I have a giant reign 26″ so a few years old now I bought second hand for trips to uplift type days. Coil spring.

I went to bpw and found when I got the jumps on the a470 line my rear end was kicked up massively.

Relavent points
1. I was “speed jumping” rather than pumping for maximum air. I.e pushing through the jump, fast and low.
2. Although not a jumping expert I have ridden bmX (skatepark) for a long time, can (just about) make it through a rhythm section but have only really ridden ridgid MTB until recently except for the odd hire bike

Do I have to massively alter my jumping technique? Or just stiffen up the spring loads?

Rebound speed too fast?

Increase your rebound damping.

+1 for more rebound. My Pitch did this horribly until I got the shock tuned.

The only way I found to ride around the problem was to shift my weight back slightly on takeoff, felt completely wrong but has the double effect of meaning the bike is wrong to start with but the ‘kicking up’ corrects it for you, and the added weight a the back brings you COG closer to the rear wheel nulling the effect of it kicking you forwards.

If it has independently adjustable high and low speed rebound then high speed stops the bike wanting to pitch forward so much in the air, and the low speed stops you bouncing straight off the landing.

If it still does it after adding more rebound then you need to get the shock serviced and tuned to your weight.

May be rebound. May also be compression. Or spring rate. Many, many variables. Compression makes a huge difference to the ‘kick’ you get from jumps.

Thanks. Will have a look at a set up guide for my shock. Rebound sounds like a possibility but I didn’t know there was the possibility of low speed and high speed. Will have to investigate the shock. Good to know it can be played with.

May also be compression. Or spring rate. Many, many variables. Compression makes a huge difference to the ‘kick’ you get from jumps.

True, but IME they all do it by interacting with the rebound.

Too much LSC and the suspension doesn’t compress, but that’s not a bad thing (hardtails jump just fine).

Too little LSC and the suspension uses too much travel, then when it’s released at the lip your relying on the rebound to not kick you forwards.

Too low a spring rate will make the bike ride horribly over jumps, but mostly just by offering no support so you just don’t get the same height/distance/speed.

Too high a spring rate for the damping and it overwhelms the rebound after take off. But that’s not the springs fault per se, it’s mismatched spring/damping.

Rebound sounds like a possibility but I didn’t know there was the possibility of low speed and high speed.

If it’s the original Fox DHX then it’s not possible to adjust high and low speed rebound separately. BUT if it has a bottom out adjuster (DHX-5) then you can manipulate it slightly by going down in spring rate and upping the bottom out. This means the shock will still take the same force to bottom out but will sag a bit more too. The knock on effect on jumps is you now need less damping to deal with the lower spring rate in the portion of the shock stroke that’s used on takeoff (the middle third or so).

Timing!

On a HT you stand up pretty much as your front wheel leaves the lip, because the force through your legs goes straight into the ground without much delay.

On a FS, especially one with long travel / soft rear suspension, if you don’t stand up a bit earlier the rear suspension is still unloading (extending) when your front wheel has left the ground, and so that creates a rotaional moment around the CofG of you and your bike, which given enough air time (on a big jump) can result in an over-rotation and a nasty trip over the bars on landing……

Check out how early Neil has stood up here, well before the front wheel is even up to the top of the lip:

[video]https://youtu.be/VwBDzITzpZo?t=90[/video]

(1.30m in if the link doesn’t take you there!)