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Manitou Mastodon?

436K views 2K replies 286 participants last post by  Donkeeboy 
#1 ·
I've heard that Treks are being spec'd with this new fork from Manitou. Has anyone heard any details?
 
#347 ·
Some rambling after a couple hundred miles on the Mastodon Pro 120 EXT
If it matters...I have it on a Borealis Echo and replacing a 100mm Bluto

Weight...it's exactly 319 grams difference from my 100 Bluto RL ( 9 inch steerer, star nut, race and axle). That's less than 3/4 of a pound.

I get 110mm of travel. I'm guessing the remaining 10 is in the bottom out bumper ( Maybe Dougal can confirm)

With the fork compressed....the EXT still has 1 1/2 inches between a Vee Snowshoe XL and the crown. Maybe the STD would be fine for those worried about the extra A to C.
For me...although it raised the front of the bike...I like it.

Pressure charts are way off. I weigh 165ish and am running 50 psi ( and tweaking that )

Playing with the IVA makes a big difference....

I want to open it up and see what's inside for spacers,oil level etc....but I'm having too much fun riding.

CONS....You need a allen wrench to remove the axle ( I have to remove the wheel to fit in my vehicle). But it works smooth.

I know I'm going to lose the air cap on the bottom of the fork. I ordered one to have on hand when I do.

It's a great fork....and I liked the Bluto....
 
#353 ·
Wait a second.... Borealis Echo... high levels of sarcasm in replies... the faint smell of bengay and Manhattans... ha! It's THE mayor!

We're gonna be fat bike fork twinsies.

I'm sure this will make you vomit a little in your mouth.

But then again, I never ride, so... small chance then of such public embarrassment.
 
#481 ·
Quite honestly, that came across as quite condescending, though perhaps my writing led you to believe that I just showed up at this thread and asked questions; I have spent time with parts diagrams, watching Mattoc rebuild videos, and have read most of the Mattoc thread. Just because I don't currently understand everything doesn't mean that I am unable to understand, and the "resign" aspect is a pretty big stretch, especially since the Mastedon is primarily a widened and longer-legged Mattoc/Magnum. It was more theoretical musing, perhaps to be quick dispelled by someone who took it apart and found some minutia that didn't show up on the (not very detailed) parts lists. I could see Manitou doing that down the road or as an upgrade route; they did something similar with irt for the Mattoc. I would be interested to know (back to the primary question) whether the Mastedon only has a bumper at the bottom, or if it has a way to "absorb" excess energy upon bottom-out. I don't do $600 experiments (okay, I do, but not on my own dime).
 
#805 ·
Just an FYI:

Ordered a Pro STD when these first came out. Just took it apart for the first time since I was only getting 90mm of travel for what should have been a 100mm fork.

Turns out this is an EXT, not STD set 100 with 7 spacers on the bottom and 1 on top. I removed 2 bottom spacers on each side and now get 110mm without increasing AC length.

Fits a 4.8 JJ on a Medium Carbon Fatboy with out any issues.
 
#962 ·
Ok, got my 120 Pro STD on my Medium Les Fat. I'm pretty happy with this fork as it looks the beast and I have some confidence that it will meet my expectations of stiffness. Leaving it 120 for now. Will do some experimentations with aire pressure and dampening over the next few rides and this will determine if it stays on. Every previous attempt of me adding a fork to a hard tail has always resulted in reverting back to full rigid.

Cane Creek ZS56 110 Lower Bearing and +3mm race. Looks like it has created the perfect clearance for the control lever.

Perfect tire clearance with JJ 4.8 on Mulefuts.

I saw someone else on here who was complaining of compatibility with their Kuat NV rack. I found a solution and tested on 65 miles of winding rough mountain roads with no issues.

Hopefully a maiden voyage of Santa Cruz Mountain singletrack tomorrow morning.

Tire Wheel Bicycle tire Bicycle wheel rim Spoke
Tire Bicycle tire Wheel Bicycle wheel Bicycle frame
Bicycle tire Bicycle accessory Bicycle wheel rim Bicycle wheel Bicycle
Bicycle accessory Bicycle part Bicycle wheel rim Bicycle Synthetic rubber
Electric blue Metal Steel Bicycle part Aluminium
Bicycle tire Bicycle wheel rim Bicycle part Spoke Automotive tire
Brown Beige Iron Metal Leather
 
#1,004 ·
Add my name to the long list of people praising the Mastodon!

I have a 120mm EXT Pro. Mounted up on my medium BlackBorrow with no clearance issues. It did raise the front quite a bit, but I expected that. I also had to buy yet another Hope brake mount adapter, as this is the first fork I have had with a 180mm post mount.

I never really had any beef with my Bluto, but it was getting tired,and I wanted a bit more travel. The Mastodon is much smoother than the Bluto, and so much beefier. Its exactly 1lb heavier than the Bluto, at 4.98 lbs.

I'm a 250lb rider, and am still playing with the suspension settings. I have run just over 100 pounds of pressure and use all the travel on jumps and small drops to flat (2' or so). I am going to play around with the volume spaces to see if I can make it a bit more progressive.

Bicycle tire Tire Wheel Bicycle frame Bicycle wheel
Metal Iron Cylinder Household hardware Steel
 
#1,005 ·
I'm a 250lb rider, and am still playing with the suspension settings. I have run just over 100 pounds of pressure and use all the travel on jumps and small drops to flat (2' or so). I am going to play around with the volume spaces to see if I can make it a bit more progressive.
I'm 255 and I run all 4 IVA tokens above the piston/seal. I then run 95 psi (on my Fox pump) and that seems to be a really good balance between bottoming resistance on jumps and plushness in the chatter. I run high speed all the way out and compression 2 clicks in. You might start around there..
With the way the fork was stock (1 token above) it would blow through the whole stroke and I could feel it bottom out. With the 4 tokens above I never "feel" it bottom out but the o-ring says I'm using everything... :)
 
#1,041 ·
This may not be the exact situation, but I have had something similar happen. I have 2 Jamis XCT3 Carbon 26ers from 2011. It was my main ride at the time and is now my sons and the other now my gravel bike. On the one that saw more use I had a constant problem with the headset loosening up and racked my brains like the OP. I could put fingernail in-between the gap of the headset top bearing cover and the frame (IS headset) and I had no rubbing on the cap, but the loosening persisted. I read in a prior post on MTBR that although I thought there was enough gap between the bearing cap and the bearing/frame interface there was not. I bought FSA micro-spacers and 2 .25mm on just under the bearing cap. The problem has been gone for over 2 years with no other changes. If you exhaust all other resources, that may work. Here is a link to them:

FSA Headset Microspacers | Jenson USA
 
#1,085 ·
I just bit the Bullet and did the same,but got the ext comp version.How much fuss was pulling it apart to extend the travel to 140,as this is what I also intend to do>Cant get over what a massive fork it is!! View attachment 1180829
Not much fuss at all with the tools and supplies on hand. I followed the manual and was done in 30 minutes or so the first time and would expect to be able to go much faster.
 
#1,150 ·
Ha. But you are armed with super awesome knowledge of what it is so just keep taking up the slack until it stops. Might take a while which is annoying but hopefully tolerable. Between your pic (extruding about 1mm) and where mine landed (recessed about 2mm) that's a heck of a gap IMHO so maybe it'll take some time - no idea if about the 1.5mm/2mm mark is final spot everyone is going to find but NB, TC and mine seem to be around the same spot in the pics.

It's a long story not worth telling how I know but mine was semi-extruded when I got it - like yours. I wish I had come to Troy's very helpful and keen insight earlier so I could have caught it in the act but it's ok - now I know.

Cheers...
 
#1,697 ·
It looks like they added bottom-out spacers when you wanted them to add top-out spacers.

Product Rectangle Font Material property Parallel


Assuming your fork was a 120mm EXT and you wanted 100mm EXT config, they should have added 2 top-out spacers. This would reduce your axle to crown 20mm but the fork would compress just as far as it did before at full compression.
 
#1,714 ·
Now that I think about it... Can anyone tell me: The stock configuration for my comp fork has 2 spacers above the seal and two spacers below the seal on the volume adjust. If I want to make the shock stiffer at the end of the travel, I would REDUCE the air volume, and this means moving spacers from below the seal to above the seal... Right?

On a RockShox fork I'd add tokens. The equivalent operation on the Mastodon would be to move spacers above the seal, correct?
 
#1,717 ·
Now that I think about it... Can anyone tell me: The stock configuration for my comp fork has 2 spacers above the seal and two spacers below the seal on the volume adjust. If I want to make the shock stiffer at the end of the travel, I would REDUCE the air volume, and this means moving spacers from below the seal to above the seal... Right?

On a RockShox fork I'd add tokens. The equivalent operation on the Mastodon would be to move spacers above the seal, correct?
I would guess the same but I've never done it yet
 
#1,724 ·
26 Dillinger 5 fits fine in normal non-ext version, but only about .3” of vertical clearance, so you aren’t fitting a significantly larger tire in there.
 
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#1,756 ·
My 4.8 fits fine on 100mm rims on both the Bluto had before and RST renegade I have on my other fatty.Im assuming it will fit fine on a standard pro as well.Thats as big as I need to go here in Australia.Im planning on having it extended to 150mm though to match the 130mm rear
 
#1,726 ·
I’ve got a 4 month old Mastodon Comp EXT on,my Growler here in Maine and have just recently experienced this sag issue on a very cold day (-13F -23C) and it also popped back when attaching a fork pump. The bike has stayed in an unheated garage all winter. I am going to start keeping it inside to see if this makes a difference. Nothing appears to be leaking outside of the fork. I’ve been riding the bike daily all winter with no issues until,yesterday.
 
#1,789 ·
Well, I find the compression damping settings to be utterly useless. Even "1" on the LSC makes it overly harsh. Same with the HSC. I'm 165-170lbs. You can use the LSC like a lockout, which I assume is why there's the big tab/hook on the lever, but it just lets you go between the more open setting and what some may call "climb". I got a high flow piston from Dougal (Serious Bicycle Suspension | Shockcraft) that helps. The fork is "ok" right now, but it was definitely way too harsh before the upgraded piston. My hypothesis is that tuning the large unsprung weight of fat-tires vs the relatively (but not always) soft impacts of snow riding is a bit tricky. A significant amount of compression and rebound damping (not to be confused with damping adjuster settings) appears to be needed, softer on the compression side for sure.
 
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#1,790 ·
Well, I find the compression damping settings to be utterly useless. Even "1" on the LSC makes it overly harsh. Same with the HSC. I'm 165-170lbs. You can use the LSC like a lockout, which I assume is why there's the big tab/hook on the lever, but it just lets you go between the more open setting and what some may call "climb".
Interesting. We’ll be sure to experiment with zero compression. Anyone else have @Jayem ’s experience?

Also, any advice on tire pressures? We’ve zero’d in on ideal fully rigid pressures for dirt riding and of course much lower for snow. Should we increase our rigid dirt pressures from 8-9 psi to something a bit higher in front? Our rigid pressures balanced grip and bounce. Maybe we don’t need to worry about bounce in front now, but of course grip still matters.
 
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