Thunderbolt BC edition. Have been in the 1, 9, and 2 position. Not much different between the 9 and 2 but was getting lots of pedal strikes in rocky trails in the #2 position. Just went back to the #1 position and increased my Pike to 140mm from 130 to compensate for the decreased head tube angle. The increased front travel is awesome and the #1 position decreased the progressiveness of the rear. This allowed me to change the rebound on the Monarch which softened the ride and it is pleasantly better on small chatter but still resists bottoming out on larger drops and jumps.

 

This seems backwards. Position 1 should slacken the HTA and increase the progressiveness of the rear. Correct?

 

Instinct C70. I’ve experimented with all positions from 2-6 and I’ve settled on position 2. At 200lbs I don’t think I’m heavy enough for 1 & 4 and I don’t do really big jumps to get the best from those positions. Position 3 felt good but blew thru the travel on bigger jumps so back to position 2. As you change positions you really need to adjust the shock pressure, I’m currently running at 185psi roughly 30% sag. I recorded shock pressures for each position and some comments in case I want to try them again some day.

 

The further forward the setting the slacker the HT angle. 1 is the neutral position which raises the BB height when compared to 2 but slightly increases the HT angle. Hence the increased length of the Pike essentially compensates for that by raising the front slightly and slackening the HT angle.

I believe that they have changed the numbered positions in '17. This in on my '15 T-Bolt.

 

I see, now it makes sense. They did change the positions. Good to know.

 

RM moved the Ride 9 chip from the top of the shock to the bottom and re-numbered in positions. In the 2018 bikes the positions go from to slackest, lowest, and most progressive in Position 1 to steepest, highest, least progressive in Position 9. Gotta state where the chip is, top or bottom otherwise it gets confusing. Good info to know.

 

For 2018 they also changed how they named the models with a C for carbon replacing the old MSL therefore a C70 is a 2018 model with the Ride 9 chips closer to the seat post.

 

Been riding my 2018 Instinct for a little over a month now and have tried several different geometry settings. I rode the BC edition set up in Moab and have tried a variety of setting in the 140mm mode via the Ride 9 chips. If you haven't experimented with the Ride 9 setting you should, it's eye opening. I thought that changing the settings would really change how the bike pedaled but pretty much the same even though the seat angle changes. I also thought that changing the settings would change the straight line stability and quickness which it does, but not as much as I thought. The biggest difference I really noticed was how centered I felt on the bike and how the ride height changed. You can change both by changing bar rise and stem length, but that usually changes the feel of the bike in other ways as well. I suggest you set up your bike in the neutral position 5, set your bars and stem combo up till it feels the best. Then use the Ride 9 system to fine tune. I ended up in Position 3.

 

I am going to slide into this discussion with a question. I have a 2016 thunderbolt and I am having issues with pedal strikes. I currently have 175 mm cranks, and I just ordered a new set of 165’s.

Below is a picture of my current set up and I would like some expert opinion on what setting I am currently in and where should I be if I want the least amount of bottom bracket drop (or the highest B.B. height). If it matters I am heavy as I weigh about 270.

I am running a cane creek dB shock if that matters and about 40 psi in my tires (I like a firm tire)

below low is a picture, unfortunately is is rotated at a poor angle as it really needs to be flipped a 45 degrees to the right ( the ride 9 thru bolt is currently pointed straight ahead as my bike sits level on the ground)

 

You're at the slackest, lowest BB setting (setting 2 on the attached chart). If you move the Ride 9 to the opposite end (toward the shock body) and down one to position 5, that will help reduce the pressure needed in the shock and increase BB height. At 270 pounds, you must be up around 285-290psi in the shock?

I'm just under 200 pounds and I run 210psi in the Fox DPS shock in position 5 on my 2016 T-bolt.

 

Thank you rocky, I have found the ride 9 chart to not be overly intuitive.

Yeah, I have got my shock up to around 280 now.

I will have to reposition and then hit the trail.

 

Thank you rocky, I have found the ride 9 chart to not be overly intuitive.

Yeah, I have got my shock up to around 280 now.

I will have to reposition and then hit the trail.

I also thought that the chart was seen from the non-drive train side, lol, but apparently it's seen from the drive train side.

 

All they needed to do to make that graphic more immediately sensible was to show the shock in the frame as a reference.

There's a huge difference in the BBD between the two extremes of position 2 to position 6, 20.5mm higher in the full position 6 XC mode, the 5 position will drop that a couple of mm, so you might be able to keep those cranks. The newer relocated Ride9 chip doesn't provide that much range on the 2018 Tbolt, only 15mm variation on the new one.

Something that also helps are bigger tires, the extra ride height from going to a 2.35" or 2.4" tire makes a difference.

 

nice add on comment on the tires. i have the BC edition and it came with 2.4's.

after calling my LBS i ordered the cranks from jenson as my LBS only had 175's and they were so much more.

hoepfully between flipping the chip, tweaking the air pressure in the shock, and going with short crank arms, i will no longer have an issue.

what i think would be neat to do would be to test ride 9 bikes each set up in a different position over the same trail so you could really see the difference the chip makes.

 

after flipping the chips to setting 5, i was able to get out on the trail with my TBolt and the ride seemed better to me, although I was still suffering from some pedal strike.

so i pumped up the air pressure to just a little shy of 300, and that helped even more. I am still going to swap out the 175 mm crank arms for 165mm and I will then up the air pressure by 10 lbs and I am hoping that resolves my issue completely.

thanks for your insight rockyuphill

 

How much sag did you end up with at 300psi?

I'm not familiar with the Cane Creek and it's shock curve, it may have a different ramp up characteristic and likely offers more tuning options. You may need to go all the way to the Ride9 "6" position to get the max BB height and tinker with the shock pressure to provide the right amount of sag. If you can adjust the low and high speed compression (LSC + HSC) damping to be a bit higher, and you might need a Volume Insert to help ramp up the shock curve near the end of the travel to reduce the likelihood of pedal strike.

http://www.canecreek.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DBair_air_volume_adjustment.pdf

http://www.canecreek.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DB_Quick-tune_Sheet.pdf

 

Came back from a ride this morning and went to look at my sag and noticed that my shock was dead and compressed slightly. Took it to my LBS and they are going to send it out for a rebuild. I requested that a volume spacer be installed.

Ugh, I am ready to lose my mind over the shock on this bike. I have went thru two rock shox monarch rt3’s and last July my LBS worked with rocky mtn to secure this can creek at a deeply discounted price. Three shocks in a little over a year.

And it is not like I am riding big drops. I am starting to wonder if I need to look at a bike with a coil over shock......

 

2016 Altitude in full slack mode. The newer models have a much better geometry in neutral so less need for going full slack.

 

First year of the new Altitude (2013?) in full slack mode.

 

I'm reviving this since I changed things up a little lately and paid attention to the changes.
I got my '18 Instinct A70 back in April in the neutral setting. After a few rides, I put it in position 3 and rode it all summer. I was noticing a lot of petal strikes, but never got around to playing with the chipset again.
Last ride I went back to neutral and had noticeably less strikes. Enough that I'm not going back to 3. On the steep downhills, I noticed the less slack HTA, but not very much. I shifted my weight a little farther back and was fine. The HTA change is only .03 deg. If I'm reading the chart correctly, the BBD change is only 3/16". Seems trivial, but I definitely didn't knock my pedals as much.

 

I had an Altitude from 2013 to up until about a week ago (replacing it with a Slayer). That bike started out in neutral which lasted all of 2 days, then went to the next-to-slackest and most linear setting (#9), then quickly to postion #3. I left it that way for most of the time until this season's couple of races. For some reason I'm hitting things harder now, so I put it in slackest (and most progressive) mode and added the middle Fox volume spacer to the Float X shock. Hard to tell if that's best since my riding seems to have changed, too.

In 2015 I replaced my older Element MSL120 with a Thunderbolt. At the time I lived in Scandinavia and a lot of trails were quite challenging but lacked significant altitude difference. That was pedal strike hell as I needed to keep spinning to sustain any kind of momentum. I tried to ride the T-bolt in the slackest position but it seemed like that was going to end up in me either stripping a pedal out of my cranks or the bike killing me. I settled on Ride9 at #3, a modded shock to be more linear (Vorsprung Corset minus the OEM volume spacer) and a 135 mm fork. I think the HTA ended up being 66.8 or something like that. Rode this setup down quite some nasty stuff in southern Spain and Portugal and never thought of changing it, to be honest. Now I'm back home in the swamp this rig is already overkill so the HTA and BB drop are absolutely fine.

 

I'm running my 2017 Thunderbolt 710 in position #3.

At 170lbs geared up, I'd be supposed to run it in pos #9 but this setup seems to give me a "plusher" ride and helps with small bumps like roots.

 

funny how the Ride 9 numbers are different for bike and year
here is 2017 Element number system

 

The additional difference with the numbering system is the shift from the frame to the link location, my head hurts too much trying to transpose those numeric settings to see if the position in the link instead of the frame results in much the same slacker/steeper and heavier/lighter configuration.

 

at least for the Element, 1 is the slackest, 5 is neutral and 9 is steepest
so it's at least in intuitive numerical order

 

yeah, and what side of the bike are you looking at?!? I guess right side since that seems to be what all of RM's lit. shows
Interesting, I went back to look at this picture and I'm thinking I actually had it in position 1 that whole time. The drawing is kind of tilted from the picture. Makes a little more sense why neutral (5) was a fairly large change for pedal strikes. It's still only an 1/8" difference in BBD though.

 

Almost finished with my new 2019 RM C70 Altitude custom build and was wondering if anyone can offer up some guidance on how to set up my Ride 9 setting. I believe the "19" settings are the same as the "18" settings. Just not sure where to begin.