This is a 2014 Rocky Mountain Instinct, with DVO shock and Pike RCT3 150mm out front (again, all cheap/secondhand parts). It needs the longer fork to end up in the same geometry area.
I think you got to the key part of it - no matter how well dialed in you get the suspension, you just get to bigger stuff and there just isn't enough travel to get you out of trouble the same way the point-and-bomb rigs with more travel can, but it's a bike that constantly taunts you into getting right up to that marginal limit and sending it anyway.
Out where I'm at, semislick rear and DHR2 front is a really good combination - up where you're at, I suspect eating the rolling penalty to run an Assegai out front and maybe keeping the dissector, or running an aggressor out back would probably work out quite well - as would running slightly wider/meatier tire carasses to really maximize rubber contact... but that's basically giving up any of the semi-XC capability the travel number teases, and just focusing it more towards that slice of trails this bike is perfect for bombing down at speed, and keeping it as a viable all-day whatever trail XC-trail setup that probably makes more sense for a larger market (which I'd argue that tire choice on stock setups is really intended to be a 80% of riders happy 80% of the time solution).
June 3, 2022, 9:35 a.m. - Tehllama42
This is a 2014 Rocky Mountain Instinct, with DVO shock and Pike RCT3 150mm out front (again, all cheap/secondhand parts). It needs the longer fork to end up in the same geometry area. I think you got to the key part of it - no matter how well dialed in you get the suspension, you just get to bigger stuff and there just isn't enough travel to get you out of trouble the same way the point-and-bomb rigs with more travel can, but it's a bike that constantly taunts you into getting right up to that marginal limit and sending it anyway. Out where I'm at, semislick rear and DHR2 front is a really good combination - up where you're at, I suspect eating the rolling penalty to run an Assegai out front and maybe keeping the dissector, or running an aggressor out back would probably work out quite well - as would running slightly wider/meatier tire carasses to really maximize rubber contact... but that's basically giving up any of the semi-XC capability the travel number teases, and just focusing it more towards that slice of trails this bike is perfect for bombing down at speed, and keeping it as a viable all-day whatever trail XC-trail setup that probably makes more sense for a larger market (which I'd argue that tire choice on stock setups is really intended to be a 80% of riders happy 80% of the time solution).