Suspension - General Information and Riders Input

INFORMATION   DAMPER OPERATION   SHOCK OIL                               Riders Input on Suspension Stuff You cant beat experience, and most often we learn from our mistakes, and some times the exercise is costly or hurts like hell, and of course we will dwell on hindsight often kicking ourselves for the mistake.   This section is intended for input by bike riders who have discovered situations concerning suspension the hard way, or for those of you with massive amounts of intelligence, or time to actually source various information. You are in effect contributing to the on going education. Including myself, and many others we desire your informative input, it might save others some grief, it should be beneficial to those starting out and most of all it will assist riders in a reasonable set up of their own bicycle suspension.   So, if you feel the need to share your suspension experiences please e-mail me your contribution and I will put it in here, supply your name too, its always cool to have acknowledgement, especially if you did learn the hard way.

- Increase bottom out resistants in a suspension fork by adding 5-10mm of suspension oil to each leg, this will reduce the internal air cavity (normally above the oil) and effect the last part of the compression stroke preventing bottom out. Applicable to coil or air spring forks with open oil bath damping.   - Decrease fork sag by using preload spacers on top of the coil spring. Applicable to coil spring forks.   - Too much preload on a coil spring will reduce usable travel, it will not increase the spring rate. Applicable to all coil springs, but not air springs.   - Usable travel on coil springs is the empty space between the coil wire, this measurement should be taken after sag preload is attained. Applicable to all coil springs. more information here   - Increase/decrease fork sag by adding/removing air. Applicable to air spring and air assist coil forks.   - Increase air spring rate by adding air. Applicable to air spring forks and rear air shocks.   - By adding a few drops of oil through the Schrader valve ( situated at the end of the reservoir ) on a Fox DHX 4.0 & 3.0 coil over shocks reduces the internal air cavity, this increases bottom out resistants and achieves the same results as winding in the blue adjuster on the DHX 5.0 models.    - Changing oil viscosity will effect both compression and rebound.    - Changing oil viscosity can effect platform valves and thier characteristics to overall damping.     - Increasing the oil height in a suspension fork will aid compression resistants but will increase rebound speed due to the increase in pressure from a reduced air cavity.    - ATF fluid ( Auto Transmission fluid ) is not recommended as a suitable substitute for suspension oil, apart from the inconsistent viscosity between manufactured batches, viscosity is not often relevant to whats stated on the container, also ATF appears to foam, encouraging aerated internals.    - Do not use suspension fluid with additives such as seal swell, the additives in the oil will destroy some internal parts in bicycle suspension damper internals.    - Oil viscosity will vary with temperature, consider changes to damping characteristics with normal extended use and climate temperatures.    - Suspension fluid can be effected by heat, although it is more likly to be effected by constant use as the repetitious cycle gradually wears internal damper parts, if the shock is left unserviced ( at regular intervals ) the contaminated oil will accelerate wear to the stage of premature shock failure.    - Not all new suspension units are supplied with a quality suspension fluid, if you do decide to upgrade your shock oil, flush the internals with the intended fluid before refilling and/or setting oil heights.