It seemed like a great idea at the time… removing a few spare Manitou elastomers and spacers that I had stored in an air tight box for 20 years and putting them in zip-lock plastic bag instead.
Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but when I checked on them about five years later the elastomers had decided to store themselves even more compactly than I wanted them to be. Not only did they melt, but they had set into a harder lump.
My suspicion is that the elastomers reacted over time to the acid contained within the plastic zip-lock bag. But I also wonder if it was a result of being stored in that wonderful mid-1990’s air that they simply couldn’t handle the pollution of 2019? Alternatively, maybe it was the thought of all the current long travel air/oil forks that pushed them over the edge!
The next step was to save the 4 x Manitou spacers trapped in rubber. Boiling water is the perfect remedy for melting out old elastomers stuck at the bottom of retro Manitou forks, but the plastic spacers wouldn’t survive that. Warm water and flexing the rubber was sufficient in this case.
Now all that is left is for me to store the spacers for another 25 years. There is no point denying it, it will probably happen!