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All the advice pretty much says to add some if you're bottoming out, and remove some if you're not making full travel.
In this video the guy (Full Factory Suspension) says he does it the other way round, starting with the maximum number of spacers installed.
Anyone used this method or have any thoughts on it?
It seems a bit of hassle (especially for the shock) to do that, when you may well after trying different numbers settle on the number of spacers that came installed from the factory. There's also the "suspension manufacturers know what they're doing" aspect, they'll make things tuned to what most people prefer.
"It seems a bit of hassle (especially for the shock) to do that, when you may well after trying different numbers settle on the number of spacers that came installed from the factory."
You'll never know if that's right, without swapping to something else.
It's all basically variations on the bracketing theme... It doesn't matter so much which end you start at, you learn the most by starting out "too far" then working in, rather than starting with your best guess, because by starting at "too far" you're always moving towards the best result while when starting "close" you may not be.
I'm not sure there's much difference whether you start with "definitely too much" or "definitely too little". For myself I'd say too much is easier to diagnose so I'd probably rather start from too little and move up, but, ymmv
Got a vanilla RS revelation 130mm. The initial breakaway is dire, even for an air fork. Came with two spacers fitted, two in a bag.
Checked the website, inputted my fork serial, looked at the air pressure im supposed to have in and I'm thinking there is possibly something wrong/incompatible with my shock pump adaptor. It's a bugger to tighten on on this fork.
I decided to go by sag whilst stood on the bike. 30%. Added all the spacers to avoid bottoming out because when I removed all spacers and put in a bit of air at a time and pumped it a few times between increases, the bottom-out bang in this fork is scary.
Am I using all the travel? Probably not. And I'll likely remove one later and go riding again. So, maybe like the guy in the video, I'd prefer to work backwards from not enough travel, to enough. Rather than bottoming out and causing damage throughout a ride before I can get home to the tools to fit another.
You’ll never know if that’s right, without swapping to something else.
Good point. They're cheap (if poor value...) to experiment with to get the suspension tuned properly, having spent so much on that.
After I put all 4 volume spacers in, I got 100mm travel. Couldn't go through the last 30mm. Next ride will have 3 in. But.....
I can weigh upto 105kg with a full day's riding gear on me. I started dropping the air pressure and upping the spacers so as not to bottom out because of that. So tell me why I've now got 85psi (manual says I should have 110-120 in it?) at 30% sag and its still feeling too firm? Drops aren't too bad, but stair runs are almost like riding a rigid cruiser. Faulty pump gauge or too much oil from the factory?
There's a good chance the small bump compliance, or lack of, is heavily influenced by bushing clearance and possibly too much, or too little grease in the air spring.
The other think to consider when adding tokens is that the less linear the spring curve is, the harder it will be to find a rebound setting to suit as the spring rates at either end of the usage are much further apart.
It's often easier to make a big change to start with to get a better idea what it really feels like. One click/spacer at a time might not be perceptible which then leads to a placebo effect.
You might find that actually you don't like more progression, you just want more compression damping, or less rebound.
The other think to consider when adding tokens is that the less linear the spring curve is, the harder it will be to find a rebound setting to suit as the spring rates at either end of the usage are much further apart.
I actually did it for this reason (actually I added a high volume sleeve, then went back with a spacer). With more progression you loose control of the rebound of the shock at full compression, which made it buck the bike forwards over jumps.
It's always going to be a bit of a compromise as rarely is everything adjustable (I.e. you can't control the frames progression even if you have a 4 way damper).