You wont be dissapointed, throw it down the steepest roughest trail you can find and be prepared to be amazed!!!

you'll get addicted to it ;-)

Just got a VT2 last week and went out to Leith Hill Surrey last night. Rides great. I'm 5,11-6ft and got a medium after testing out one at a lbs. Not sure if the guy in the shop has advised me properly as I seem to be leening over the front quite a lot and have to have the seat nearly at full extension to get good peddle reach. Not sure yet if its just the transition from a hardtail or maybe that the crank is higher off the ground than a hardtail. ANy advice on setting it up better for me or if i've been stitched up would be good. Off to Coed Y Brenin in a couple of weeks and want to get it set-up properly first.

donut , the way to check if it is the correct fit for you is to set the saddle at the desired height , the rest your elbow against the nose of the saddle with your arm reaching forward your fingers should be on (or around ) the centre of the steerer.
I'm 5ft 8 and have a small vt2 , i have the seat post up with about 2/3" left at the bottom to get good pedal reach , i found that the leaning forward is normal but i changed to some high rise handle bars and have found it much better!What travel settings/pressures are you running?

Lone Rider
Being new to full suss myself could you give me a few pointers to setting up the preasures in layman terms, im out tomorrow cross country with lots of singletrack and hills probably about 25 miles so i need to set it up properly im 12 half stone 5'10"
cheers Nick

Nick

Check out my comments earlier in the thread for setting up the pressures.

Firefox
I used your info to set it up origionally
which travel setting should the bike be on 5 or 5.6 sorry i sound a bit thick , il get used to it soon, and do i first sit on the bike and see if the rubber ring moves 25% of the shock to set the sag

Nick, i'm the same weight as you so i'll say set it up like mine.
I run it in the 5.7" setting with 155psi in the main chamber and 115psi in the spv and i have the rebound somewhere in the middle.I run the fork at full travel and with 110psi in the spv chamber and again , medium rebound.I hope this is of some help!
ps it's take me ages to get mine set to how i like it

You need to have your rebound set fairly fast for the front forks to stop them packing down on rough decents and have the rear shock rebound set fairly slow so it doesnt buck you off if it takes a hard hit.
I'm 14st and have my back shock set at 180psi main and 115psi SPV.

Lone rider
Just got back from my first proper ride, i did about 23 miles mostly single track with a good bit of climbing i set it up as you said and the ride was awesome,obviosly il tweak round with it a bit but the preasures you gave i will use as my bench mark, im glad i picked the vt now i think the rides will only get better thanks for the info,
Nick

Lone Rider. I have 5.6 on the rear and about 110mm at the front. I have about 120psi in the main shock and 90 in the SPV. I might change this today. What high rise handle bars did you get and where from??? I guess its not unusual to have the seat post nearly all the way up then?? Still rides 10 times better than my last bike, a hardtail.

Donut, the bars i have are fsa fr330 - 680mm wide with 40mm rise and i managed to get them for a reasonable £19.99 from leisure lakes.

I've been riding my medium VT2 (I'm 6') for a couple of weeks now and I think getting close to the right setup.

I'm just south of 15st and now running the main chamber at 170PSI to get close to full travel, I started at 200 but the "O ring" would always fall well short of full . I'm now running the SPV at 120 and although it's quite stiff, it seems OK.

My question to all other VT owners is about saddle height. Due to being bucked off and a 15' head first drop during a GT Red run, I've slowed the rebound waaaaaaay down AND lowered the saddle height from what I would say was the "efficient" height. I suppose it comes down to riding conditions/trails but with my HT, I run a very high/XC style and have always managed the gnarly stuff - should I stick to a slower rebound and keep a high saddle? (btw - this is my first venture into full-suss hence the daft question).

Mark.

Set your sag properly then set your saddle height as you would normally where at the bottom of your pedal stroke your knee has just a slight bend.
You want to set your swingers rebound fairly slow, turn it all the way to the slowest setting, then sit on the saddle and start riding off kerbs, adjusting one click at a time until you find a setting where the shock rebounds back to the normal sag without bobing up and down when you drop off the kerb. Once out on the trail you can fine tune this but usually if you do get it pretty much right with riding off a kerb you will only be making a slight adjustment on the trail, maybe 1 click either way.
This is how i've always set up any shock i have had as per the instructions from TFTuned and it seems to work pretty much spot on.

Forgot to ask Mark, where about's on the Red did you take a 15' head first drop?

My 15' drop, that was awarded a good 10 out of 10 for artistic impression by my two mates and left a young lad waiting on his mates totally bemused. It was the first piece of singletrack you encounter on the Red (Hit Squad Hill?) dropping back onto the fireroad for the climb.

I just couldn't get used to the "relaxed" angles of the VT comapred to my 'dale HT and was picking all the wrong lines so on entering the final descent down on to the fireroad, I picked the right hand side of a tree stump and then a very quick 15' drop down into the verge beside the fire road. Ankle and ribs still hurt and that was nearly 4 weeks ago.

Mark.

Oh and David, thanks for the advice. The sag is pretty much there (about 12mm)but still not getting full travel, rebound adjustment has about 23 clicks in total and I'm around 9 clicks from slowest, rebound now seems OK but according to the O'ring, I've still got probably an inch or so travel left to exploit - going to try a further 5 PSI reduction but keeping the SPV the same.

Mark.

VT owners do your self a favour and ditch the Shimano chain. Mine snapped on Sunday after a total of about 250km on a climb at Hamsterley, needless to say I almost went straight over the bars.

Sram PC99 is on order and the Shimano is lying in the bin.

This is my first fs and I now can't understand why I didn't make the move sooner, but I'm sure I'm not the first or the last to make that comment.

Has anyone tried the North Face at Grizedale yet?

hi guys, just bought a VT2 (18.5) £899 with 520 pedals. i'm 5'8' 14stone. no previous full sus experience, haven't looked at manuals yet, but, how easy is it to set up rear ??

Patrick, iv just got my vt2 i followed all the advice in this forum,(thanks to everybody)with a bit of experimenting,and its riding superbly.If its any help i didnt have a clue what to when i got mine.