is that they seem to be oem only and salsa offers nothing official yet. Best as i can figure these are tranz X kitsuma posts and hopefully replacement parts for these fit. I bet they do.

I have not contacted TranzX but i have not had any issues either.
Salsa lists the X-large as being a 200mm travel post but the Kitsuma is only offered in 170. The more expensive kitsuma air is offered in 30.9 x 200 and appears the same except with an adjustable air pressure cartridge.

I might just buy a PWN post cause they do offer the non adjustable cartridge in a 200 length and have replacement parts clearly available and are now life time warranty. They are a little bit more expensive than the tranzX.
Because of dropper post experiences years ago not having a spare or spare parts makes me nervous.

Stock wheels
They lost tension quickly and required some serious truing stand time. Now that i have more tension on them they are holding ok. I have a dent in rear rim already. Not surprised as I dent basically all less rims. They are a little out of round now and I have a couple low tension spokes.
The slx hub is nice so far. I am sort of afraid of it as its very over complicated, engagement is good - it still freaks me out with it goes silent.
Will probably get a hadley or Dt 350 and lace up a spank 350 when I cant stand it any more.
Shimano is one of few offerings in 157 with center lock. I like center lock.
I like 157 as i can remember when this was on DH bikes with 157 which can be dish less wheel which is cool. I am clearly in the why 148 camp hah.

I will probably never try 27.5 but I am slightly disappointed that even with the 157 spacing a 27.5 is not listed as clearing a 3.0 tire.

Also Salsa why are there spacers on my SLX crank spindle which is clearly intended for an 83mm BB to match the 157. Why not just make the BB shell 83.
Has any one tried to take out spacers and space out the BB cups instead? This would be better cause wider spaced bearings are more better.
But thanks for the 32T in place of 30T another thoughtful spec in my book.
The new chain ring fixing lock ring is about the only tool for this thing i dont already have.

I did swap in some very hard to get NO4C brake pads.

Anyone have any idea why the geo numbers might look a little short in the ETT category for this bike (blackthorn)? Im finding it about 15mm shorter than I expected, comparing against bikes with the same reach and HTA. I know this doesnt matter to most, but when your banging off the end of the XL size, this matters. I also noticed a lower stack than most bikes in the category, but I dont think that owuld contribute to this, if anything it would make it longer.

I have a feeling its down to the inaccuracy all MFG's give for geo numbers, which is a bummer.

Lastly, any idea how the alloy frame weigh is compared to other alloy frames (meta TR, stumpy Evo, Privateer)?

joecx said:

The ETT is short because of the steep STA. Also the shorter stack means the ETT is measured from a lower spot on the seattube that will affect the length also.

I've got a medium alloy and the frame is 7.3 lbs. without the shock

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Anyone doing the blackthorn to Cassidy conversion, do you find you need to adjust chain length?

I switch mine back and forth and have no issues unless I up the chainring for park in Cassidy mode.

Anyone riding a Blackthorn in Minnesota or Wisconsin? Given the huge discount Salsa has on the SLX build I’m wondering how it would handle the trails around the Twin Cities, Cuyuna, or Hayward-Cable.

I have about 5 rides on my Cassidy, like others it developed a creak which I think is from link, puled shock and cleaned area, I also pulled apart headset regresed it, pulled seatpost added some carbon friction paste, next step is bb area if creak still remains.

This bike is really fun on black diamonds winch and plummet type trails here on front range of Colorado and will also be used in bike parks. Fingers crossed I can eliminate the creak.

My zeb select + 180 seems to have blown the rebound damper, pulled lowers and damper rod is loose so will drop it off at local sram dealer and see what they say. I happened to buy a suntour durolux 38 for just over $400 this summer as a backup to my emtb which worked out nicely today.

Hate you’re chasing a creak, my wife has about same number of rides on hers and no new noises.

I did put a different stem and greased up everything while I was there. I also changed the flip chip into the steep position and put some grease on shock bolts and that flip chip so may want to check that.

Also clean and dab some grease on your seat rails, just fixed a creak on my Evo that sounded like a headset but was the seat.

I've got a crazy idea of building up one of these with a 160 Mezzer and having the option for Blackthorn or Cassidy rear travel options. I'd run the Blackthorn mode in Low with a Float X Performance Elite and would play around with 50/52.5/55mm stroke.

For some reason running it as a Blackthorn with a 150 Mezzer and a 50mm stroke Float X ~133mm rear travel sounds kinda fun, but the reach gets HUGE with a 150 fork.

06HokieMTB said:

I've got a crazy idea of building up one of these with a 160 Mezzer and having the option for Blackthorn or Cassidy rear travel options. I'd run the Blackthorn mode in Low with a Float X Performance Elite and would play around with 50/52.5/55mm stroke.

For some reason running it as a Blackthorn with a 150 Mezzer and a 50mm stroke Float X ~133mm rear travel sounds kinda fun, but the reach gets HUGE with a 150 fork.

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I've got a small Blackthorn carbon that I run a Pike @ 140mm and Super Deluxe @ 50mm in low mode for a reach of 458mm that is sub 30 lbs.

I also have a medium alloy Cassidy with a +10mm Wolftooth lower cup, 180mm 27.5 Lyrik w/Smashpot and Super Deluxe coil @ 65mm in high mode with a reach of 462mm that's 36 lbs.

I did this so all my rear suspension hardwear/bearings are the same to keep spares to a minimum on road trips and should the need arise I can cannibalize one to keep the other going.

06HokieMTB said:

I've got a crazy idea of building up one of these with a 160 Mezzer and having the option for Blackthorn or Cassidy rear travel options. I'd run the Blackthorn mode in Low with a Float X Performance Elite and would play around with 50/52.5/55mm stroke.

For some reason running it as a Blackthorn with a 150 Mezzer and a 50mm stroke Float X ~133mm rear travel sounds kinda fun, but the reach gets HUGE with a 150 fork.

Click to expand...

I do something very close to this - I have a Mezzer on my Cassidy that I run at 160 when I've got the Blackthorn links and 55mm Cane Creek Kitsuma shock installed, I bump it to 180 and restore the OEM links & shock when I go play at the bike park. Its a wonderfully versatile bike, changing from one configuration to the other takes about an hour if everything is already clean.

I've also got a Rustler set up with a 150 Mezzer - its my go-to trail bike and ideal for some of the tight techy singletrack I love riding.

Twilight Error said:

I do something very close to this - I have a Mezzer on my Cassidy that I run at 160 when I've got the Blackthorn links and 55mm Cane Creek Kitsuma shock installed, I bump it to 180 and restore the OEM links & shock when I go play at the bike park. Its a wonderfully versatile bike, changing from one configuration to the other takes about an hour if everything is already clean.

I've also got a Rustler set up with a 150 Mezzer - its my go-to trail bike and ideal for some of the tight techy singletrack I love riding.

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Is the Mezzer a noticable upgrade over the ZEB?