Fox tech seminar

Nothing like a six am wake-up time to start the day. Yeah right, mornings are the bane of my existence and I am forever grateful that the expert cat races are 1:30 start time rather than the 11:30 I had to do in sport class, that was seriously terrible having to wake up that early to get to the race course on time.

ANYWAYS the early start was so I could make it to Fox Racing Shox's tech seminar at 8:30. The fog was as thick as soup all day today so that didn't help driving all to the way to Markham's Joyride 150, the venue for said seminar.

I'd always wanted to go to Joyride in the winter but never found the chance. Our "swag" for attending the seminar was a free day pass and rental if need be to the park. 2 hours of learning about the latest and greatest forks and shocks on the market followed by free entry into the best bike park around? I'll wake up whenever you want me to.

So I arrive at Joyride, chat with the other mechanics and then we get down to business.

ok that's like 10 grand worth of merchandise on the table

All the 2012 lineup for Fox Shox was present. Working on a 32, we learned how to take the fork apart, what to look for in terms of wear, fix what needs fixin', and finally put it all back together. We also saw a fork that was unsalvageable and its reasons why. Apparently the previous owner cleaned his bike all the time, but he did it with a pressure washer and ended up destroying the seals over the fork stanchions. All kinds of crap got through the seals and destroyed the lowers.

The most interesting thing I learned was the difference in the low friction seals that are new to Fox. Everyone know about the Kashima coating, but they also put a lot of R&D into these seals. One 40 that was shown to us had the new seals on one stanchion with the old seals on the other. As we were able to manipulate each stanchion independently of the other, it was easy to see how much of a difference they make. The new coating and seals make the whole package so smooth and easy, that many pro riders have had to add a few more psi into their setups to get the same feeling out of their suspension. The decreased friction makes it seem like there's less air in the fork.

All the new seals and rebuild kits for 2012

We covered the maintenance for the float rear shocks as well. I've done it once before but I had forgotten how easy it is. I remember Pink Bike did a Tech Tuesday on it once and once you get the Float Rebuild kit it's all downhill from there, it's absurdly easy - Unless the internals are messed, then you need to send it back to Fox. (You don't want to be cracking the 350psi chamber on your own)

After the seminar we were free to roam. As it was approaching 30 degrees outside, you can assume that no one wanted to come in and ride inside. As such we had the whole place to ourselves

I'd never been dirt jumping before, so I was hoping I wasn't go to go home on a stretcher. Fortunately Joyride has a very progressive difficulty curve. I started off on the pump track before moving on to the easy jumps. As I became more and more comfortable with riding a bike whilst airborne, I moved on to the intermediates. It's so freaking addicting to be airborne, I was absolutely loving the feeling.

I also did the foam pit a couple of times just for the hell of it, not trying to pull anything.

It is stupid difficult to get out of the foam pit once you're in there. 

After I left Joyride, I headed home still wanting to do some more riding. I wasn't in the mood for more driving so I just tooted around town practicing trial type stuff. As I was going along the waterfront I came across a piece of concrete that jutted far out into the water. Normally you can pretty much see across Lake Ontario to Niagara - Today, not so much...