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My girlfriend has a SR Suntour Aion fork that came on her 2016 T-130. The problem is she only weighs 55kg so to get anywhere near 25% sag the air pressure is too low to extend the fork back up to its full travel so she ends up sitting really low in the travel (50mm of the way trough a 130mm fork) and she feels like her weight is being pitched forward all the time.
If we put in the minimum amount of pressure to allow the fork to extend back out to its full travel the fork is then so stiff that even on rockier trails she only uses about 50% of the available travel and her arms take a bit of a battering.
So anyone know a way to deal with this? Or even know anywhere that specialises in SR Suntour? RF tuned and mojo don't seem to from their websites
I have a similar problem with my 11 year old he weighs 38kg. I have a Suntour Raidon I've put about 20psi in there It doesn't extend quite back to full but it does give the right sag and a decent action. I'd do that and not worry too much about them full extension.
[s]Possibly shims/volume reducers in the air spring,[/s] or swap it out for fox/rs etc - Mrs P weighs about 50kg and has no problems with 140 floats.
Edit - no that wouldn't do what you want.
Can't offer any suggestions for your forks but I can tell you Offspring#2 who weighs less than 40 kilos has a set of third hand Reba that seem to work perfectly.
Pies, lots of pies.
There isn't a lot you can do I don't think aside from a fork change, you can't increase air volume which would help.
Is there much adjustment on there?
Is she tubeless? I'd run it at the higher pressure needed for full extension and then run the tyre pressures lower to compensate for the firmness and look at carbon bars. You'll improve things with a better fork but it's still a lot of travel for a lighter rider to get through. An older pair of dual air revelations would be a good bet, Reba only goes up to 120.
Depends on whether its a balanced air or spring negative system. If its balanced air, where a negative chamber is charged from the positive, you could put grease or oil into the negative to reduce its volume, which will make the fork behave better at low pressures. If its a spring, you'd need to find a same size spring with a lower rate. Also lowering the oil weight in the damper will improve matters too.
is the rebound set fully open? My son's (11 year old) sid 120mm compresses and rebounds fine running 25% sag. What we did find is that for his weight and riding its way very damped as standard, the tuned fork is much much better. actually running a token in the fork at the moment
I (58kg) have similar problem with my 2014 Talas, if i drop the pressure low enough to get it plush it ends up being 120/100 travel rather than 140/120. In the end i settled somewhere in the middle.
My factory float 32 on the XC bike is lovely though, so may try and get my talas internals swapped at some point.
On your GF's bike is there any way to imporve the feeling of being pitched forward with a tall riser bar and/or extreme stem angle?
Marrying her will fix that.
I've got old Fox TALAS and F100's that I've used with teens/small_oabs. They have worked really well, even just under 'minimum' pressure.
Mrs_oab is max 50kg.
Mrs_oab used to have custom shimmed and light oil in her Headsock.
Now she is on solo air Reba, it's just not as supple. I'm meant to be swapping oil for lighter oil to speed it up, especially in compression. Currently on minimum pressure and barely any rebound, and like you if I go below on pressure it just doesn't extend out properly. It would be worth an oil change on yours...
She just needs a bit of ballast, fill her camelbak with a couple of tungsten blocks 😉
Reduce the negative spring volume...call up TF tuned - they might be able to do something....this would stop the fork being pulled into it's travel too easily....a DVO Diamond with it's externally adjustable negative spring might work as well.
Otherwise look at say...a Pike with a coil modification.