* Meant to be 170mm travel but only shows around 163mm of stanchion when correct sag
* Not reaching full travel even when running lots of sag
* Sits quite low in its travel
* Quite rough and keep getting sore hands when riding fast down rough trails

– When sagged you should see a lot less stanchion than that. What is it unsagged?
– Take the air cap off, see if it reaches full travel
– If you’re really only using 7mm of sag than sort that out first. Should be more like 20-25% sag
– Given the other aspects of setup that seem incorrect I’m not surprised

Transfer port might be blocked, too much grease on the air spring when assembled

Dropping the lowers and removing, refitting the spring would probably sort it out

Have a read of this
https://www.pinkbike.com/forum/listcomments/?threadid=223747&pagenum=4

“I’m willing to bet its the air shaft. The head on the ZEB airshaft has a hole in it, and that hole should be aligned with the hole on the shaft itself. This increases the negative volume of the fork.

Mine wasn’t aligned, and I was running low 60’s PSI at 86kg/190lbs. The fork was always harsh, and I could just never get it dialed.

After realigning them, I am running 10-15 PSI higher, and had to change all my LSC/HSC/R settings. Feels so much closer to my Lyrik now, and dialed.

Check your air spring for that alignment, I have a feeling this is what is causing wild PSI and setting differences across this thread.”

With the right air pressure in the forks to give the correct sag Im only seeing 163mm of stanchion when Im not on the bike.

It’s an eBike, why wouldn’t you expect the suspension to sag under its own weight?

What happens when you lift it off the ground, how much ‘travel’ now?

With the right air pressure in the forks to give the correct sag Im only seeing 163mm of stanchion when Im not on the bike. Obviously when Im on the bike it sits further into its travel to give the correct sag.

Maybe let some of the air out of the fork and try compressing it a few times to equalise the negative spring. +1 for checking for stiction, taking the lowers off and inspecting the seals/oil etc and for backing off the compression a tad.

It’s an eBike, why wouldn’t you expect the suspension to sag under its own weight?

– Possibly this too, it’s likely that the weight of the bike will cause some static sag. Have you tried turning it upside down, cycling the lowers slightly and then checking the travel again?

TBH I’ve neither owned nor ridden a Zeb, but my experiences with (counts) eight Rockshox forks owned since 2006 has been wholly positive thus far.

Purchased from Leisure lakes.

TO be honest I hadn’t even thought of the weight of the bike affecting the sag.

Get the bushes checked in it. All the 2023 Zebs we have seen have very tight bushes.

Yeah, I always final check sag n travel with the bike in the stand.

Yeah, I always final check sag n travel with the bike in the stand.

Eh? You can check travel, but not sag in a stand.

Try increasing the low speed compression damping a little

I have to put a load of air in it to show the correct 170mm of travel.

How are you measuring that?
How much negative travel is that?

Sorry What I’ve wrote doesn’t make sense.

With the right air pressure in the forks to give the correct sag Im only seeing 163mm of stanchion when Im not on the bike.

and ????

Obviously when Im on the bike it sits further into its travel to give the correct sag.

I have to put a load of air in it to show the correct 170mm of travel.

How is it “showing travel” ? This still makes no sense?
Are you confusing sag with travel ???

Get the bushes checked in it. All the 2023 Zebs we have seen have very tight bushes.

As said above.. This sounds like a symptom of tight bushings. No amount of playing / tuning / running in will help I am afraid. Drop all the air and set rebound / compression to minimum (ideally remove air cap). Flip bike upside down, remove wheel and then pull up and push down on the forks… Should be lovely and smooth, fork should compress and extent very easily with no stiction or notchieness.

Have had exactly the same issue as you describe on 2 pairs of 2022 revs, and a pair of lyrics. Just could not get them set up right at all, small bump compliance was terrible and forks would sit deep in travel.

SRAM / Rockshox QC seems be getting worse. First two pairs went back to SRAM under warranty and came back pretty much the same (tiny bit better but not ideal)… Got fed up so made up a crude Bush resizing tool and now the forks work brilliantly.

Might be lube or something else but my money is on either the upper or lower bushing being too tight (lower seems to affect small bump compliance more and upper deeper travel or might be both are tight)

I would send it back… Or sent it to someone like tf tuned. Might be weeing in the wind playing with setup if there is a fundimental problem internally.

Good luck

Couple of points worth mentioning –
The suggestion that grease is blocking the little transfer dimple in the stanchion is absolute nonsense and a very common misconception that appears on forums. There’s absolutely no way that grease will hold back high air pressure. This myth is wrongly diagnosed because its actually the removal of the air shaft (and therefore release of any excess negative pressure) that cures the sucked-down issue. People then remove lots grease and re-assembled and think that it was the grease causing the issue all along.

The mention of burping the fork is also forum favourite for wrongly diagnosing. If you have air trapped in the lower leg this will cause the fork to over-extend rather than suck down. And it also means that you have an air leak from the negative air seal head which is allowing air pressure to leak from the stanchion into the lower leg void. Sliding a zip tie under the wiper seal will indeed release the air, however the cause of the fault ( a negative seal head leak) will be there and the issue will arise again after a ride or two.

On a new fork the last thing you should do is try to fettle it yourself. Get it back to Rockshox for a warranty inspection. As a matter of course they’ll likely replace all the air seals and replenish fluids. And they’ll check/update any post production issues that have had rolling changes.

Why would you want to smash the seals into the crown at bottom out?

I wouldn’t expect to get anywhere near full travel on a 170 fork at a trail centre and have the bike ride decently.

A common misconception with a harsh feeling fork is to reduce pressure and compression but all you’re doing there is getting into the progressive part of the stroke sooner and have no hydraulic help to hold you up, it’ll also slow you’re rebound down making the fork not able to recover after bumps correctly