# 2011 Turner 5spot; first ride 02/05/2012



## MR. evil (Feb 5, 2012)

Built up my 2011 5spot Over the past couple of days, and took it out for its maiden voyage this morning. Except for the headset $ bash guard, all the parts came from my 2008 5spot. I did change the travel on my fork (x fusion Vengeance HLR ) from 140mm to 150mm.*

As for the ride, what a difference!!! I know it's all cliche type stuff but the DW Link pedals amazing and the traction is crazy compared to my old TNT 5spot. The rear wheel feels like it hugs the ground no matter the terrain and pedal bob is a thing of the past. It also rides much higher in its travel making making it feel like the bike has more than 5.5" of travel.

I still need to tweak the rear suspension a bit, but I will wait until the bushings break in before I make any major adjustments. I am also going to be replacing my 60mm stem for a 70mm stem to adjust for the 7mm difference in ETT lengths from the 2008 to 2011 models.

Now I just need to get back into riding shape so I can really enjoy this bike to its full potential.*

The only picture I have is a progress shot of the build taken Friday night.


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## o3jeff (Feb 5, 2012)

How many miles did you ride this morning? lol Glad you like the new bike and now you have no excuse not to keep up, especially with all the road miles you're doing.


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## MR. evil (Feb 5, 2012)

We did 6.5 to 7 miles depending on who's bike computer / GPS we looked at. By around mile 5 things started to get a little hilly and I was really hurting. My legs felt pretty strong from all the road riding but my lungs didn't fare so well. 

This season I found that road riding really helped my legs a lot, but it didn't help my mtb cardio as much as I thought it would. I think it's because generally climbs on the road bike are a little bit easier and you have more recovery time than on the mtb.


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## o3jeff (Feb 5, 2012)

MR. evil said:


> This season I found that road riding really helped my legs a lot, but it didn't help my mtb cardio as much as I thought it would. I think it's because generally climbs on the road bike are a little bit easier and you have more recovery time than on the mtb.



I have to agree with you, last year after doing some road riding I never seemed to run out of leg on the mountain bike, but would be out of breath. Planning on joining the gym in the next week or two to get some cardio in, but more so for the spinning classes.


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## Nick (Feb 5, 2012)

Maybe I should move the biking forums up over the skiing forums again :lol:

.... and change back to green


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## bvibert (Feb 6, 2012)

Nice Tim!  I knew you'd like the DW-Link!


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## MR. evil (Feb 6, 2012)

bvibert said:


> Nice Tim!  I knew you'd like the DW-Link!



The DW link rocks! I will never go back to a single pivot or Horst link suspension again. The mini link deigns ( DW Link, VPP, etc) are for real.


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## MR. evil (Feb 12, 2012)

Did 8.75 miles this morning....it was a bit chilly. Felt really good to be on the bike. 

Made some tweeks to the suspension, put on a 70mm stem and removed one spacer from below the stem. Not sure if one of those changes made a bigger impact than the others, but all together they made a big improvement.


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## o3jeff (Mar 9, 2012)

Update?


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## MR. evil (Mar 9, 2012)

o3jeff said:


> Update?



Have 4 rides on it now, and absolutely LOVE it. The only change I have made so far is swap out to a slightly longer stem. The bike climbs way better than any FS bike should and handles great. I am really shocked by how much easier tight switch-backs are on this bike vs my old 5spot. Taking off from work around noon today and going to get ride number 5 in at Case MT. Going to explore a bit over by the res.

My only real complaint with the Fix RP-23 shock that came with the frame. With the sag properly setup I am still blowing through all of the travel on small hits. This is a fairly common complaint with this shock and I have found an easy mod on MTBR to reduce the air volume in the air can by adding a shim. I am going to give this a try before I consider sending the shock off to PUSH or just replacing it with a PUSD’d RockShox Monarch.

Here is a link to the RP-23  mod, I believe it will also work on a DHX Air
http://forums.mtbr.com/turner/dw-5-spot-rp23-mod-503070.html


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## o3jeff (Mar 9, 2012)

Good to hear the frame is a lot better.

I actually probably should get the shock rebuilt this year, haven't done anything to it since I got it! Or maybe I should toss it and find something on clearance or just get the Push'd model. It has actually served me fine for what I am doing with it and once I figured out the pressures, I haven't bottomed it out since.

Gonna start road riding this weekend to start getting my legs and lungs back in shape. RAW season starts next week already.


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## powbmps (Mar 9, 2012)

I was having the same problem with my RP23.  Compensated by running more air pressure.  Sent it to PUSH this winter.  Only been out for one ride, but seems to make a noticeable difference.

Wish I had seen the DIY mod.  Would have save quite a few bucks :-x.



MR. evil said:


> Have 4 rides on it now, and absolutely LOVE it. The only change I have made so far is swap out to a slightly longer stem. The bike climbs way better than any FS bike should and handles great. I am really shocked by how much easier tight switch-backs are on this bike vs my old 5spot. Taking off from work around noon today and going to get ride number 5 in at Case MT. Going to explore a bit over by the res.
> 
> My only real complaint with the Fix RP-23 shock that came with the frame. With the sag properly setup I am still blowing through all of the travel on small hits. This is a fairly common complaint with this shock and I have found an easy mod on MTBR to reduce the air volume in the air can by adding a shim. I am going to give this a try before I consider sending the shock off to PUSH or just replacing it with a PUSD’d RockShox Monarch.
> 
> ...


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## MR. evil (Mar 9, 2012)

o3jeff said:


> Good to hear the frame is a lot better.
> 
> I actually probably should get the shock rebuilt this year, haven't done anything to it since I got it! Or maybe I should toss it and find something on clearance or just get the Push'd model. It has actually served me fine for what I am doing with it and once I figured out the pressures, I haven't bottomed it out since.
> 
> Gonna start road riding this weekend to start getting my legs and lungs back in shape. RAW season starts next week already.



The last I checked PUSH won't work on the DHX Air. The equivilant RS model is the Monarch Plus, which everyone raves about but costs $$$$


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## MR. evil (Mar 9, 2012)

powbmps said:


> I was having the same problem with my RP23.  Compensated by running more air pressure.  Sent it to PUSH this winter.  Only been out for one ride, but seems to make a noticeable difference.
> 
> Wish I had seen the DIY mod.  Would have save quite a few bucks :-x.



If the DIY mod dosnt work I am not going to want to wait for PUSH to fit my RP-23 in the schedule. I will either just buy a pre-PUSH'd Monarch or may be a CaneCreek Double Barrel Air.


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## o3jeff (Mar 9, 2012)

MR. evil said:


> The last I checked PUSH won't work on the DHX Air. The equivilant RS model is the Monarch Plus, which everyone raves about but costs $$$$



I think Fox is the only one that will touch it, if their name wasn't on it they probably wouldn't either.


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## MR. evil (Mar 9, 2012)

Just finished a ride a Case and all I can say is holy crap this bike kicks a$$. All of my ride prior to today have been very XC type tides on smooth flowy single track at Robinson. And the new 5spot was great on those trails. Today was the first techy ride and this bike just keeps on impressing me more and more each time I ride it. Obviously it pedals great with the DW Link, but the feel and handling of the bike are even more impressive. All that combined with a big beefy 36mm stanchioned fork up front and the bike goes exactly where I want it to. Little tricky rocky climbs that sometimes give me problems seemed much easier today.


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## MR. evil (Mar 17, 2012)

powbmps said:


> I was having the same problem with my RP23.  Compensated by running more air pressure.  Sent it to PUSH this winter.  Only been out for one ride, but seems to make a noticeable difference.
> 
> Wish I had seen the DIY mod.  Would have save quite a few bucks :-x.



Just did this DIY mod, took me all of 10 minutes. Going to test it out tomorrow morning and will report back.


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## MR. evil (Mar 18, 2012)

Just got back from a ride and tested out the DIY shim mod, worked great! Very noticeable difference


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