Hi Big Wally
I’ve been waiting for over six months to see if any one else was having problems with their Roubaix Future Shock, like I was. Amazingly there have been no searchable problems till this forum thread.
Firstly, I used to have an annoying rattle, apparently from the Future Shock, but I eventually traced it to the stack washers between the Headset part of the Future Shock, below the actual headstem. As there is no headset cap to tighten, and subsequently push the headstem down , the spacers may not be compressed, and rattle. When reinstalling the Future Shock, the spacers and headstem need to be on , and compressed down before tightening the Future Shock clamp screw.
But it’s the other problem you mentioned which has really been bugging me.
The Future Shock travel is a claimed 2 cm, but I have repeatedly had it reduce down to only 7mm after hitting a strong bump. What is happening is it compresses down, but won’t return. Observe the rubber boot, and it is obviously concertinad down. My local Bike shop claims it is the needle bearings, in the part of the shock that you’re not meant to access, that jam. Each time they open this section, reseat the bearings, and claim it’s fixed. As soon as I hit a bump it happens again. So I changed to the hard spring, yet again it happened. I got the shop to contact Specialized, who claimed the hard spring doesn’t let the Future Shock rebound fully
Well this made no sense at all, as the problem was there before putting in the harder spring, and more pointedly, if the Future Shock won’t work with the hard spring, why offer it at all !
As this travel problem was effectively occurring on any really bumpy ride, my bike mechanic told me the easy fix to reseat the stuck down bearings was to sharply smash the fork with the wheel in it downwards on to the ground.
This works - until the next sharp bump.
I too was thinking maybe I need a Diverge cartridge.
Now what puzzles me is why don’t other people have this problem with their Future Shock, or are they just unaware, that theirs is also compressed. I really only noticed it when I was proudly showing the front travel to a fellow rider at the cafe, when I saw how little travel I was getting . Compare yours to that of a new Roubaix in the shop.
Try taping a vertical strip to the headstem, with 2cm ( with .5cm increments) marked on it, then compress the handlebar down till it stops .
Now are you getting your 2cm of travel ?