Setting Suspension Help

[bruddakhan]

Hello fellow BARFer's,

After a long ride today, I feel like my suspension is too stiff for my weight (it has not yet been set since i recently purchased the bike). The bike seems to pogo when it hits a bump or imperfection in the road and it really doesn't feel like it's absorbing the road (especially the sh*tty roads).

I've googled this and came up with dave moss on YouTube explaining sag, static sag, free sag; all of which I understand the basic concept.

But what about rebound/compression?

I would like to try and set up my suspension before I go on a group ride tomorrow, as it seems like anything will do better than my current set up.

EDIT: Problem solved. If you are having similar issues and feel like you are in my position as stated, check THIS out and it should get you off on the right foot.
EDIT: Here's an Excel spreadsheet for you to record your measurements easily and have an organized way of keeping track. I'm OCD and need this lol.

 

[stangmx13]

It's best to figure it out yourself. The feelings you described don't make complete sense and no one here is going to kno what sort of feelings u like or r expecting.

So, before tomorrow's ride, make one damping change. Just one, then ride. If you like that change or if u can't feel a difference, do the same change more. If u don't like it, go the other direction. Keep adding or subtracting until you find your favorite setting. Given that you said "pogo", I'd try adding 1/2 a turn of fork rebound.

Then, over the next couple of weeks, repeat this process for all the damping adjusters. You will have to revisit ones u've previously adjusted because they are all affect eachother. But ull figure that out. This is really the only way to teach yourself anything w suspension, experiment systematically.

 

[bruddakhan]

It's best to figure it out yourself. The feelings you described don't make complete sense and no one here is going to kno what sort of feelings u like or r expecting.

So, before tomorrow's ride, make one damping change. Just one, then ride. If you like that change or if u can't feel a difference, do the same change more. If u don't like it, go the other direction. Keep adding or subtracting until you find your favorite setting. Given that you said "pogo", I'd try adding 1/2 a turn of fork rebound.

Then, over the next couple of weeks, repeat this process for all the damping adjusters. You will have to revisit ones u've previously adjusted because they are all affect eachother. But ull figure that out. This is really the only way to teach yourself anything w suspension, experiment systematically.

Good to know, thanks! I'll attempt to set mine up to recommended specs tomorrow morning and start playing with it during my ride and at the destination points.

 

[bruddakhan]

So, after watching a YouTube video and coming across THIS, I now understand with confidence how the suspension works and where I should start as far as setting it up.

Problem solved, at least for now

 

[stangmx13]

What recommended specs? Starting w the sag set to 35/32mm and the adjuster at halfway is as good a starting point as you'll find in the manual or online. Really, all settings are crap until you tune them for yourself.

That online guide isn't going to help you much right now. The author seems to be making the huge assumption that your bike is in the ballpark w springrates and geometry. Because of that, a lot of the descriptions of soft/hard consequences are incomplete or even incorrect.

In my experience, it's a bad idea to tell a rider that "too soft feels like this" and "too hard feels like that". Your mind ends up making up problems that might not exist and all your changes seem to "fix" those problems.