[andrewshkovskii]

Hello everyone. I wonder - is it possible to lower travel of RS PIKE DJ 2019 from 100m to 90mm?

I see three options here:

1. Using 10mm spacer on air shaft - but will be this a correct option and will be fork working correctly after this kind of modification?

2. To buy 90mm air shaft from other RS fork - Bluto has one for 26'. But will it fit into pike leg? And does it(shaft) have any differences in means of strength/durability, because Pike DJ is..well - DJ fork and Bluto is not.

3. Cut off 10mm of original air shaft - this is most hard to implement options, but I know some mechanics who did that successfully.

But this is what I see, maybe there is more simple options to do that.
Thanks!

 

[Lapi]

1. Adding a spacer does not work for solo-air forks. The air piston will not be able to get to the correct position to equalize the pressure between the positive and negative air chamber.

2. I am not sure about cannibalizing Bluto parts for Pike. Chances are the air-shaft are of different lengths; the money is better spent in buying another air-shaft meant for the Pike.

3. Cutting 10mm off the original air shaft will still leave you with enough thread to bolt the the lower leg back on (please verify again before cutting). Do chamfer the edge of the cut air shaft lightly so that it will be easier to guide it through the hole of the lower leg for an interference fit.

 

[andrewshkovskii]

Hello, Lapi.
Thanks for you response!

Definitely will do a cutting.

 

[Archie Morgan]

1. Adding a spacer does not work for solo-air forks. The air piston will not be able to get to the correct position to equalize the pressure between the positive and negative air chamber.

2. I am not sure about cannibalizing Bluto parts for Pike. Chances are the air-shaft are of different lengths; the money is better spent in buying another air-shaft meant for the Pike.

3. Cutting 10mm off the original air shaft will still leave you with enough thread to bolt the the lower leg back on (please verify again before cutting). Do chamfer the edge of the cut air shaft lightly so that it will be easier to guide it through the hole of the lower leg for an interference fit.

Adding spacers does work, I did it.

these used to be 160mm

 

[rete]

^
What fork is that? Triumphantly holding up something that's obviously not on a bike and you can't see the model means nothing.

Many Rockshox forks don't use an air transfer slot in the stanchion to equalize positive and negative air chamber pressures, and on these forks you do use spacers to adjust travel.

But the forks that do use this air transfer dimple (like the Pike) becomes almost un-rideably harsh as they lose the ability to pressurize the negative air spring chamber if you use spacers to reduce travel and the spacers cause the air piston to settle above the dimple. So if that's a fork that uses a dimple and you just stuffed a bunch of travel spacers in it you may not like how it feels when actually using the fork.

That said, the original poster's question "can I use a travel spacer to reduce 10mm on a 2019 Pike" the answer is probably yes. The equalization dimple is not positioned exactly at topout but approximately 10mm above the air piston on some (and probably all) those 35mm RS forks.

 

[Archie Morgan]

^
What fork is that? Triumphantly holding up something that's obviously not on a bike and you can't see the model means nothing.

Many Rockshox forks don't use an air transfer slot in the stanchion to equalize positive and negative air chamber pressures, and on these forks you do use spacers to adjust travel.

But the forks that do use this air transfer dimple (like the Pike) becomes almost un-rideably harsh as they lose the ability to pressurize the negative air spring chamber if you use spacers to reduce travel and the spacers cause the air piston to settle above the dimple. So if that's a fork that uses a dimple and you just stuffed a bunch of travel spacers in it you may not like how it feels when actually using the fork.

That said, the original poster's question "can I use a travel spacer to reduce 10mm on a 2019 Pike" the answer is probably yes. The equalization dimple is not positioned exactly at topout but approximately 10mm above the air piston on some (and probably all) those 35mm RS forks.

Rockshox pike rct3 26" originally 160mm. Here's a photo of it on a bike for you, and it works very well, I've done a lot of dirt jumps on it and it feels good, I used one large spacer (60mm) that I 3D printed. Because of it having a spacer it decreases the air volume making it more progressive. I even took it around my local trails as a laugh and it was impressively subtle on the small bumps. Since a mate of mine wanted a similar thing doing in lowering his pikes, I decided to go another route, I took the air shaft out and cut it down 60mm with a pipe cutter, of course then it had no threads so I cut it down with a 8mm tap I bought of Amazon for £7 and filed and sanded then end down, worked well but he had to Chuck a load of spacers in it. I would recommend either method as they're both easy and cheap to do ?