I been srruggling to get my head around how the negative spring on the monarch plus debonair affects the spring rate.

I can visualise how the volume reducers affect the positive spring and the ramp up of rate at the end of the stroke, but how does a similar reduction in the negative spring affect the spring curve?

I think the thing thats confusing me is that the pressures are equalised at about 25% stroke, so a smaller negative spring volume should equal a higher pressure at full extension? Shouldn’t that make the small bump feel of the shock better?

Basically I’ve got these red rubber band thingies, should I put them in the negative spring to reduce volume?

I’ve got the same shock and really like it BUT it feels very different from the monarch plus I had before. With the monarch at 30% sag I was about 190psi on the debonair plus I’m at near 300 psi it feels great but even on drops 2/3 foot it does use the last 10mm (160mm rear travel) so I stripped the shock and mine has no bands in because my plan was to remove them if your bottoming out the shock add bands if not don’t and follow page 27 of the manual about pressureising the shock up in stages and pumping the shock through its travel at each stage…

The reviews talk about how good the large negative spring makes the shock feel, so why bother having the ability to reduce the volume?

I wasn’t sure if the ratio of positive to negative should stay the same to get the best out of the shock. Whether if you put 2 rings in the positive you should put 1 in the negative for example.

It felt OK with no spacers, a little too linear perhaps, so i figured I’d play about with the rings to see what happened! You can get the rings from chain reaction for £14 if you fancy having a fiddle with them.

Just in case anyone is interested, I’ve fiddled around with the shock a little and it does seem that by reducing the volume of the negative chamber it makes the shock a more supple in the initial part of the travel.

I’ve been impressed how much different you can make it feel by changing the spring curve.