AaronVA

How far do you go in terms of sticking to the "official" way of fixing your bike or finding spares? For example I recently stripped the head of one of the bolts mounting my rear shock to the frame. It turned out to be an unusual bolt in terms of thread and shank length, and was hard to find through an industrial supplier. But to order a replacement from the manufacturer would have been north of R400 for one bolt. So obviously the answer will vary from person to person but at what point do you no longer use the official manufacturer spec parts or tools for fixing your bike?

So a few days ago on a rough descent I cracked the body of my rear shock right below the top eyelet, all of the oil then poured out through the crack. The shock is a DHX2 (coil) on a Meta AM 29. I didn't notice when it cracked but noticed the oil all over the frame and my shoes at the bottom of the trail, and there wasn't too much dust stuck to the oil so I assume it was near the end of a pretty long descent. Has something like this happened to anyone else? If so were you able to find the cause? eg. sudden hard hit, stress over time etc.