Early in 2015, I got word that because of a change in Peak Performance’s managers position, we would be unable to have a team. Fortunately, I was still able to get a good deal on a bike and I knew exactly which one I was going to get. The Fury was going to 27.5 wheels this year and I was super excited make the switch and see how the bigger wheels performed. I was also able to chose which model of bike to ride, so I went with the higher end build, which had the black and yellow color that I had wanted the previous year. The build came with full Shimano Saint components, Fox suspension, and Stans wheels. Pretty much the perfect setup in my opinion, and I didn’t swap around any parts other than grips.
My first experience riding the new Fury was at C4 Rider Training in Squamish. We would go and find a section of old trail, clean it off and time sections of it and work on parts that were difficult. I didn’t get much of a feeling for the bike with 20-30 seconds of trail, but I knew it was fast. I could tell the big wheels rolled over things much faster, and surprisingly didn’t make cornering too much more difficult than the 26 version. After training, I went up to Cypress to do a few shuttle laps to really test the bike out. I only did 4-5 runs because I could tell I was able to go so much faster and didn’t want to push too hard and crash. It felt like I had opened up another level in my riding and it felt limitless for the first few rides.
Using Saint brakes and drivetrain in the past, they didn’t take any time to get used to. The I was also relatively comfortable with the Fox Suspension and it didn’t take much time to set air pressure and find my preferred compression and rebound settings.
2015 was also the first year I built my own wheels. As most things do, the wheel building didn’t always turn out perfectly at first, but luckily I broke a few and got lots of practice! I had issues with the tubeless setup not sealing, improper spoke tension and treatment, and tire choice. I have learned a lot from this year thanks to Lou at Obsession: Bikes who I brought my wheels to for him to check them over and make sure the tension was correct.
The same annoyances with the loud pivots and the “dog bone” wearing out quickly were still happening on the 27.5 version unfortunately. Another thing that’s worth mentioning is that if you didn’t route the cables a certain way, they would rub quite badly and even get caught in the spring. I had to replace a brake line because It got pinched. Luckily this was before racing and I had time to sort it out and figure out how to route the cables without anything happening. The shock was also really hard to put back in because you had to line up the linkage, the hole in the seat stay, and the shock eyelets perfectly. All bikes have their quirks and I have yet to ride one that didn’t have some sort of thing that annoy me when I was taking it apart or putting it back together.
Overall I was very happy with the performance with the bike and it propelled me to win the BC Cup overall in the Sr. Men category!
