I’ve been shockwiz fiddling for a few weeks courtesy of Dom at Kustom Bikes in Wheddon Cross, Exmoor.
Public thanks to Dom.
I bought my FS from Dom and I’d been struggling with a Monarch debonair that I just couldn’t get right via the time honoured analogue means (up and down a kerb). It turns out that the compression tune was too light for my weight, so to stop it wallowing around in the mid-stroke I had to have so much pressure there was no small bump sensitivity and I couldn’t get to the end of the shock either.
I swapped it out for a fortuitously timed and stunningly bargainous nearly new DPX2 from a local riding group and promptly set about shockwizzing.
Its been an educational experience, and it was reassuring to find that 19 years of mtb’ing have taught me a bit, scoring 92% on ‘balanced’ straight out the gate. The more aggressive riding I did in places like CyB and Brechfa pushed it down, mostly due to too little progression and low pressure ( I’ve always run 30% sag, linear forks and shocks)
I’ve spend some time tuning ‘playful’ and ‘active’ to see where my preferences sit, which are generally playful, and its been super useful tool understanding the suspension behaviour on the really fast choppy stuff where you don’t have the brain space to think about what the suspension is doing because you’re to busy trying not to crash.
One thing that has surprised me is that the shock whiz has had me up my pressures generally by about 20%. This has resulted in much smaller sag percentages than my stock 30% (think 15-20%). I note that this makes for much more responsive, poppy and smooth/fast bike at modern trail centres with reliable, predicable lines and surfaces, but a more skittish, slippy bike on my regular slippery limestone, clay and roots of the Mendips, where its clear that suspension response is required before my wheels begin sliding!
This opens the door to a ‘trail centre tune’ and a ‘trail riding tune’, which as a concept I’ve never considered before.
Currently, I’ve just backed the pressures down and modified the damping accordingly, because I’m not sure I can be arsed to faff about with my suspension that much once its been set.