More spring

Dave scored himself an absurd mountain bike and we've been out a few times to Lysterfield Lake Park to run some of the trails out there. Part of our route takes us on the Commonwealth games track used in 2006. Dave has been killing me with his super-bike, and my road-hybrid just isn't cut out for the beating the trail dishes out.

So in the tradition of "Real men ride steel frame K-Mart bikes", I picked up some dual-suspension cheapo bikes for myself and Jana at KMart.

However, I was not happy with the front suspension bottoming out with little effort due to my excessively manly body weight. All muscle of course. Gizmology was called for.

The black spring is the original. There's one of those in each fork. The small silver springs are what I'm adding in addition to the original to both pre-load the existing springs, and increase the overall force required before they bottom out. They're some part that Wes had lying around his workshop from Yachting components. I found two springs stacked inside each other offered a resistance of ~10kg before fully compressed. (I pushed down on them on a set of scales) A pair, in each fork, should add ~20kg.

Tightening down the restraining bolt. This socketted screwdriver has a 1/4 inch drive socket in the back of the handle. Super handy for that last bit of torque by adding your 1/4' ratchet!!

Beware, stripping threads is now easier than before...

So, I'm super happy with the quick dirty mod. I rode a trial run on the full trail and had a blast. Didn't bottom out a single time. Cycling FTW.