Video: Pro MTB Suspension Setup (Bracketing Properly) | How To Bike Season 2 Episode 2

 underrated comment! Tire pressure can dramatically alter how you perceive your suspension performance.

 @Ironchefjon: and tyres themselves. Have to have a fiddle with the knobs when I switch from trail tyres (EXO) to alpine holiday mode (supergravity). Dont know if thats sidewall stiffness, added unsprung weight, or pressure as I'd be a little bit softer on the supergravities.

 just came to say that this comment has not gone unappreciated

 aha

 Shoot thanks for the reminder, I literally went straight to the comments like usual and it's burning data as I type

 chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/autoplaystopper/ejddcgojdblidajhngkogefpkknnebdh

 Hearing complaints about autoplay, getting older.

 @weirc: Safari also has a setting to block all autoplay

 @TannerValhouli: how about those Yeti prices tho

 Big wise

 Yes RS suggest 90 psi for me and that is too harsh on the hands and wrists and rarely reach full travel unless i drop to flat .70/75 psi is the sweet spot . Vouilloz once said in a interview that he did not set the correct sag and he just went on feel .

 Good info here. +1

 @rideronthestorm1: I think opinions diverge on this, but IMO you shouldn't reach full travel unless you indeed drop to flat. Full travel is for the extreme cases, either drop to flat or big jumps, etc.

 @rideronthestorm1: I guess its all about riding style, I run my suspension setup like I weigh twice as much. The recommended settings are wayy too soft

 @Will-narayan: Yes perhaps i need to pay more attention to my set up and experiment more with volume spacers and tyre pressures but suspension set up always seems to be a compromise even more so with air springs i find .

 I generally agree but sag on fork is sketchy at best, massive difference between measurements, balance and feel is much more relevant and highly dependent on bike setup, terrain, rider HEIGHT and several other variables.

Also Ben called it "static" sag, what he measured was "rider sag", not static....static is usually reserved for moto's where in a static position w/o rider, the bikes sag under their own weight where bicycles generally dont.

 @Will-narayan: 100% agree....it's like buying a 200mm DH bike riding it on a XC course and setting the suspension to blow through all it's travel. You may only use 50% of the travel on an easier track, nothing wrong with that and to your point, you need reserve travel for the big oh &$*@ moments.

 That is a very stiff set up that would rattle my fillings out mate .

 @Will-narayan: This is absolutely wrong. If you are not bottoming out your suspension on the hardest hits of your normal ride, why are you even running the travel that you are? There's a reason you have suspension travel, that is to use it not to have reserves.
Obviously this is not applicable to some leisure ride, but you should be bottoming out occasionally. You also shouldn't be constantly bottoming out, but if you're never bottoming out then your suspension is set up improperly.

 Fair,
But mentioned first was service of the suspension bits, and bearings. That’s always first, and honestly most overlooked.

Get your suspension serviced people, bearings, and bushings included!

 @onawalk: its amazing what even a quick lower job will do to small bump compliance.

 @nickfranko: I disagree but its your suspension. Stiff booter for life

 @nickfranko: I think you are reading into his comment a bit too much, full travel should be reserved for the extreme situations, like he said. Are you going to change pressure if you are riding easy trail vs harder ones? Shouldn't need too, and therefore you won't be bottoming out on the easier ones.

Many of us ride 160mm travel bikes on gnarly black diamond stuff (Whistler mountain) where we may bottom and then spend a day riding more bellow stuff (valley trails) that we wouldn't bottom out on, which is ok.

He's right.

 Also, brand new suspension takes some time to settle in to "real sag", as seals and bushings soften a tad from use. So if everything is brand new and you set it up following the chart it will feel more harsh than with the same settings a bit further down the line

 @rideronthestorm1: Setting spring rate based on feel is the only proper way to do it. The actual sag figure is just a by-product.

 Going for a back country epic or a quick after work rip or a day in the bike park?
One lot of settings isn’t going to cut it.

 @rideronthestorm1: Vouilloz was once a multiple world champion. I guess his settings do not relate to average rider.

 Can't confirm. Spot on on pressure, 1 click to slow on rebound with the new Zeb

 @nickfranko: you're actually pretty much right about this but it doesnt really work in a lot of cases as so many people are well 'over-travelled- for the trails they regularly ride.
All the people running 170mm on easy trails will never bottom out even if it's ridiculously soft. They are the people downvoting you I guess!

 @sheepsfootchoilbelly: Yup', with 170mm on my full-sus ebike I am over-travelled for my skills, yet it's nice to have a bit of spare travel (I'm the one Nickfranco was replying to btw).
But on my 150mm hardtail the other day I almost bottomed out on a compression in a deep.

Also suspensions are progressive to some extent, so the last bit of travel is more than it appears to be.
And bottoming out is probably not good for the bike, I prefer to have 170 and never bottom out, than have 150 and bottom out on every ride.
But I won't set my 170mm so soft so as to use all the travel all the time.

 @Will-narayan: I paid for full travel, I gonna use full travel

 @nickfranko: couple questions for ya,
Do you always ride the same trail, or trails?
Are they always the same type, flowy blue berms, green transitions, black jump jump trails, steep tech jank?
What about different areas, or with different people, or maybe you’re just not feeling 100, or maybe you’re feeling like a superstar one day.
Or maybe you prefer the support, or a super cush ride, or you’re doing loads of techy climbing, or smooth fire road climbs….
Do you see that there are loads of different situations, types of terrain, circumstances, etc.

It’s all a compromise, making definitive comments, and telling others they’re wrong isn’t helpful or constructive. You might be looking at it with a little too much focus, and maybe not considering the whole picture. External adjustments, allow us to quickly, and with great repeatability make changes to bike suspension for lots of different terrain, elevations, and who you’re riding with.
It would be silly to set up my suspension for a bike park day, and use that setup for a blue berm filled day with some kids who I’m coaching.

None of it is absolutely wrong, it’s just different, and there’s lots we can all learn.

 Then you should also know what a customer is: definition - a person who buys goods or a service. The keyword here is 'buys'. This is a free website with free content.

 @kootenayrider: yeah, free website means we are the product. Advertisers are the customers.

 Just use some fine grit sandpaper, the lower the number the better, 80 or 60 grit works well, if you can find 40, it’ll take longer to sand out the the Mark’s, but leaves you with a much better finish….

 @onawalk: uhhhhhhhhhhhh

 @Kfdona: whoooosh

 @hessiannate: look up you might still catch it

 @Kfdona: fu$kin ‘don’t know how it works up there”
Yeah it’s way different here in Canada when it comes sandpaper grit, metal gauge, toilet paper layers, and so on. You’d need to learn a whole different way of life just to get through, prolly a helmet as well

 :-))))

 @onawalk: yes they also work on rims that had some cuts on them

 Topeak one i have is over 4 years old and is consistent.

 Fox is a good one
Or WP makes same one but cheaper price since it says WP instead of Fox on it
It’s a moto company

 Most are made by the same company (why the heads all look the same). Just buy a cheap one from Amazon.

 In the UK we have Lifeline branded one, it's about £35 and is identical to the £70/80 Fox/Rockshox etc. I'd imagine there's lots of cheaper brands in US too.

 Why do you need a digital shock pump?

 @onawalk: not so much a "need" issue but a "want," my analog pumps work but they are sometimes a pain to read....getting old I guess (or lazy)

 @SATN-XC: that’s fair,
I swapped out the small gauge on my pump for a larger one, works great

 www.youtube.com/pinkbike

 @brianpark: Please for the love of all things holy, stop auto play.

 @brianpark: the hat that Ben’s wearing, where is it from?

 I swear I’ve seen Jordi do it in Fox videos

 Well, there's another better reason not to do that, but yeah, you might blow up the hose on the pump. which is exciting but avoidable.

 Just watch the dial when compressing: if it spikes to the max/limit then you could have an issue, if not, should be fine. I've done it forever and never had a problem.

 It is a non-issue. The factor of safety on a pump will be loads higher than you will be able to increase by compressing by hand. Might cause issues with very low quality analog gauges from topping them out IF you were to exceed the pressure significantly. Digital gauges will not have a problem.

Worth noting that compressing the suspension to equalise the pressure between positive and negative is mandatory when checking pressures or you will have meaningless readings. On many shocks you can actually hear the equalisation (especially when inflating a significant amount such as from zero). Also if you are inflating from zero you should equalise along the way.

 I broke mine once doing exactly this (the coupling on the hose failed).

I've since done as @kcy4130, only reason for not taking it off is trying to equalise the +ve/-ve chambers without disconnecting the pump each time.

 Damn I've done this a bunch when equalizing the pos/neg chambers. Didn't even know it was potentially bad..

 @DylanH93: To be fair it was an old pump and had likely spent too many nights in cold/wet sheds/garages.

Pumps will be tested to at least another 50% of the maximum value on the gauge so again, most likely you're fine. Having said that I wouldn't pressure up a rear shock to 200psi+ then go jumping on the back end...

 @RoboDuck: 100%. Forgot to cycle my fork once when inflating after a rebuild and it was completely locked out. Created a few tense moments until I realized this. I do have a complaint regarding shock pumps - can there be a better connection to avoid the inconsistent loss of air when disconnecting. I get that fact and do it a number of times to figure out the difference but it seems to always fluctuate. And yes, I’m using a high quality RS digital pump.

 @ismellfish: I'm going to go ahead and ask...but you realise the air escaping when you unthread the pump is the air from the pump right, not the fork/shock/post?

 @ismellfish: You *probably* aren't actually leaking air on the pump disconnect but actually losing a bit on the reconnect. All the digital shock pumps (90% of which are from the same manf.) have a zero loss coupling; the hiss you hear when removing is the shock pump hose dumping its air. As the couplings wear I do find they can leak a little, you could probably replace the o-ring inside the schraeder valve to help this.

If you are seeing the pressure drop between readings it is because when you attach the pump some air is needed to pressurise the hose. If you need to get a clean reading of current pressure a trick I use is to gently thread the pump on until you just feel the hose engage. Then you can do a couple of small pumps to pressurise the hose close to what you expect the fork/shock to be at. Then you give it a quick turn and take a final reading.

 Fox recommends removing it, Sram recommends keeping it on when checking sag.

 @RoboDuck: good to know I’ll try that method out.

 @RoboDuck: P.S. Should have Googled this a long time ago: enduro-mtb.com/en/air-loss-shock-pump
“The more you know……”