Intersted in whether people set their shocks to bottom out only on the biggest hits, whether it’s many times a ride and whether it’s just the forks or rear or if you try to achieve a ‘balanced’ travel so they bottom out together?

I try to get it to be 2 or 3 times a ride – that’s just about impossible to get right, though

Rachel

I know, it all depends, I guess it’s more the aim I’m interested in.

I only bottom my shock on decent DH track sized drops but I can never bottom my forks out except in a crash. The shock I setup to do so but with the fork, when it’s set at the correct sag, I can never normally get through about the last inch of travel. It’s annoying.

why would you aim to do it?

?? surely when you set you set your bike up, there’s an aim, that’s what I’m intersted in…

getonyour bike – yes, that’s what I’m finding hence the question.

I’d aim to bottom out occasionally – otherwise it’s not setup properly. There’s no point buying 150mm forks if you only ever use 120mm…

I find it quite difficult to get that balance with my Revelations though – at 90 psi I frequently use all the travel but at 95psi I leave about 2cm. I guess logic says use 92.5psi.

Lots of people say “if you don’t bottom it out every ride, it’s wasted travel and set up wrong”. But that only works if you only ever ride one trail. My main bike’s set up to do anything I ask of it so it’ll bottom out on bigger hits but won’t get close on my local XC rides.

So, answer is infrequently, and both.

Around once a day of riding I shall say, less for the fork, as I’d rather have it a tad on the hardish side so I still have some travel while cornering

I use more travel on my local XC rides that I ever would hucking off a 4 foot drop. And I wouldn’t do a drop bigger than that on my XC bike, it wouldn’t thank me.

Every ride going down some steps.

Current forks I am yet to bottom but I am Going o swap the oil out for something lighter. Compression is a bit on the harsh side even wide open.

Back end I get near full travel on most rides.

Most rides I reckon. I will normally jump of something during a ride and get close to bottoming out the travel.

I think I bottomed-out a coil fork once, in nose-bonk style crash. Never bottomed-out an air shock – they just seem to ramp-up a lot more.

I’ve only bottomed out forks once or twice on nose heavy landings. Shock never bottoms out as I have it set up quite stiff and with the bottom out control set to be tough – I prefer my bike to feel a bit stiffer at the back as I’ve always ridden hardtails so it feels better to me.

Is this a thread to encourage “overbiked” comments?

I don’t believe in running more sag than recommended to achieve your “moneys worth”. You’ve paid your money to have someone clever to design the bike to ride well around a certain range of sag, go outside this recommended, the bike won’t ride as intended and no doubt inferior to intended. You ruin the pedaling and the geometry. I view it as you’re wasting your money, setting up and using it in a manner which results in an inferior bike. If you don’t use all the travel ever, with the correct sag, you have too much travel.

As someone else, my bike is for everything, that’s XC ride through to large “freeride” drops.

I have 160mm travel, 20-25% sag.

So on a xc ride, the most travel i’ll expect to see used is around 75%.

When i’m freeriding, i’ll expect to bottom out on a sketchy landing, on landing smooth i don’t expect to bottom out. My 10+ years of BMX mean i am quite consistently smooth though.

So i expect to use all my travel only on big hits. I balance my suspension so it feels “balanced”, maybe having the rebound marginally slower on the rear.

16 times every ride but only on the BIGGEST HITS!

i get full travel once or twice at herts but never bottom out if that makes sense 🙂

I’m kind of with Jedi on this, so far I’m getting max(ish) travel front and rear, without ever bumping out.

If I had f & r any softer, for me it would be too soft.

Besides surely if you are continualy hitting bump stops (or whatever it is in bike suspension) would you not be damaging the suspension unit where it bumps and due to the impact?

i once bottomed out my monster Ts …. that was scary thought they had snapped the noise they made…..

was hitting a compression at the bottom of a rock drop at alvie – immediately into a kicker and the drop + kicker compression just made an almighty clatter and the jarring through my wrists was immense – after the adrenalin stopped (it was a race run) i had very sore hands.

Only ride hardtails – suspension set to reach almost all the travel on the biggest things I hit. Have occasionally bottomed out hard when getting something wrong

I’m not so sure having 150mm or whatever of travel means you should bottom it out. Its like any car thats capable of a given ‘top speed’ but you wouldn’t always push it to that, you tend to stay in the range somewhere.

It can’t do a shock or fork much good to bottom out hard like that so I reckon the best setting is to make it hard enough so you don’t bottom out under normal circumstances.

I once did a service on my Fox aircan and the rubber bottom-out stop on the end of the shaft had disintegrated, proof enough for me that I hadn’t put in enough air and bottoming it out wasn’t doing it any good..

As above. Often use all my rear travel without complete bottoming out. I don’t think I’ve ever bottomed the front except during crashes.
I only seem to use about 75% of my front travel most of the time.

Mostly only bottom out the forks on sketchy landings otherwise try to keep it in the 75% of max travel range which for me anyway gives a good balance of small and large hit compliance and a comfortable fun ride… Rear Gets maxxed out a bit more often bit still not what you’d call regularly. (575 with revs on the front and an RP23 on the back

That sounds like we’re all doing it pretty much the same then

I never knowingly bottom out but I seem to get full travel almost every ride. Which is really cool when I think about it.