Struggling to get this set up on the Capra.

Running 25% sag it seems super harsh and lots of travel left, also stays up too far in travel for steeper stuff. Tried the bands (4 off), then 3,2 and now I’m down to 1. dropped pressure when bands were in and it was a bit wallowy.

I’ve also had to back the rebound off a fair bit too, as it seems to kick forward off jumps a bit much.

I’m up just shy of 200psi IIRC for info.

Monarchs are shit.

Sell it, buy a coil X2 or a float X2 – but I’m prejudiced against air.

But if you must keep it, if it was kicking you off jumps and is now packing down because you dropped the rebound – try increasing increasing the front rebound/decreasing sag to balance it out. Suspension is dynamic, you do something to the fork and it can affect how the rear feels as well – in terms of chassis balance.

I found that when I rode around the slight bucking sensation with my Monarch off lips, it felt a lot more composed through rock gardens. I just altered my jumping style a bit.

I’ve not got any bands in mine and at just under 13st in my pants, I’m running 170psi and 30% sag.

Seems pretty good to me, although it did feel harsh for the first few rides. I’ll check later, but I think I’m running 3 clicks from fully open on the rebound. I get close to full travel most rides.

I have been struggling with mine since it was changed under warranty. I was always happy with the old one apart from it bottoming out on bigger drops and jumps. It ended up failing and when I got the new one I experimented with tokens. I found that the opposite was happening to what logic tells me should be happening. I tried 2, 4 and 6 tokens and I could solve the bottoming out problem but the bike felt like a hard tail on smaller stuff I have been messing with air pressure, tokens and rebound settings for the last few months and not been happy with anything I have tried. In the end I got fed up and took out all the tokens. Inflated to the frame manufacturers recommended settings and it now feels like a new bike again. I think I just have to accept that I will never get a setup that’s good for both trail riding and 12ft drops on a dh track.

That’s because the bikes now more linear, you’ll be using more travel on high speed hits with less sag and less progressiveness – but still have decent midstroke support.

The same was recommended to me on another thread – there have been quite a few recently on shock/fork performance that I’ve either commented on or started. It’s worth having a look – I’ll see if I can find the links.

But monarchs aren’t designed for 12 foot drops on downhill tracks, they’re only basically adjustable – a downhill shock is usually more sensitive so that you can run them harder and because the damping circuits are more complicated and less spikey you are less reliant on the spring to dial the shock in and can run the fork more on the damping circuits. Trail bikes are where rally cars were back in the 90’s, where the spring was used for support – the downhill shocks are coming closer in terms of performance to where rally car shocks are now – where they can run massive amounts of compression and softer springs without the associated spiking. What we really need are three chamber air shocks or a wide choice of progressive springs so that we can really dial in the mid stroke support and bottom out resistance to exactly how we want. The progressiveness in current dual chamber air shocks, starts far to early – shock progression that starts much later but becomes aggressively progressive would be better.

I’ve found it hard to get to a sweet spot with Monarchs on long travel bikes. Two or three shocks all felt a bit wallowy in the open mode when set up to allow full travel.

In the end I find it works best if I leave the compression lever in pedal model most of the time (middle setting) – makes it feel much more lively.

Speaking to a pal who rides a lot more than me, it turns out he does the same on his 160mm bike.

Maybe worth a try?

If you are having to run the shock on the middle setting, you need to get it reshimmed.

Or you can just ride it on the middle setting, and save the money.

Just checked and I’m 5 clicks from fully open…

Why spend thousands on a bike that comes with a Monarch RT3 Plus and not have it setup properly for 100 odd quid?

I don’t get this obsession with having expensive bikes but being unwilling to spend comparatively little on actually getting the shocks and forks setup properly.

The middle setting will choke the shock on high speed hits, getting it more heavily shimmed won’t.

I just don’t think there’s that much more to come out of the shock and I prefer to put the money in my “saving for an X2” fund.

And if it’s feeling good and riding fast, job done IMO.

PS. I don’t spend “thousands” on my bikes.

So you don’t spend thousands on bikes but spend 500 quid on a shock.

The X2 will send you nuts with all of it’s adjustments, if the Monarchs weren’t made of cheese I’d rather just have TF Tuned who have masses of data give me the shock that they empirically know to work well – without all the stupid adjustments. But as it is, the X2s are seemingly very reliable, I’m just not looking forward to trying to dial one in.

Glupton is back it would seem, but a little less endearing than before.

X2 if 570 quid for a Capra, With hindsight what I should’ve did was go to the SRAM tent at Ard Rock…

The X2 will send you **** nuts with all of it’s adjustments

Well I don’t have any bother setting-up Cane Creek shocks, and that’s pretty much what the X2 is.

I like the idea of the Elevensix, small range of adjustment, no chance of majorly buggering up the settings, set up for your weight and bike by a bunch of guys who have tested it on your frame with telemetry gear – set and forget – allows you to get on with riding. If they charged 250-300 less for it by getting rid of the dual circuits then I might have had one.

The price is a bit mad though. Hope you have more fun with the X2 than I will – I’m really not looking forward to having to spend a day doing back to back repeated runs of a short section again, to get it right.

If you bought the X2 from tf would they not be able to configure it in the way they could do with a monarch?

I must admit, I’m not happy with my monarch and the lump in the air spring at 15%. Seems the positive and negative chambers don’t balance smoothly. My plan was to get some avalanche internals but what’s the point if the air spring is lumpy? Might as well bin it and get something that works. The difference avalanche internals made to my dhx 5.0c was night and day.

Maybe LAT, depends how much experience with the shock and the data – they aren’t the main guys for Fox. I’ll ask them how close they can get the recommended settings out of the box.

Fox have a pretty useful guide for setting the shock up: http://www.ridefox.com/help.php?m=bike&id=556

I have a Float X2 on my Reign, massive improvement over the monarch, more grip/composure/stability. Yes it takes a bit longer to setup, but you don’t have to make do with the fixed tune of the monarch (unless you have it re-shimmed and by chance get it about right).