New MTB day. The one that should have stayed.

[weeksy]

I've been looking for one of these for ages now.

Nothing wrong with my Gen6 as such, just this is lighter, faster and more suited to me.

p6pb29694690 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

p6pb29694687 by steveweeks59, on Flickr


It's a gen 5 Trek Fuel ex9.8
Full carbon including wheels etc.
Same colour scheme i used to own.

Excited.

[MingtheMerciless]

I give it a week.....

[weeksy]

I give it a week.....

Well it's not arriving till next weekend. So a week should be easy

I'm looking forward to it though, honestly.

There won't be many things in the way of changes, the gears are GX which are my preference. The brakes are SLX so they'll get whipped off and replaced with the new Mavens. As long as the Cane Creek shock is working well, that can stay. The rest will be as it is apart from tyres which will get something a bit less fast rolling and a bit more grip. But i may actually leave the fast rolling rubber on the carbon wheels for the XC days and use the spare wheels as the burly bruiser wheels for tech days.

[Mr Moofo]

It would be exactly what you need . If it had a motor

[weeksy]

It would be exactly what you need . If it had a motor

Yeah the motor version will come, although it won't be a Trek, it's likely to be a Mondraker Sly i think. But that's not until we've got the house move sorted and the job stuff does whatever it'll do in the end. May be this year, may be next year.

I've currently got the Orange one up for sale as that'll be outgoing. There's possibly a new MTB coming in for the boys racing depending on a few things, so again, that'll influence how/when i change other things.

But this Fuel i always really liked, i just kinda got swayed to thinking i needed more bounce for the harder stuff, the reality being, i'm not that into the harder stuff, i enjoy what i enjoy. Whilst the Orange Gen6 does everything i enjoy perfectly well, i rekon this is just a bit better/nicer. I should make the swap for not far off £0 change cost. So there's no real reason not to

[weeksy]

So the bike is currently sitting waiting for Friday when it arrives. It'll get some Mavens or DB8s thrown on it and some better gripping rubber on the 2nd set of Bontragers. I'll likely try the 65mm riser bars. It's already got the 150mm air shaft in it, so it's good to go.

It comes with the Cane Creek DB coil on there as well as the standard Trek shock.

The only downside is that it's not here for me to ride and with all the driving i've done i simply can't be arsed driving 3 hours each way to get it before the weekend to test myself.
Happily the good and kind @crust has said i can steal his Specialized Status for the weekend as he's away on the KTM, so that'll be sweet for a plaything

[weeksy]

Met up with @crust today and stole his Specialized Status 160 on a loan for a few days until my new Fuel arrives.

Once i'd lifted the seat about a foot, thrown his dead grips in the van and fitted new ones, then found out there's actually a CHAIN installed under all the crap, i took it for a test outside..

WOW that's bloody radical in terms of riding position. How on earth did i ever ride mine.... it feels SOOOOO alien. If it stays dry later i think i'll shoot out for a test on it.. the suspension is VERY compliant on the back end, even though i bumped the pressure up it seems to have a LOT of sag and the way your sit and ride it, you seem to be right over the back end, so you notice all the travel.

[weeksy]

Minor internal debate with myself today as to whether i fit the Maven Base brakes on the new incoming Fuel. I'm kinda not convinced i need them as such and testing the boys Maven Silver which are SO powerful, i'm even less convinced. But they do have a bleeding edge port which is nice, the DB8 don't have that. They're not exactly going to get me £1000000 but they'll get me £300 back if i return them.

First world problems of course

[weeksy]

Collected. Sadly I won't see it until Sunday.

[weeksy]

Well its very very nice.

It seems it was owned by a bloke who's torque wrench didn't work and didn't own any grease. Other than that though it looks to be mint.
Debating whether it gets Mavens before or after fawn ride tomorrow. I suspect I'll just shoot out first and sort it afterwards. Over a beer

[weeksy]

Saddle swapped, bars set, pressure done and an early morning dawn raid. This thing flies like crazy.

Every push on pedals it just picks up speed. Never really appreciated that even downhill the light bike can help.

20260525_071047 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

[weeksy]

So i was fitting the Mavens .... That bit went fairly well, apart from some slightly questionable internal routing from Trek, which they didn't really resolve until the next generation.
20260525_095848 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

Quick test and bedding in of the brakes and they're all happy. Although he had done a lovely fix there as he was running 203 rotors so used a caliper floating spacer to spacer it out to 203mm instead of spending £6 on a bracket... I'd do it as a quick fix to get me out on the trails, but that's about it in truth. So i fitted a SRAM 200mm on the front and that's now all good to go.

I was then looking at the shock and thinking "how's that actually mounted... with the simple answer being "really really fucking awfully"

The bloke had butchered sort of bolt things and spacers onto the bearings.

20260525_095146 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

So the spacers were squashing the bearing and all 4 were pretty mullered.

New set of 6800 bearings went in all 4
20260525_102529 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

Then fitted the standard shock.
20260525_105745 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

All 4 bolts are Trunnion style, which is a lot easier as there's no through bolt and the diameters are all correct. Whilst the coil felt nice this morning, i'd rather have it correct lol. I know from previous fitting that TFTuned have a mounting kit, so i may look into that for another day, but for now i'll run the air.

You can't really see it but he'd also fitted the knock-block headset completely wrongly, they're 'indexed' to stop things hitting where they shouldn't, but if you flip the spacers upside down they still go together but with spaces. WTF man.... seriously.

20260525_080334 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

So that's now all correct too.

[weeksy]

Listed the coil for £220. Its in a 210x55 but I don't really want or need it, although id like a spare shock.

Rear rotor is 180mm which is a minor pain as me and the boy share spare wheels, so I'll have to convert mine to 200. Not exactly a tricky job.

I thibk tomorrow will be a rest day as its incredibly hot and im out with Crust on Weds so will try and save a few legs for that.

[weeksy]

Listed the coil for £220. Its in a 210x55 but I don't really want or need it, although id like a spare shock.

Rear rotor is 180mm which is a minor pain as me and the boy share spare wheels, so I'll have to convert mine to 200. Not exactly a tricky job.

I thibk tomorrow will be a rest day as its incredibly hot and im out with Crust on Weds so will try and save a few legs for that.

It seems i don't have the convert the rear to 200mm as his Trek (and hence our spare wheel) is also 180mm. I went to fit the spare wheel for testing brackets, but... we're all good

[weeksy]

Working on the back end in between working.

Thought i'd pull the UDH and ABP apart as i know the bearings can get a bit tired in there. I got to the non-drive side and was met by the bearing being pushed out 2.5mm as the muppet who owned (or worked on) the bike had put the back end together completely wrong.

20260526_115100 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

That was it AFTER i'd sorted the bearing and replaced. I'm not a qualified bike mechanic, but surely if you look at this and see the bearing sticking out 2.5mm and a big gap where it slides into, you'd start questioning it ?

I'll admit the tech doc CAN be confusing, but not if you've got half a brain cell
20260526_115523 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

So the spacers are back in and things torqued up correctly. Joy.

[weeksy]

This thread has MASSIVELY reminded me why i only buy brand new bikes

[weeksy]

First full on trailsy type ride today with @crust and it was a lovely lovely thing.... Yeah i'm happy.

20260527_101316 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

Hiding from the sun in cafe on way home

I do have a slight rattle which i think is the shifter, i think they all mostly do it at GX level as the barrel adjuster doesn't quite fit tight on them.... but it's not a biggy.

[weeksy]

Early one today and the legs just said "not really mate, i'm a bit tired"

20260528_055529 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

Still dragged myself along a slightly shorter 1hr route than the 90 mins i'd planned, but it wasn't glorious today at all. It was lovely being out when it wasn't insanely hot though.

[weeksy]

Weirdly the legs felt better in the afternoon, so i went back out for another 15 miles. Hitting some trails this time in Slanting

I then got home and had some time so thought i'd do the rocker and upper pivot bearings

20260528_164326 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

20260528_164307 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

20260528_175138 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

20260528_171314 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

20260528_150810 by steveweeks59, on Flickr
but
Some of them, not too bad... but the main rocker pivot was insanely stuck... like almost welded to the bearings and took some persuasion. But the bearings themselves were actually not too bad. Bit of grease and they'll be golden. Bottom pivot was pretty good actually, bit messy with dirt but all good.
Bottom bracket seems fine for now.

Re-jigged the spacers for the chainguide as he'd not dont it how i'd like and used a slightly shorter bolt on the top bracket. I'm pretty happy now.

[weeksy]

Working on the bikes on Friday troubleshooting a fork issue on the boys bike, i found this headset
20260530_170405 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

So that was replaced by a new one.
20260530_170708 by steveweeks59, on Flickr

Sunday was then FoD, when we go there at the moment i'm using it more as an explore day rather than anything trails related. I always end up on some trails of course as it's a bloody huge forest
The Fuel was absolultely EXCELLENT out there... Up, down, over, across, yup, just awesome. I even did a few runs in the main trail center with the boy who put me firmly in my place of how fast i am in reality

I hit some stuff that was fireroad, some that was decent trails and some that was a bit nuts, i had to walk 2 sections... WAY too much for me

The Maven base were honestly awesome ! Absolutely LOVE them.... really impressed with the feel and power/performance.