Hi Scott,
It is great to hear your experience with the Neo Jumper 650B. The more you ride it, more you’ll love it. Every weekend, I look forward to my rides to D.C. You know, every time I touch the bike I have the same sense of awe. Simply a great joy!
Coming back, any full-suspension MTB’s need more care than hardtails but they are so much more comfortable and fun to ride. If I am going on rides longer than 10 miles, I check the tire pressure, battery charge, clean fork stanchions and brake adjustment. All of this shouldn't take more than two minutes.
Suspension forks
Entry level bikes use metal springs inside the fork tubes to absorb shocks but coil springs adds weight and they don’t provide dynamic response. Forks with air (being a compressible Newtonian fluid) provide much better damping and weighs next to nothing. There are many advanced forks with fancy electronics built into them that control the setting automatically but they cost $1000
Neo Jumper 650B has Rockshox Xc30 Solo air with 120 mm travel and it is more than enough for trail riding. The right side has a remote lockout lever and left side has a preload adjustment. Open the left side fork cap (has AIR written on it) and
use a pump like this to set the preload to 100 or 110 psi (refer the chart attached). You don’t want to make it too stiff or too soft. Start from 100 psi and see what suits you best. Your local shop/REI will have one of these pumps.
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The same thing goes for the rear shock.
Look at this page for more details.
Open the metallic cap shown in red and pump the preload pressure upto 150 psi. The rear shock should have minimal sag (~10%) when you are completely seated and not moving. This specific model can take upto 300 PSI but if you do then you’ll blow the O-ring so better not to cross 180 or 200 psi. The protrusion on the metallic cap can be used to release air if you think it is too stiff. First when I received the bike, I didn't check the pressure and it was too soft and after pumping it to 150 psi, I find it provides optimal dampening and stiffness.
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The multi-position valve is used to adjust response for different terrains. I normally keep the valve fast response.
Also, the stock saddles are not very comfortable for long rides (unless you wear biking shorts), so you may want to
replace it with something like this.
Kickstand
I have searched extensively to find a suitable kickstand that doesn’t compromise the aesthetics of this bike but to my utter dismay I haven’t found anything. Len offered me to get one custom made kickstand but both of us agreed that it looked god awful ugly on this beautiful bike. Pletscher kickstands are awesome but none of them fit this bike. The chain stay tubing is too thick and as people have mentioned,
you might want to try one of these click stands. At home,
I use this stand and it has served me well.
Would love to see your 4 Neo's, post some pics when you can
![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
and here's mine from recent ride to DC.
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Cheers,
Ravi
@Dfstarman ,
Take a look at this.