Monarch Plus crazy high air pressure?

Hi, hope you can help with something. I’ve had a Monarch Plus rc3 with a debonair sleeve for about 4 weeks – I got it with my new codeine from on one. The bike is great and the shock is ok but I am finding that I have to run about 300 psi to get 30% sag, which seems crazy high to me.

I’m no featherweight at 95kg and the shock can take 350 psi max. It feels ok as well but it makes me nervous that it needs so much pressure to get to that level of sag – to get to 25% would get near the maximum but it’s really difficult to even pump more air at that kind of pressure. I just worry that the seals won’t cope and I know that I have never had to run those kind of pressures on any other shock I’ve had.

I’ve spoken to on one – their line was that since its within the maximum pressure it’s fine – and I’ve tried rockshox volume reducing bands in the air sleeve but they have not affected the pressure required. I’d be interested to know if anyone else has this shock and what kind of pressures it’s running at – especially on a codeine but also on any other bike.

Thanks

Try a different shock pump mebbe – might be your gauge at fault?

300psi sounds wrong tho, like a seal has gone inside it (air and oil cavitating).

Edit: I’m no suspension technician but had a DHX air that needed about 280 psi to get the sag right and it had been cavitating

The Debonair sleeve needs much higher pressure due to the greater negative spring volume, you also need to make sure you equalize the negative spring. it sounds like maybe you have not got this.

Remove all the air and then inflate to 100psi, compress past the sag point a few times to charge the negative spring, then inflate to 150psi and compress past the sag point etc. keep doing this and increasing the pressure until you get correct sag.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the suggestions – I have tried to charge the negative chamber but maybe haven’t got it right? I’ll have another go and if that’s no good it may have to go back to on one. I don’t want it exploding beneath me somewhere out on a trail!

I’ve just got a monarch debonair on my new bike (canyon strive) and I was surprised by the pressure required. I needed about 230psi (I’m 12st).

I’ve got a Vorsprung Corset on my Float X and due to the bigger negative spring pressures have jumped quite a lot from my previous settings – don’t see 300 PSI being that unreasonable.

I’ve got a debonair plus shox, I spoke to sram about the v high pressures.
And that even on big drops I wasn’t using full travel. They advised to run more sag. So at 35% it’s now using all the travel on 3+ foot drops and feels fantastic and very plush

Yep, after a bit of digging around I concluded that I should be running it with around 35% sag and that the high pressure seems to be normal. I think I just didn’t know enough about the shock when I first set it up. Thanks for the help – I’m much happier about it now.