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I am just trying to set up my new fork. I have set the sag at about 25%.
Having watched a youtube video they said the next stage was to check I was using 90% of available travel. To check this I was advised to bounce up and down on the front as hard as possible whilst riding the bike. Due to the adverse weather conditions I have had to attempt doing this in my kitchen, which I realise is not ideal. The problem is I am only getting about 60% travel. What do I do?
20 to 30% sag is what most people run . When you have set that go for a decent ride and you should be getting all of the forks travel on the biggest hits . If you only get 50% of the forks travel then let some air out , if you are bottoming the forks out often during a ride then you need to increase the air pressure , which will leave you with less sag . There are other factors involved such as compression and rebound damping , adding or reducing spacers to some forks which will affect how quickly they ramp up under compression . There is also a gadget called a shockwiz that can connect to a mobile phone via an app and analyse your forks performance . These are over £300 to buy but some shops will loan them out . Getting the initial set up thereabouts is the first step , then you have the option to make other adjustments depending on your forks .
Was the video bikeradars 10 min setup? Because that tells you what to do in the scenario you just described.
Haha. Mountain bike trail in the kitchen...great!
To roughly get started for the first rides: setting the sag is a good start. Open the rebound damping knob (rabbit).
Second: push the bar down as much you can (if you get to 50 % travel that's fine!) and release the bar then quickly.
The tire should not "jump/bounce" off from the floor. If there is such a bouncing: increase the rebound damping (direction "turtle"). Repeat.
If you really need the travel / or if you have to increase the fork pressure: you will see that in the trail. Means wait for better weather and do some real biking test. Incorporate some jumps and bunny hops and you will see.
Good luck!
Larry - are you a psychic? Yes it was! I don't have any spacers to add you see - and that video doesn't mention reducing air pressure. I will try that though - thanks.
Go for a ride with the shock pump....
So I now have the shock down to 55 PSI and am getting more travel, only about 70% though. It does recommend 85 PSI for my weight. Dodgy old shock pump methinks.
So you're certain there's no volume spacers already in it?
Sounds like you need to reduce ramp up not increase if you're not using all the travel at the right sag.
You want to leave the last 2cm of travel for big over the bar moments/crash scenarios - don't listen to the people who say you should be using all of the travel at the front at least one per ride. That last 2cm might the small margin that stops you from being jolted over the front and breaking your neck.
What rayban said.
Air forks don't compress in a linier fashion, the further into compression they get, the harder they get to compress further.
So you'll never use the last few cm of travel unless you hit something really hard like in a crash scenario.
You could let some air out to use more travel, but then on the odd occasion where you properly stack it, you'll have no safety net and the fork could bottom out, making the crash worse.
Due to the adverse weather conditions I have had to attempt doing this in my kitchen, which I realise is not ideal. The problem is I am only getting about 60% travel. What do I do?
Ride down the stairs obvs.
I'm not sure about setup guides, everyone is a bit different so they can't be right for each rider and fork...
I simply trust the published table (or the one stuck on the fork leg) and just put in the recommended pressure for my weight, twiddle the rebound till it stops feeling too bouncy on the trail and that's about it... I don't really bother checking sag, just go by feel you know if a fork feels harsh or is blowing through it's stroke to a nasty bottom-out and you can add or reduce the pressure in ~5psi increments to make it feel right...
I don't really touch the compression ever, but I just happened to like it that way...
I certainly get full travel on most rides but never notice any hard bottom-out...
Other people are more discerning I'm sure, but it just gets a bit "princess and the pea" if you fuss over a fork too much IMO...
So don't set your forks up to use all of their travel unless you crash . How do you know that 20cm will be the difference between going over the bars and breaking your neck or not , perhaps you should have 50cm of travel in reserve . How do you know that you won't crash because your suspension was too firm to absorb an impact properly . For me if I have 150mm of travel I want to be able to get 150mm of travel , also with modern forks the compression ramps up so that when you hit the end of your travel it is a relatively composed affair and you don't have 150mm of smooth travel followed by a massive clunk at the end . Bottomless tokens can help you to make that compression ramp up even more or less so you can fine tune how the forks behave at the end of their travel . Also you can play with compression damping and return speed to personalise the behaviour of the forks even more .