2011 team help

[driftking]

I have recently brought a new bike with 2011 teams or R2C2 which even you prefer to go by. I have put in the correct spring rate and used the 2010 team guide as a starting point, from there I have tweeked the forks but cannot seem to get them to a happy place, I have found they blow through travel quite a bit, I have been slowly playing with the compression and today got to a good place, however when I hit the rocky section of the trail I was loosing speed Which ended in me coming up short on a jump I have ridden plenty of times with no issues.
Now this is where it gets more complicated, due to increasing both my LSC and HSC the set us was improved such a great deal that I am now managing to use even more travel then previously due to increased speed on the trail, ussually I would go ahead and continue to increase compression however with the issue of loosing speed in the rougher stuff I don't think this is a ideal option. I have not played around with rebound much as the fork does not feel as though it is packing up or too fast. I am a light rider at approx 60kg and the fork is achieving about 20%sag with the light spring in it and my current compression settings.
Bottom line I am quite lost with this fork as I cannot find a happy medium with the forks compression and cannot seem to fix the excessive travel use.
Primarily I need to get the compression and rebound at a happy place before I can use the bumpstop for finer bottom out tuning. Any rebound tuning help would be greatly appreciated, i suck at rebound adjustment haha.

Hope some of you guys and girls out there can help us out with this one, I am not interested in putting a cartridge in the fork.

 

[Downhillrocks]

Hey mate I have got the same model of boxxers on my bike.

I found that when I first had the forks that I would get bogged down and feel really slow through rock gardens. Then a mate of mine which just came back from Camp Of Champions in Whilster told me that all the coachs over there said put you rebound on heaps. So i decide to put heaps of rebound on and it made me go through rocky rough sections so much faster. So turn you rebound up untill you think you have too much rebound. Then go ride a really rocky track and see how it feels.

Hope it helps mate.

 

[driftking]

Will do. How have you got the beginning and end stroke rebound set up? Both fast?

 

[lloydo]

try a medium spring?
for my weight they recommend a medium, but found it to soft so put in a firm and its great

 

[driftking]

I'm not within the upper limit of the compression setting yet and the sag is already at 20% so I don't think upping the spring rate is ideal, from what I gather a slower rebound is more ideal for a faster/racing ride. I will go to the extremes of rebound next ride to get a total grasp on it's effect. It feels like the boxers don't have enough midstroke support??

I will try bump up the HSC to help travel use, the LSC was the adjustment that made the ride harsher however It could have been that I was using too much travel again due to increased riding speed and need to up the compression further again. Unfortunately coming up short last ride resulted in a flat so my testing session was put to a end.
Continue with your feed back guys, even throw up your own settings could help.

I might even get some video footage to help identify the problem and really see what my travel is doing during the rough sections.

 

[mattvincent]

Go to a medium spring, weight distribution when going downhill places a higher weighting on the front forks which equates to excessive travel use. Throw the medium in and you will find the sag looks terrible on flat but as soon as you get onto the tracks it will perform much better.

 

[driftking]

Go to a medium spring, weight distribution when going downhill places a higher weighting on the front forks which equates to excessive travel use. Throw the medium in and you will find the sag looks terrible on flat but as soon as you get onto the tracks it will perform much better.

Im accually running a extra soft (silver) at the moment.
I'll deffinately try this as I have the soft spring ready sitting in the garage.Would upping the compression not do the same thing? Any advice in terms of rebound? Fast vs slower debate, I would assume the faster you ride the faster the rebound needs to be.

 

[haltz]

Rebound is a headfuck too slow it packs and you end up with no suspension by the end of a rocky or rough section too fast and it hits back at your hands and arms gives you arm pump and stands you up too early out of fast corners. It's not much help and it's comin from more of an mxer than a dher but I've spent weeks at a time testing my mx bikes and know how frustrating it can be (even more if you have a mechanic there Gettin sworn at) but ya need to work real hard to find that medium and try and concentrate on your front and back at the same time they work together so much more than you realize you can spend a day on your forks til they feel good then start on your shock and one change will throw you back to square one on your forks. In short your gonna be changing your suspension constantly and your gonna get frustrated with it haha

 

[mattvincent]

Im accually running a extra soft (silver) at the moment. Im only about 60kg which is approx 130lbs which is why i went with the extra soft <140lbs
I'll deffinately try this as I have the soft spring ready sitting in the garage.Would upping the compression not do the same thing? Any advice in terms of rebound? Fast vs slower debate, I would assume the faster you ride the faster the rebound needs to be.

No upping compression doesn't do the same thing, theoretically it should but it changes the feeling of the fork alot!. Running less compression will make the sensitivity of the fork much better. As im sure u already know the compression works by pushing oil through holes that can be reduced in size thus increasing the resistance that it takes to push the oil through, this process is very dependant on pressure of the oil, on harder hits the pressure in the oil will be increased and thus the total compression will be more harsh. The difference with springs is that they are relatively linear!. so basically try only using the compressioncontrols in the low to low-mid range.

As for rebound it does come down to personal preference, riding style and track. But you really want to find a happy medium. The faster the track does not necessarily mean faster rebound. Think about it like this. if your riding over many consecutive bumps i.e braking bumps and you rebound is fast then the return rate of the forks is going to be that it pushes the fork into the holes making a harsher ride. On the contrary if you run the fork too slow you will progressively use more and more travel which will put you into a turn with a very steep head angle and awkward geometry. This is what i mean bu a happy medium, you want the forks set such that they are not getting pushed into the harsh side of bump and are not packing up but are returning and skimming over the holes and bumps.

The worst thing you can do is be a fork Nazi! once you set the fork for a run dont change it during the run! many people fiddle with the fork endlessly but this approach gets you no where in understanding the change in performance between different settings.

Im not going to proof read this! so sorry any bad spelling or explanations. Feel free to PM me with questions driftking

 

[driftking]

Ok so I have come to a few conclusion in terms of fork set up.

-Adding preload spacers essentially will change the ride height of the bike and wont accually change the rate of the fork nor will it affect the rate that the suspension compresses.

-I am running 4clicks of LSC, 4 clicks of HSC and 14clicks of rebound. The fork uses about 85-90% of its travel in average rock gardens which still feels like too much for a average garden.

-My fork is still bottoming out on heavier front end landing or drops, increasing the LSC however makes the bike too stiff in corners,resulting in loss of traction.

In conclusion as some of you have already pointed out I will up my spring rate.
From what I gather this will do a few things.

1.Allow me to run less compression giving me better traction and small bump sensitivity while maintaining the correct ride height through corners and rock gardens.

2.Will stop the fork using excess travel in the rough, however will accually increase traction,smoothness and sensitivity due to been able to run lower compression

3.Reduce the amount of bottom out due to heavy front end landings

Although the extra stiffness and improved sensitivity seems contradictory it seems that this is correct.
Any one want to chime in with opinions?

 

[uzzi]

That was the most interesting read I have had on the setup of forks since, God Knows.
Thanks

 

[driftking]

That was the most interesting read I have had on the setup of forks since, God Knows.
Thanks

Interesting good or bad?

 

[uzzi]

good, this is why i joined this forum to get some practical knowledge, something i can use out on the trail and this conversation has definitely changed my mindset

 

[driftking]

So just thought I would update this incase it gets dug up by someone else.

I ended up going up a spring rate as a few of you suggested and it worked great, immediately even in the car park I felt much better and could tell the bike was sprung correctly.

My following settings are as follows as of now.

spring: soft (yellow)
LSC: +9
HSC: +5
BSR: +8 (from full fast position)
ESR: +7
bumpstop: took it out so zero.

I still need to play with my rebound a little (purely test curiosity) and my HSC might be a little soft at the moment but right now they feel pretty close to perfect.
This was done like a week after I just never thought about updating it until now