[Closed] Harsh rear shock after custom tune ??

this is the first thread I've started about the rear shock.

Please try and keep it that way. 😉

First thing you need to do is get the pressure right.
Do this by setting to the recommended sag.
Then ride the bike and adjust the pressure until you are getting full travel on the biggest of hits

I wondered what sort of travel it had.

I have 110 at the back of mine, I weigh 96kg and a decent size big old school 'American' bunny hop will use a fair bit of travel as I have it set fairly soft.

Most of my riding doesn't involve drops or jumps.

I eas refering to you 'hop up a kerb used a lot of travel'

Depending in how much the bike had. That wouldn't be be uncommon.

Erm ok but this is the first thread I've started about the rear shock.
Serious question... Now that it's had a tune for more compression damping do I run less air pressure then for a given sag.

Changing the compression valving doesn't affect the spring rate, ie just set the pressure to wherever you need it for the sag

Singlespeedstu the point I'm trying ask about is that in the paperwork posted in the picture above mojo have said to run near enough full rebound and the shock feels like it's packing down.

OK I give up.
Stick to looking for someone to give you your magic setting.
It'll be right next to that moon on a stick.

They said try it in the hill before you decide. Well you've tried it, and it doesn't feel right, so either try some more or try it with the adjuster open a bit more and see how it feels.

Renton,
Remember the guy you rode with called John Young? Find him again and he'll help you set it up/tell you if there is anything wrong. He really knows his shit when it comes to suspension (not the others on here don't).
He is on Moray MBC and Pinkbike as JY and Betsie. Contact him and he will gladly help you out.
Matt.

Ok.

I will have a play with it and see if I can get it dialled.

They must have done something right as I've climbed to 4th fastest this year and 5th fastest of all time on one section of trail on strava.

I also knocked 8 seconds off my personal best on the run I was using to try and set the shock up.

Also I think the cockpit is sorted now as it felt spot on today. Just need to fit my dropper and it will be good.

Cheers .Matt.

If it is packing down then you can back off the rebound damping a little so it returns to its mid stroke faster and ready for another hit.

Or....as others have said ride it as is for a while and get used to how it now feels. I'm a firm believer that most FS riders don't ride their bikes properly and have them set up for comfort not performance. They like the sensation of being able to sit down and ride an armchair around the woods, when they send a shock away to Mojo or TF they are surprised at how firm it comes back....I think that's how it's supposed to feel personally.

Deviant.

I'm also in the group that doesn't like the arm chair feeling. Hence why indent it away in the first place.

What I would like it to do it respond to the terrain without it feeling harsh or packing down or on the flip side pogoing around.

Will stick with it and maybe increase it a click and see how it goes.

Agree with Deviant, it's for sticking the rear wheel to the ground, not being comfy.

Must be doing something right if you're setting fast times Renton.

Glad I ticked leisure cyclist when I sent my shock to TF.
I like it plush.
With my manky knee, plush lets me keep riding.

Agree with Deviant, it's for sticking the rear wheel to the ground, not being comfy.

Agree with both chaps.

When i got my old shock tuned the thing i noticed most was just how much better the rear end stuck to the ground. It's wasn't comfier to ride or sit on, just better going faster, for longer.

Were you asked any questions about riding style or weight? If you answered them honestly, then what they sent you shouldn't be too far off the mark, even if it feels odd. Perhaps a few psi either way or a click or two on the rebound, but personally I wouldn't speed it up fully as someone mentioned. Bad things can happen if you do that, especially if you like jumping 😯

Just ride it and get used to it like a few have already said.

It just sounds like Mojo set the shock up for you to beat the poo out of it, hence loads of rebound damping in order to still spring back in an orderly fashion when the shock is deep in it's stroke. It does remind me of running 10psi in White Tigers and thinking it was cool to run a rear shock in such a way that it took 3 seconds to fully rebound. Troy Lee cammo shorts for goal posts....

I sent mojo the info on my weight and the type of bike etc.

I asked to tune it so it didn't blow its travel and also asked if they could set it up to ramp up nicely towards the end of the stroke. I said I ride normal trails not downhill stuff and occasionally get airborne.

amongst the trolls and bickering I think you've got some good info, if it has just been serviced all the new o rings and seals in the shock will be tight and will loosen a little over a few rides.

They've changed the rebound shims so it recovers faster deep in the stroke and then slows down. If you speed the rebound up then it'll really only affect the lower travel portion.

If it doesn't feel right to you then the only way to sort it out is by riding the same travel over and over again and bracketing down to the best feel.

http://www.leelikesbikes.com/bracketing-a-2015-fox-36-rc2.html

Toys is obviously the expert. And Renton is hell bent on ignoring Suspenion Experts advice.

Mojo said to leave it. There is your clue.

Just because Mojo are "suspension experts" doesn't mean to say that there is only one school of thought in regards to suspension setup.

Some suspension tuners think that it's better to control a fork via compression.

Others think that it's better to have as little compression as possible and control the fork via the spring rate.

Some suspension tuners also prefer to control ride height primarily with rebound.

Avalanche, Bos, PUSH, Ohlins and Mojo all have different ways of achieving good results.

Secondly, a custom tune doesn't always get it right for the customer the first time round. They often only manage to get near to a general kind of tune, then the suspension has to go back in to be fine tuned. This is because everyone rides differently and as of yet, no one offers tuning done with telemetry. Someone who rides more over the front will need a softer compression tune and slower rebound, someone who rides over the back more will need harder compression tune and faster rebound yaddayaddayadda.

Arse.

Right...a bit more advice...

Ride the shock some more, give it time to bed in. Then take it to a long rocky downhill, with reasonably equal square edged hits found throughout the section.

1) Take note of small bump sensitivity (once bedded in), does it feel poor? If so, ask Mojo to back of the low speed compression a tad.

2) Does the shock feel harsh on the first square edged hit? If so, ask Mojo to either back off the high speed compression shims or reduce some of the volume spacers.

3) Does the shock only feel harsh after repeated square edged hits? If so, set the rebound faster. If that doesn't work, ask Mojo to reshim the rebound.

My guess is that Mojo have set the suspension up fairly firm as they figured you rode aggressively and also prioritized pedaling performance as you stated that you ride smoother trails.

Ignore all the dicks on here, if you went to a Moto GP paddock or a world cup downhill paddock you would find considerable variation in suspension setup between riders. You won't find Valentino Rossi being told by his Yamaha boss (at Ducati maybe) "listen to the suspension experts", if it doesn't feel right then the engineers try to find a way to cater to the rider.....and what makes riders faster is having a bike that they feel comfortable on.

Thanks for the info.

I'm going to start with shock pressure and sag as I set the air pressure to what it was before the tune thinking it would need the same pressure.

On one of the tracks I do there are 4 equally spaced root/bumps. first bump is fine and it progressively gets harsher and by the 4th it's like a hardtail.

It may look different to an observer but that's the best way of explaining how it feels on the bike.

All this is in decsend mode By the way.

Trail is very good for climbing etc. I never use the climb mode.

Oh and hora. Even though you haven't posted on this thread but decided to take the piss over on the chat forum. That's a pretty ****ish thing to do and slightly ironic coming from you as you are just as bad if not worse than me with bikes.

To all the haters .......

Would you expect a shock to come back with harsh rebound after being sent off for a compression tune and be happy with it.

If you despair of my threads that much then please feel free to ignore then rather than using them as an opportunity to make your sad little life's just the bit better by having a dig at someone that is asking for help.

Thank you to all those that have genuine info to pass on.

FFS! just turn the rebound adjuster until the shock returns at a speed you're happy with.

After setting the sag again, give those roots another go. If it still feels harsh on the last one, move the rebound two clicks faster.

As others have mentioned, because of the way it's been shimmed that might not actually help.

I don't know about Mojo but TF Tuned will take the shock back and retune it for free if you send it back within a certain time frame as they don't expect their tunes to be perfect all the time.

Sending it back to get it right is normal, a load of the posters on here are jerks. At the end of the day it's what works for you, not other people.

I will contact mojo tomorrow and see what they say. It might be a case of have a play with it for a month and see how it goes.

I'm going to start with shock pressure and sag

I knew exactly what I wanted from the shock thanks very much.

What I wanted was for it to not blow its travel so freely even on the smallest bump. In descend mode I couldn't tell what the shock was doing as it felt dead. Trail mode was to hard to use for rougher trail. Climb mode was fine.

With that in mind I spoke to mojo and explained the above and gave them my weight and bike info and also the type of trails I rode.

They suggested a better compression tune which has worked to help the shock not blows its travel and also not sit so deep into in its travel either.

The unexpected bit was how slow they recommended to run the rebound which has lead to me asking for advice from the decent people on here in the first place.

This is the first shock I've had tuned. It's not my first full susser having had at least 9 or 10 full sussers in the past so I have a bit of experience with shocks.

You're almost there.

Set the sag, anywhere from 20% - 35% seems to work for most, more sag for harder riding.

Ride that trail you mentioned with the 4 repeated big hits.

Gradually increase the rate at which the shock returns to its mid stroke buy backing off the rebound damping.

You should reach a point where the bike still feels good after that 4th hit and isn't bogging down like a HT.

If that doesn't work (and I reckon it will) send it back with instructions on how you want the rebound to perform.

You're not far from having a very nice shock, just some methodical tinkering and patience needed now.

This what you need to do Renton

1. Set sag to about 25-30% when you are in attack postion not seated, shock in descend, also make sure your fork isn't locked out. Put maximum rebound dampening on the shock.

2. Go ride this section where you feel harshness, after each run reduced the rebound dampening by 1 click until the harsness goes away.

If it doesn't then the tune probably doesn't suit you.

Will be going out tomorrow before work to have a play.

Thanks for the info gents.

Renton, youre getting an unfair hard time on here, which is unfortunate 😯 . sounds like some great advice in amongst the less helpful stuff. I am amazed you've had 9 or 10 full suss bikes though and aren't a dealer ! I've had 3 and I'm nearly 50 😀

Cheers Iainc.

I went through a spate of buying and selling specialized bikes a few years back as I was spending quite a lot of time out in Afghanistan with work so used to treat myself.

I did however keep my last full susser which was a Turner 5 spot for just over two years.

It had quite different angles to this bike upfront which is why I'm struggling with the fit side, however I think that side of thing is sorted now.

Just the shock side to sort. Most people say the fox ctd shock isn't the best but I can't afford to go upgrading it to something better so I thought I would invest the £40 it cost for the tune in it to see if it helped.

Is it really the best thing to do to tune the shock for one type of riding event?

Do it on an entire trail with a variety of features, tuning for one very specific type of event will very likely make the shock horrific for any other type of event.

As others have said, spend a good amount of time on the settings you have, re-evaluate how you feel about it again after a good 10 or so rides.

It sounds to me, in the most kind way possible, you're over thinking and being very rash in dismissing as it is. Maybe getting a little swamped by the myths and wives tales that seem to be around suspension too, again in the politest sense.

Right is always going to feel wrong if you've never had right before, it needs time.

and the banning has started 😀

and the banning has started

Good. There are some proper meanies on here.

PS how do you know when someone has been banned?

I get preferential information from the mods

Is it really the best thing to do to tune the shock for one type of riding event?

Do it on an entire trail with a variety of features, tuning for one very specific type of event will very likely make the shock horrific for any other type of event.

This is good advice, it's no good setting up a shock to work well on 5 percent of a trail when in reality you need it to work well for the other 95 percent of the trail.

Shock setup will always be a compromise until the advent of widely available electronic active suspension, it will still be a compromise even then...really.

If your shock was blowing through it's travel too easily and you had just put a few more psi into it then it would have cured the problem but the forks would have been less compliant over small bumps. . You have had them custom tuned by Mojo and that is what you now have so what is the difference ? Genuine question btw not meant as a dig .

Omg read the post ramseyneil.

I had the SHOCK tuned by mojo to cure it blowing through its travel.

I changed the forks for something slightly longer travel which in turn raised the front end of the bike for me too.

I did read the thread , I meant to say shock not forks . Fwiw I think you would have to ride some pretty rutted stuff for the shock to pack down so I suspect that Mojos advice is correct regarding the rebound and your problem lies elsewhere.

Get your forks set up at the same as the rear.......if they're not set up in tandem you're wasting your time .....differences on the front can make the rear feel good or bad and vice versa ......good luck ....its a time consuming proccess but you'll get there and be better at understanding it

The forks are fine. Still bedding In bit loads better than the Fox stuff they replaced.

Definitely the rear shock is packing down so the problem doesn't lie somewhere else.

As I've mentioned earlier I'm going to phone them tomorrow and ask their advice as technically the tune has cured what I ask them to set it to. I'm just not getting the slow rebound thing.

Yep you did say....but if there is too much rebound or pressure in the forks it will have an adverse affect on the rear...just saying......double check your sag on the front

Well if you are sure the rear shock is packing down then knock the rebound damping down a few clicks as has already been mentioned. How are you sure it's packing down ?