Ive got 2 bikes, one with Fox Float 32 100mm and he other with BOS Deville TRC 160mm.

I’ve messed about with the suspension settings a fair bit over the last 12 months and I get the point of the compression and rebound setting, what I dont understand is how they work together and how you adjust one to compensate the other.

Its about time I learned. Can someone enlighten me?

Cheers

*sits and waits* I could do with learning this as well.

My understanding is a bit different.
In a good damping system compression and rebound damping will have differnt circuits from the other, so adjusting one should not need a compensation with the other. Ie they can be adjusted seperatley.

The only thing supporting the weight of the bike and the rider is the spring. The damping only only effects the way the spring compresses, or extends (in rebound).

You may want a lot of compression damping to slow the fork travel down after a landing, but little rebound damping to allow the fork to extend to full travel again quickly to prevent it packing down on repeated compressions.

There may also be high speed and low speed compression damping.
Seeems to be differnce in opinion in just what this means too. I tend to err against this being the speed the bike/rider is travelling, but more the speed that the fork / damper is forced to compress.

So if you rode slowly down a flight of large steep steps, the fork is going up and down quite slowly but using a lot of its travel for the large steps. In this instance I would use more low speed compression damping (to try to slow the fork moving through the travel and void pitching forward)and less rebound damping so the fork can extend before rolling over the next step.

Riding faster over smaller steps say a rock garden less high speed compression as the fork is moving up and down very quickly on only a small part of the travel.

For fasterspeed bike / jump landings the ramp rate of the spring (especially air springs) will provide some stiffening in the suspension and slow the speed of compression as it travels through the stroke.

In short for me, the rebound and compression damping are not adjusted to compensate for the other.

Over-simplified, low speed compression damping resists low frequency compression caused by pedalling (especially low cadence stomping) and pumping, whilst high speed compression damping resists high frequency compression caused by hitting squarer edged bumps quickly. Rebound damping is there to control the re-extension of the suspension after compression – the higher your spring rate, the slower (i.e. more damping) your rebound damping needs to be to avoid uncontrolled boinging.

Ok, hear what you are saying. However fox seem to suggest that (in air spring) if you ride with low pressure and use the benefits of full travel more, you need more rebound to compensate.

See here – http://www.ridefox.com/fox_tech_center/owners_manuals/011/index.html

Now, these are my 100m forks and TBH, I aint to bothered as I only use it on trails. My concern is that im about to take on a BOC Deville 160mm fork with a twin rate curve. Tuning this fork for the conditions is going to be so much more important.

I can’t find what you’re referring to. But if your fork is packing down then you need quicker rebound (less damping), whilst if your fork is bouncing you need slower rebound (more damping). The spring rate vs rebound thing I was referring to is more related to rider weight than to sag preference.

Don’t know what page you’re looking at in the Fox manual, but this one tells you how to adjust the damper to fix various problems

click

Set the sag first and then fiddle with compression and rebound.

Too little compression and the fork plunges through its travel easily and too much means you shake your fillings out as the fork doesn’t react to bumps.

Rebound sets the rate at which the fork extends after it’s hit a bump, too much and the fork packs down on long descents meaning you run out of travel as the spring cannot “recover” between hits, too little and the fork will “pogo” and top out (again feeling horrible).

It’s also very subjective as well, what works for one person won’t for another and what was good on the South Downs may not necessarily be good in the Alps or at a trail centre.

I like front rebound set fast and rear rebound set slow.

You may prefer different.

Just experiment with one click at a time and leave it when it feels right.

If you’re getting bucked over the bars every time you leave the ground, increase the front speed and decrease the rear rebound speed.

I tend not to touch the compression on the front unless I want lock out when riding uphill on road.

The BOS Deville has 30 clicks of asjustment for high and low compression and rebound.

Their recommended settings on all are “set to 15 and leave it alone”, and they work.

‘Bracketing’ is really useful for dialling in this stuff: http://www.leelikesbikes.com/setting-rebound-the-curb-test.html

This is useful.

This maybe has uncovered why my SID RLT’s feel wooden – I may need faster rebound than my Fox FIT 120 on t’other bike, after setting the pressure’s at the now notoriously lower-than-advised-by-rockshocks amount.

patriotpro – Member
I like front rebound set fast and rear rebound set slow.

+1

IMO, it’s this front-to-back balance that’s more important than any relationship between compression and rebound.

http://locotuning.co.uk/tech-info.html

As someone with a recent first FS and before that HT’s with coil forks, this thread is interesting.

Really appreciate that simple set up guide LoCo.

It’s just a shame injury currently means its all head knowledge at the moment. Can’t wait till I can actually try this out.

I usualy set the rebound first, and set it so that there’s barely any top-out ‘clunk’, then go for a ride and see, if it feels like it’s bouncing all over the place then slow it down a bit, if it’s packing down then speed it up a bit.

Then the compression (if there’s only one) I just set so that the fork sits at it’s sag point through sections with both high and low frequency hits (e.g. rocks on a steep slope) so that the forks reacting to the rocks not to the slope.

If there’s high and low adjusters set the low so that it’s just about perceptible (i.e. you can compress most of the fork with a hard pressup motion but not so much that you can’t pre-load the fork, and not so little that it bobs or dives), then the high speed to whatever feels right, I probably play arround with that adjuster more than any other, either really soft for cornering grip or hard for controll through rocky sections.

I like front rebound set fast and rear rebound set slow.

I like similar settings, although I wouldn’t describe mine as fast, just faster.

I think it’s far easier to compensate for crap forks than it is crap shocks, but forks make more of a difference to the ride (vs rigid, or hardtail), but (again) badly setup shocks are actualy dangerous (I can’t compensate for the rebound being too fast on jumps so it can nosedive horribly).

*added to favourites* for bedtime reading.

Yes my life is that dull 😕