DH product review

[DBD]

Alright, because of the "squirreliness" of the Gambler on her maiden voyage I made some geo adjustments (lengthened the chainstay and dropped the rear travel from 9.5 to 8.5) and tire psi adjustments and headed out this morning at at very late 05:30hrs to a local spot.

Also, I do not do huge drops or jumps, I am setting the bike for DH and not freeriding so how the fork and shock will perform under those condition I can not say.

The Delta 8 fork;
WOW!! I am one of the few who really liked the old Stratos S8's and the Delta has the same feel and characteristics and very minimal flex for an inverted design.

Pedaling out of the saddle on a climb or hammering on a straight it does have a lot of "bob" but that is to be expected. I could use the travel adjust and lock the fork down to just a couple inches of travel (on the fly, same system Bionicon uses) but that is not what I wanted to do.

Descending over small rocks and ruts the fork just sucks them up and smooths it out as if they where not there.
The bigger ruts and rocks are noticeable but the fork eats them up and keeps the wheel tracking where it should. Very, very confidence inspiring.

The Vivid 5.1;
Another WOW!! once it is set up. I spent some time riding over a section with a lot of small "features" and then moved to a section with some bigger "features" so I could fine tune the rebound settings.

Sag is set at 30%

I would think for most riders who can use a 350 to 450# spring the recommended setting in the manual would work great. Since I am running a fat boy spring I added a few clicks to the beginning rebound and I backed off two clicks for the ending rebound and that seems to be the set up for me over the local terrain.

I then turned the slow speed compression as slow as possible and then backed off 3 clicks.

With these setting the shock was just like the fork, completely smoothed out the small stuff and softened up the harder hits. The rear wheel was tracking perfectly through and over every thing.

I was also able to actually climb while out of the saddle with very minimal "bob". So minimal that if I was not paying attention I would not have noticed it. It turned the Gambler into a very decent pedaller(sp?). I was very surprised how effortlessly I was climbing.

All in all I am very happy with the Delta and the Vivid.
My only two complaints would be ...

1)the front hub, I have to use a PLUS hub because the Delta uses a 35mm axle so I will be purchasing another PLUS hub so I can have a spare wheel.

2) X-Fusion no longer makes the Delta. I do feel if they would have put a bit more time and some better marking into it they would have had a good share of the market. I do hear they are working on a conventional fork that should rival or even surpass the FOX40 and RS Boxer but again, if and when it comes out they will need to do some good marketing.

[RacinJason]

Nice fork

[number7s]

lets see the whole sexy bike, how much was that fork?

[DBD]

Originally Posted by number7s

lets see the whole sexy bike, how much was that fork?

I bought the fork from some shmoe who now works for some weird company whose bikes are "Intense" and he did not realize what he had and never mounted it. I did get a great deal, thanks to RJ.

I have the pic in another thread but here it is again ...

[Bryguy17]

nice bike/review. I like the white LG-1, nice touch

out of curiosity, what's with the pinch bolts on the headtube? crowns can't keep the bearings in by themselves or something?

[DBD]

Originally Posted by Bryguy17

nice bike/review. I like the white LG-1, nice touch

out of curiosity, what's with the pinch bolts on the headtube? crowns can't keep the bearings in by themselves or something?

It has an interchangeable head tube so I can run 1.5 or 1 1/8. You can also adjust the head angle from 66* to 64* by turning the head tube 180* so the pinch bolts are to hold the head tube in

[Bryguy17]

Originally Posted by DBD

It has an interchangeable head tube so I can run 1.5 or 1 1/8. You can also adjust the head angle from 66* to 64* by turning the head tube 180* so the pinch bolts are to hold the head tube in

wow, that's a pretty neat system then. I suppose you could run a 65* HA and be really good at turning left (or right if you prefer) if you really wanted

[kanga]

Nice rig! New you just need some action photos to do it justice!