still mystified by this and no locos guide tells me nothing! Tell me a fool proof method for front and rear

4 clicks on. Sorted.

4 clicks on. Sorted.

Works for me.

Firstly, set you spring rate (or air pressure) to get the correct amount of sag. Rebound controls the mass of the wheel/tyre/unsprung parts of suspension, and therefore changes markedly with the spring rate that is used to acclerate those masses.

What i do, to get a starting point, is to stand next to the bike, push the fork/shock down as hard as i can, then try to lift the bike back off the ground as fast as you can. A good starting point is to set the rebound just slow enough so that the tyre only leaves the ground when the fork/shock tops out. i.e. if you have too much rebound, you can lift the bike faster than the fork/shock can extend, and so you can lift the tyre of the ground before the suspension tops out.

Generally, i find this gets me within a couple of clicks of what i want for any given spring rate / air pressure. You might want to go a few clicks faster to get it a bit “poppier” or a few clicks slower if you are doing large single bump impacts (like learning to jump for example, where you know each big hit is not immediately followed by another)

wind it halfway, then a few clicks faster

All depends on the pressure in the shock or the spring rate!

Try tftuned in youtube, there used to be a quick vid to get you started.

wind it halfway, then a few clicks fasterslower

this isn’t me saying iainc is wrong, merely highlighting how riding style usual terrain and bike can change what works for one person to another. Mid point is usually a good starting place. from there trial and error, just be aware how many clicks in you are, while you muck about. If it feels good, count the clicks to lowest/highest point. And write it down, we all think we’ll remember, then its 12 months later and you haven’t a clue where the sweet spot was. for example, in sweet spot now with my Lyrik, but now I type this, no idea where that sweet spot actually is…

You rebound setting will be dictated by

A: Your spring rate (which in turn is determined by your body weight)
B: Your damping fluid viscosity
C: And to a lesser degree the terrain

To check my rebound I push down on the bars as hard possible, then keeping my hands flat on the grips (not curled round the grips), bring my hands up. Ideally, as a base adjustment, you want the grips to stay in contact with your hand. Slow your rebound right down first and adjust for less damping/faster movement until you reach that goal.

@maxtorque: How do you know if the wheel has left the ground. I’ve tried this approach and I could never tell if the wheel had left the ground before it topped out (and came off the ground anyway) or not.

@TruckerUK: How fast do you pull your arms up?

I just fanny around with it til it feels right. Used to go by “if you can feel the suspension top out, it’s too fast” but that doesn’t always work.

The Tim Flookes guidance was keep it a bit faster than middle so it doesn’t pack down, hence my first post, but yeah, needs to be what suits you, bike and terrain.

1 Ignore people who give you a number of clicks etc. – Shocks, bikes & tunes are all different. So are people.
2 Decide what you like
3 try it out
4 Fiddle with it
5 Redefine 2 & repeat 3 -5 until happy

Feel free to change it during a ride or for each ride depending on the terrain.

Trial and error, find a section of trail that features several different kinds of impacts such as big square edged and also lots of smaller chattery ones. If you have 10 clicks of adjustment, for example, ride trail with 0 clicks then ride again with 10 clicks, which feels better? If 10 clicks then ride trial back to back with 10 clicks and 5 clicks. If 5 feels better this time then ride back to back with 5 and 8 clicks. Keep doing this until there is no adjustment left and voila, you have set your rebound.

I’ve heard of people putting a ladder on the ground and riding along it to set up rebound. It apparently works well But I’ve not tried it

very simple..

1). dump suspension fork in bin or on SWMBO’s bike
2). fit rigid fork
3). purist nichista the **** up

Yunki, you missed out:

4)start thread on whether a Ti stem and carbon bars remove trial buzz.
5)start thread debating thin grips or fat grips for numb hands
6)start a ‘what gloves’ thread.

I used to aim for as fast as possible as the old guidance used to recommend, which was about halfway + 2. Now I set it to fully open and add from there which tends to be about 4-5/12. As said above it’s relative to the other settings, terrain and style of the rider. I’m a skinny bloke on a 150mm HT and the softer approach allows me to make better use of the fork. Suspension units are designed to take some big biffers on board, I don’t need the spring rate/damping/rebound of a heavier rider so my settings tend to be within the bottom 1/4 of the range for each. I also find Rockshox’ spring rates to be quite keen, so I often run a smidge softer.

It takes me a couple of rides and twiddles before I leave the knobs alone, I wouldn’t trust a quick snappy way to adjust as there are lots of variables. As you’re talking about FS bikes too the rear linkage is going to change the way the same shock behaves in frame X or Y so the same setting may not be relevant despite being the same model, rider and trail. However, the info gives you a staring point.

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/To-The-Point-Rebound-Damping-2013.html

I tend to start near full-open and then add a click (or two/more) until its not working as well as it was… and then back off a click (or two). Similar with compression… for me less is more.

roverpig

@maxtorque: How do you know if the wheel has left the ground. I’ve tried this approach and I could never tell if the wheel had left the ground before it topped out (and came off the ground anyway) or not.

There is a bit of a knack to it of course. Start by setting full rebound and then you can lift the bike up pretty slowly and see the fork continue to extend whilst you hold the front wheel off the ground. Then a couple of clicks at a time, reduce the rebound, and you will have to lift the bike faster and faster. Generally you can feel the “top out” thunk through the bars which helps work out what’s going on.

Usually 4 or 5 clicks.

Just to remember you can set the range for you and the bike, but the exact settings can change from ride to ride depending on what your riding and how your going. I will add a couple of clicks either way front and back depending on what I’m riding

Thanks maxtorque, I’ll give that a go.

I can’t comment on rear suspension but with forks I’ve noticed that it’s fairly easy to tell when the rebound is too slow because the forks don’t push back properly. It is easy to set them too fast though – and I’ve noticed when that’s the case I find the bike understeers in loose corners, as the fork extends mid-way through the corner in response to the initial compression under cornering force.

I presume it’s preferable to err on the slower side with rear sus but the faster side with forks, as packing down at the back increases stability whilst packing down at the front does the reverse.

You do not want your rebound too fast, nor too slow.
Your rear wheel need to track.
Like others have said you need to set the shock to suit your weight first then play about from there.

What forks and shock are you on about and what make of bike?

pitch – rp2 (pushed), coil lyriks with mico dh and dual flow rebound
12 stone plus kit

Where does Dual flow come into this then as there are two rebound circuits where you can afford to have the beginning of the stoke very slow without effecting your main rebound. 😉

I use a method for the rear that was described in an old Giant Bikes manual.

Set the correct sag.
Then start off with the rebound fast & ride slowly off a large kerb edge & count how many times the rocker/linkage bounces.
Then keep riding off the kerb & increasing rebound until the rocker just bounces once.
From there just add or subtract a click to suit your preference on the terrain you ride.

The lapsed engineer in me is refusing to let this go…

I need to corret maxtorque’s post above. The rebound damping has nothing to do with the unsprung mass (i.e the wheel/tyre/swingarm/etc).

The rebound damping controls how quickly the sprung mass (i.e. the rider and the bike frame) are pushed back up by the spring after the spring has been compressed by an impact.

This doesn’t help with setting it of course. Some of the advice above is as good as anything, there is no right answer. One good suggestion I heard a while back (from Tim Flooks’ site, I think) was to err on the side of too fast for the fork and too slow for the shock, as it’s better to have the shock pack down slightly, giving you slacker angles.

Stevo, there is a converse to your point – when you ride over a heavily potholed surface or rock garden or similar, you don’t want the fork to rapidly extend from its sagged position or actively compressed position, into the holes. Yes, you want the wheels to track the ground but not to the extent that they have to climb over more bumps rather than skimming them. And in that scenario the unsprung mass vs spring rate is a key factor.

There is no substitute for learning to feel how your rebound works, find a bit of flat rough ground, ride with no rebound, then with full rebound, then experiment with settings in between, you’ll feel it when it’s working right.
Or leave it somewhere in the middle-ish..

Does it try buck you off the bike when you get the smallest amount of air between both wheels or on a landing? If no leave it.

Although to a certain extent, it’s a preference thing, I turn rebound to its slowest setting (fully clockwise on Fox) then work back til the bike feels balanced.

But I like fast front, slow rear. You may be different.

robhughes
Where does Dual flow come into this then as there are two rebound circuits where you can afford to have the beginning of the stoke very slow without effecting your main rebound

I use the dual flow the other way round. I prefer to have the beginning of the stroke faster to stop the fork packing down while the factory set end rebound tune stays slow enough not to buck me off the bike when I take a big hit.

On my single flow rebound forks I prefer to set the fork up slower. As I’d rather the fork packed down than bucking me off.

rob jackson – The idea is to have it not too slow so you forks pack down on repeated bumps and not to fast so your forks don’t spring back and buck you off the bike.

But the boundary for too slow or too fast will be personal to you. use the guides by people above as a rough area and experiment from that. Don’t be afraid to adjust too far and go back. You don’t always know where the line is until you have crossed it.