My current shock pump literally lets out 5-10 psi every time I disconnect the valve so it's very challenging to set my suspension up accurately. Do all pumps have this issue (to some extent)? I would imagine that at least a little bit of air would inevitably leak out at you disconnect any pump but I would imagine some are better than others. What are you guys using that works well?
Shock pump recommendation?
you'll always lose a bit of pressure connecting the pump as the hose and the gauge on the pump has to be primed/pressurized for the gauge to read what's in the shock and of course that air comes from the shock. considering that the volume of air held in most shocks is not all that high you're going to lose some shock pressure no matter what. in terms of set up i think the trick is to set your pressure, disconnect the pump and then reconnect it a couple time to see exactly how much the pressure drops, so you know how much you're losing when you connect your pump.
however it shouldn't be an issue when you disconnect the pump as the pressure you're losing is from the pump, not the shock. as you disconnect the pump the valve on the shock closes before the pump is disconnected so the air you hear leaking out is from the pump, not the shock. the reason the pump reads lower when you connect it again is for the reason i stated first - that the air in the shock is filling up the hose and the gauge on the pump. that "loss" should be consistent every time you connect the pump.
if you're really concerned about it though some pumps have a separate knob to release just the valve on the shock, and then the end of the pump can get screwed off the shock. this pretty much ensures no loss when taking off the pump. note that you'll still lose some pressure though when you connect the pump back up as the pump needs to be primed with air from the shock.
Thanks for the explanation! That makes a lot more sense to me now. Maybe I don't need a new shock pump.
Rockshox digital one is sweet though. Nice to see 172psi instead of somewhere between 160-180 or whatever the dial says
Posted by: Kevin26
Rockshox digital one is sweet though. Nice to see 172psi instead of somewhere between 160-180 or whatever the dial says
Yeah that always confused me... people talking about putting exactly X psi in their fork/shock and then you look at the dial on most pumps and it goes from like 0-300 psi and the whole dial is only 1 inch in diameter. Obviously the digital gauge would solve that problem. That Rockshox digital pump was the one I was thinking of upgrading to.
Same thing with sag... you watch an interview with some pro talking about their bike and they are like "I started with 32% sag but then tried 33% and it felt much better"... like how the hell can you accurately change the sag by 1%?!?!
Posted by: Bull_Dozer
Posted by: Kevin26
Rockshox digital one is sweet though. Nice to see 172psi instead of somewhere between 160-180 or whatever the dial says
Yeah that always confused me... people talking about putting exactly X psi in their fork/shock and then you look at the dial on most pumps and it goes from like 0-300 psi and the whole dial is only 1 inch in diameter. Obviously the digital gauge would solve that problem. That Rockshox digital pump was the one I was thinking of upgrading to.
Same thing with sag... you watch an interview with some pro talking about their bike and they are like "I started with 32% sag but then tried 33% and it felt much better"... like how the hell can you accurately change the sag by 1%?!?!
Agreed ^^
Also does outside temperature not affect pressure somewhat? Setting the air pressure inside then riding in 6 degree temp must affect the PSI.
https://ep1.pinkbike.org/p4pb14594485/p4pb14594485.jpg
https://www.sks-germany.com/en/nachrichten/shock-pump-sam-with-the-best-test-result/
I have the above style shock pumps , I prefer the top one over the bottom one . The S.A.M. I find tougher to pump with being such a short pump.
Posted by: JBV
how about the Lezyne shock digital drive.
hmm roughly $140 , might have to grab one , I don t mind buying decent bike tools.
OP here - tried to adjust the PSI in my shock for the first time in a while and that reminded me why I created this thread in the first place. Found it very challenging to get an accurate amount of PSI in the shock in the first place - the dial on my shock pump is only 1 inch in diameter and goes up to 300 PSI, so each 10psi increment is extremely small and hard to judge. Also, when I remove the pump I do hear a fair amount of air hissing out - I know there is a 2 stage air release usually so a lot of the air that you hear isn't actually coming out of the shock itself.... but long story short, I ended up having to do trial and error for about 10 tries to get a moderately accurate amount of sag.
What am I doing wrong here? Is it this hard for everyone? Or do I just need to invest in one of those high end digital pumps?
Suspension Worx uses or did use the SKS SAM so I picked one up as well.
Has dual chuck design to the air release doesn’t happen
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