I’ve played with the rebound, but not the compression, I thought this dial was purely to lockout the Fork, so this is always fully open, so my own ignorance isn’t helping. It’s a RC Pike, not a RCT3, but that shouldn’t matter??

The dial on the RCs is Low Speed Compression Damping. In theory this is supposed to isolate your body movement from the fork. In reality, it’s a balance. Too little and your body movement will bob the fork. Too much and you start to compromise the performance of the fork over bumps.
More also lets the fork ride higher, while in theory still allowing small bumps to be absorbed.
Definitely try adding some and see how it works for you. I have 13 clicks range and have it set to 5 on.

While it’s true many WC downhillers seem to run almost no sag and pretty slow rebound compared to guys on here, they still tend to use most of their travel in a race as they’re hitting everything bigger and faster than we are. If you look at VitalMTB they often have slideshows showing the racers bottoming out on the big stuff.

Also if you read articles from VitalMTB and PinkBike (and others) where they’ve tried riding the pro bikes they often say they are pretty difficult – damn near impossible to handle for the reporters as they’re not going fast enough to reap the benefits. Even Jared Graves said in a recent bike check that he’s started running softer suspension since switching to RS.

What’s the point of having 140/150/160mm travel and not using it on the bigger parts of your normal riding? If it’s set up right it’s ok to have 20-30% sag.

Tom KP

AlexSimon,

Your comments seem to backup my lunchtime reading\research, I’m going to try 4 clicks of compression and see how I get on. I’m fairly sure it will restore my confidence AND stop me from going over the bars (as much)

Cheers.