One of the Fox techs at an EWS I raced suggested near full open compression for me too. I ended up using a Smashpot and that allowed me to use the damper much better.
Who the hell does fox tune their forks for?
Am I the only one bothered that the ideal solution to get your $1300CAD fork working right is to buy a $400 coil conversion or air spring upgrade? If I had to buy an upgrade worth 1/3 the value of the product itself I'd probably sell that product, put the $400 on top and get something actually designed to perform the way I wanted it to.
Posted by: RAHrider
Anyone else have this same experience? I am going to get the shim stack tuned with my next service. Don't even get me started on how overdampened my wife's suspension is always.
My technique on all my forks [MRP/Fox/SRAM] is to open the HSC/LSC fully. I'm ~180-190lbs out of the shower depending on time of year. I've never wanted more compression damping unless I was on the road for a good long time. That said I haven't felt that the wide open compression damping setting was still too aggressive on any of these forks.
I think it's just very personal how one likes their suspension to work (in addition to weight, riding style etc.).
I've always ended up with settings that are wildly different from the manufacturers' recommendations or settings posted in reviews and bike checks. It seems that I especially run my forks very soft and open, lineair, and with fast rebound. I'm pretty light and not a super fast or aggressive rider. Cam is lighter than me I think and when I did the parking lot test on his Zeb fork it felt almost like a rigid fork to me! 😳
Posted by: [email protected]
I've always ended up with settings that are wildly different from the manufacturers' recommendations or settings posted in reviews and bike checks.
Same here. I don't look at the manufacturer's recommendation for my suspension and just set it up based my preferences. Ocassionally I'll look later on when it's raining out and I am bored. It's funny how different their suggestions usually vs. what I like.
Other than sitting on someone else's big to validate sizing I don't bother demoing them. The setups are usually so far off it's not going to tell me much and people get annoyed when you adjust 10 different things on their well dialed bikes!
Last edited by: Vikb on March 13, 2021, 12:30 p.m., edited 1 time in total.
Posted by: craw
Am I the only one bothered that the ideal solution to get your $1300CAD fork working right is to buy a $400 coil conversion or air spring upgrade? If I had to buy an upgrade worth 1/3 the value of the product itself I'd probably sell that product, put the $400 on top and get something actually designed to perform the way I wanted it to.
I agree. But obviously finding that out after buying a fork, you lose more at resale than the cost of the conversion.
I'm in the 220 range and had been using manufacturer recommendations...until I found Suspension Therapy in North Van. Arthur is the suspension whisperer and spent a handful of hours with me tuning it all and the bike road completely differently. I had been thinking that I would need a custom shim-stack before spending time with him - I've had him tune two bikes it was the best couple of hundred dollars I've spent on a bike.
I'm not sure he's doing in-person at the moment w Covid restrictions, but it may be worth reaching out as he could likely help over do a zoom.
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