Fork diving – pressure, spacers and compression damping.

I’ve just finished a week’s riding in the Alps.

I realised I wasn’t getting full travel on my forks, but when I removed pressure, compression damping and rebound damping to make the fork plusher, it actually made it feel worse as my fork was diving through the travel.

I’m running two spacers, so obviously I need to take one out.

When I do, will I need to increase pressure or any other settings to compensate?

No additional pressure required if you remove a spacer, but additional air pressure required if you’re blowing through the travel.

Trutune

Did you like what your fork was doing before you went to the alps?

I’ve recently gone this way, running very slightly higher pressure, fewer tokens, more LSC and more HSC.

What fork is it?

Damper should control diving. Pressure should control sensitivity, traction/ grip. Volume should add (or remove) progression and affects how the fork feels towards the end of the travel.

Volume isn’t going to have an effect on plushness, only harshness if you’re running the main air chamber too low and hitting the progression deep in the stroke. Solution to that is more air in the main chamber.

@markspark I actually like what it’s doing now I’ve set it back to original settings, but I’m not getting full travel despite riding it quite hard.

I don’t have a problem with how it feels currently, it’s a ‘22 Fox 36 and it does respond best to being thrashed, I was just seeing if I could make it feel better by getting more travel out of it.

Change one thing at a time.

From what you describe, I’d have started by removing one volume spacer and leaving everything else the same.

I’m the opposite to Bens.

Prefer to control diving with more pressure, rather than damping. Then remove tokens so I still use full travel.

I find the problem with damping is that it needs so much damping so stop the fork diving that it stops the fork working everywhere else.

A well serviced fork however, still works if you run 10-20% more psi.

@ceept that’s what I’m planning. Only problem is that it’ll be another year before I’m riding anything as gnarly again to check.

Does anyone know what the pros and cons of using damping vs pressure to control diving are?

“ Does anyone know what the pros and cons of using damping vs pressure to control diving are?”

From reading the stuff about Formula’s recent forks, I get the impression it’s almost a philosophical choice!

Bear in mind that spring forces are approximately proportional to displacement whilst damping forces are approximately proportional to shaft speed.

From reading the stuff about Formula’s recent forks, I get the impression it’s almost a philosophical choice!

Haha

And it also depends on the quality of damping available, IMO.

e.g. I like to ride the damping more on my fancy EXT shock, but the RS air shock on the same bike seemed to work better riding the air spring more.

I am nothing like an expert though.

How much travel aren’t you using out of what’s available, are we talking 10mm or 50mm, measured not on what stanchion showing?

I’d say to a point pressure vs damping is personal preference but still needs to be somewhere near on both and just tweaked to finish off.

Also…

but when I removed pressure, compression damping and rebound damping to make the fork plusher, it actually made it feel worse

Make one change at a time and ride the bike repeatedly over a rugged bit of trail, and a steep bit as well if that was where the diving was worst.