So on a recent trip to Northern AZ I had the chance to ride an Mkiii on some of the Secret trails in Sedona. First, my overall impressions of the bike were very good with one noticeable exception, which I'll get to later.
This trail network has a lot of variety, our ride was about 1 1/2 hours, enough to get a taste of how the Mkiii handled different situations
I'm around 190 lbs, the shop mechanic put about 155 psi in the Fox Float R from what I recall, giving a little less than 25% sag, I'm guessing 22/23 %.
From what I had read about the dw-link suspension on this and the ibis forums,
I was expecting a great ride, and the mkiii didnt disappoint, at least not initially.
The first part of the ride was up and down rolling singletrack interspersed with some loose rocky climbs. Traction was very good if not excellent climbing the loose stuff, although not quite as good as my Chumba XCL. The rear tire would break sometimes if I tried to stand completely out of the saddle as I do on the XCL on similar loose stuff. (Tire pressure was not too high, we let some air out to make sure of this)
During this part of the ride everything about the bike seemed to handle very well, didn't notice any pedal stall in rocky climbs like I often did on my previous blurXC. What I did notice, if you were climbing and going over a bump, was that you could feel the suspension start to stiffen slightly at the top of the pedal stroke, but then slacken later on as you were pedaling over the bump.
A very smooth, some might say positive feeling pedal feedback, but barely
noticeable at the pedals, as many have said.
The latter part of the ride was more technical, a lot of sharp rocks with very
uneven transitions over larger rocky outcroppings and stuff, we were climbing in and out of washes and stuff. Here I noticed a cadence changes at the bottom of the pedal stroke during the transition stage after clearing a technical obstacle.
The last part of the ride was climbing up a steep wash, which was mostly a large flowing rock with a lot of g-outs of about 1 1/2 feet. I realized I was feeling
a little pedal feedback, so I decided to increase the sag by releasing a little air from the Fox Float. I didnt have time to measure it, but being familiar with how
it feels letting out air on my other Fox shocks I would say it was in the range of 20 psi, which should have brought it into the recommended 25% sag range I would think.
Anyway, long story short, after this we did that last rough climb about a half a mile up the wash with all the g-outs. The pedal cadence issues were still there, in fact a little worse because of the g-outs. After the ride, my right knee felt like I'd been riding a blur, sorry to say. (I have an old injury, but I dont have this issue on the XCL)
Remembering the figures that Steve_from_JH posted on a thread on the Felt
forum in response to a question I asked about pedal feedback rates of various bikes, the figures Linkage gave now seem to me to be more or less on the mark. The figures were comparing the Ibis Mojo, the Motolite, Ellsworth Id, and blur. I the 32/20 gear ratio the Mojo only about had a third of the pedal feedback
of the blur, but in the granny ring, this increased to about 75-80 % of the blur.
So my conclusion is that you cant escape pedal feedback on a bike that uses
the drivetrain for antisquat. The pedal feedback is very smooth on the dw-link compared to others like the blur, but its still there, whether you feel it or not.
The following day we did a a ride in the Airport Mesa area - I think the trail was called windsurfer -
a much longer, more technical ride overall where I was riding my Chumba
and one of the other guys was on an mkiii. At one point we were doing a climb where you would normally be in the middle ring but we were in the granny because the trail was lined with basketball sized boulders. As I was watching the pedaling of the person on the mkiii in front of me, I noticed he was experiencing the pedal cadence change at the bottom of the pedal stroke just as i did. This had the effect of slowing down his momentum, in this situation the smooth pedal strokes on the XCL translated to better acceleration in this kind of stuff, even though in a smoother climb the mkiii would drop the XCL.
Anyway, long story short, while I was impressed with overall ride characteristics
of the mkiii, the pedal feedback makes it a no go for me.
I was wondering what kind of sag folks that own mkiii's normally run and whether they experience any pedal feedback issues or not.
I know 25-30% is recommended so during the initial part of my ride it was a
little on the low side.
This trail network has a lot of variety, our ride was about 1 1/2 hours, enough to get a taste of how the Mkiii handled different situations
I'm around 190 lbs, the shop mechanic put about 155 psi in the Fox Float R from what I recall, giving a little less than 25% sag, I'm guessing 22/23 %.
From what I had read about the dw-link suspension on this and the ibis forums,
I was expecting a great ride, and the mkiii didnt disappoint, at least not initially.
The first part of the ride was up and down rolling singletrack interspersed with some loose rocky climbs. Traction was very good if not excellent climbing the loose stuff, although not quite as good as my Chumba XCL. The rear tire would break sometimes if I tried to stand completely out of the saddle as I do on the XCL on similar loose stuff. (Tire pressure was not too high, we let some air out to make sure of this)
During this part of the ride everything about the bike seemed to handle very well, didn't notice any pedal stall in rocky climbs like I often did on my previous blurXC. What I did notice, if you were climbing and going over a bump, was that you could feel the suspension start to stiffen slightly at the top of the pedal stroke, but then slacken later on as you were pedaling over the bump.
A very smooth, some might say positive feeling pedal feedback, but barely
noticeable at the pedals, as many have said.
The latter part of the ride was more technical, a lot of sharp rocks with very
uneven transitions over larger rocky outcroppings and stuff, we were climbing in and out of washes and stuff. Here I noticed a cadence changes at the bottom of the pedal stroke during the transition stage after clearing a technical obstacle.
The last part of the ride was climbing up a steep wash, which was mostly a large flowing rock with a lot of g-outs of about 1 1/2 feet. I realized I was feeling
a little pedal feedback, so I decided to increase the sag by releasing a little air from the Fox Float. I didnt have time to measure it, but being familiar with how
it feels letting out air on my other Fox shocks I would say it was in the range of 20 psi, which should have brought it into the recommended 25% sag range I would think.
Anyway, long story short, after this we did that last rough climb about a half a mile up the wash with all the g-outs. The pedal cadence issues were still there, in fact a little worse because of the g-outs. After the ride, my right knee felt like I'd been riding a blur, sorry to say. (I have an old injury, but I dont have this issue on the XCL)
Remembering the figures that Steve_from_JH posted on a thread on the Felt
forum in response to a question I asked about pedal feedback rates of various bikes, the figures Linkage gave now seem to me to be more or less on the mark. The figures were comparing the Ibis Mojo, the Motolite, Ellsworth Id, and blur. I the 32/20 gear ratio the Mojo only about had a third of the pedal feedback
of the blur, but in the granny ring, this increased to about 75-80 % of the blur.
So my conclusion is that you cant escape pedal feedback on a bike that uses
the drivetrain for antisquat. The pedal feedback is very smooth on the dw-link compared to others like the blur, but its still there, whether you feel it or not.
The following day we did a a ride in the Airport Mesa area - I think the trail was called windsurfer -
a much longer, more technical ride overall where I was riding my Chumba
and one of the other guys was on an mkiii. At one point we were doing a climb where you would normally be in the middle ring but we were in the granny because the trail was lined with basketball sized boulders. As I was watching the pedaling of the person on the mkiii in front of me, I noticed he was experiencing the pedal cadence change at the bottom of the pedal stroke just as i did. This had the effect of slowing down his momentum, in this situation the smooth pedal strokes on the XCL translated to better acceleration in this kind of stuff, even though in a smoother climb the mkiii would drop the XCL.
Anyway, long story short, while I was impressed with overall ride characteristics
of the mkiii, the pedal feedback makes it a no go for me.
I was wondering what kind of sag folks that own mkiii's normally run and whether they experience any pedal feedback issues or not.
I know 25-30% is recommended so during the initial part of my ride it was a
little on the low side.