Help understanding suspension forks

New to mtbiking relatively and trying to get head around air sprung fork- Suntour XCR34 Air Boost. On right top of fork there is the open close blue button and I get locking it means no suspension but there are several sections from lock to fully open. How do I know which one to put it on? Also been playing round with the rebound red button at bottom and can’t hugely tell difference between fully open and closed. Bloke at bike shop set it up in a hurry and think I need to reduce psi in left fork. Waiting on my suspension pump. Any help would be great.

Wait for the pump, look in your manual for recommended pressures/rebound settings for your weight and start from there.

Look at a few videos on youtube about how to set your sag – the amount of fork stanchion that is pushed down just by you sitting on the bike. Normally about 20% of total travel to start with.

After that you can mess around with pressures and rebound settings a couple of clicks at a time until you get the best out of it for you.

Good advice thanks. What about how open you have the lockout thing (blue) though?

personally I never use the lockout. Its intended for when you are hoofing up a smooth track to eliminate bob when pedaling. I sit and spin so no need so its always left open.

Rebound knob should have an effect when bouncing the fork – it should rise more slowly when bounced the more you wind it on. some forks do not have much range in the damping adjust

I don’t know if any of the different positions actually make a difference on that model. If you can’t feel anything except fully open/locked, then it’s probably something to treat as a binary on/off switch and leave it at that. Certainly leave it fully open when setting up the fork.

Thank you. I have read this fork isn’t the best which is a shame as it’s on a bike with otherwise decent components. Should do for my needs

its always the same on full builds. a decent fork is expensive and would put the price up – but be happy even a crappy fork nowadays is much better than those of 20+ years ago!

I have read this fork isn’t the best which is a shame as it’s on a bike with otherwise decent components.

It’ll be fine. Will probably be the equivalent of an older version of a Recon/Reba, which is decent enough. Set it up properly, take care of it, learn how to service it properly every now and again, and it will be fun to ride.

If you find it lacking, get something a bit better off the classifieds in a year’s time.