As I was concerned by the swingarm removal, I felt more confident working on it at a friend's motorcycle shop, just in case (cheers Gilles!). Thanks to this RB thread [
1] and a detailed write-up with pictures of a German board I can't find the reference anymore, all went flawlessly in the end. Upon removal, I also noticed that the rubber O-rings referred by both the RB thread and the German board were missing.
Don't ask me why, but I took the opportunity of having the frame totally disassembled to weight the monocoque frame, subframe and swingarm, including the mounting hardware.
OK, OK, maybe also because of the following story, I admit
. In 1992, my father bought a Specialized S-Works M2 Pro MTB, a rather light bike. Shortly after, frame paint started to peel off and joke/legend was that Specialized saved weight up to the paint. Since then, I've always wondered how much paint can weight. More on this later...