Some ride time has been had on the Spinner 2Nine fork we introduced you to last week. So, you know what that means! It is First Impressions time!

Spinner 2Nine fork on the Dos Niner

I mounted the Spinner 2Nine RLC to the Dos Niner, (Which I had run the RST M-29 on for some time.) I noticed that the Spinner folks had attached an air spring adjustment chart right to one of the fork legs in the form of a sticker. On it, it recommended that I run 100 psi in the cartridge for a rider of my weight. I had “bounced” the fork before reaching for my shock pump and thought that it had plenty of air in it already. I checked it and my pump registered 70 psi. Wow! That isnt much and the fork felt fine to me at this pressure, so I ran with it at first.

The first few rides were urban commutes to make sure everything was “happy” and tight. Since I could not see any problems after the initial few rides, I took it off road. I checked the pressure right before hitting the single track and found it at 60psi. I decided to roll with that.

Spinner 2Nine from the front

The first lap started out fine. The small bump absorption was great. However; I was experiencing some brake dive in the corners, and it was causing a serious handling issue. The travel I was using up was steepening the head angle and making the bike super twitchy in the entry and middle of the corners. Eventually I stacked it in a tight corner after being on the brakes pretty hard. I ended that lap and headed back to my car for adjustments to the fork.

I decided to raise the air pressure in the shock by 20 psi to 80 psi. I saw by my zip tie that I was getting pretty close to full travel on the fork, which made me wonder if I would not get full travel with my adjustment and also lose my small bump performance. Well, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it gained me the stability in the corners, but didn’t adversely affect the other good traits of the fork noticeably. I was even within a millimeter of my max travel from the first lap after the second one was done.

So far I am impressed by the small bump sensitivity of the Spinner. It has good sharp bump absorption as well. Surprisingly though, it seems to be hit and miss on the medium sized trail obstacles. Whether this will clear up after the fork breaks in, I do not know yet. I am planning on fiddling with the rebound controls next time out to see how this might affect that situation. Fork rigidity strikes me as on par with a Reba. In fact, I backed up my two laps on the 2Nine with a lap on a bike with a Reba and the flex I felt was eerily similar to the 2Nine. In this regard, the Spinner is not going to surprise anybody.

So for a first time on dirt, the Spinner is holding its own. I will get some more time on dirt with it and report back with an update soon.