Hi, I have a new 2021 Rockshox Recon RL fork in 29er flavour with 120mm of claimed travel. Have been running it for about 200 miles.

Clearly, this isn’t top of the range kit but I read some reviews and it is supposedly a competent unit.

My query is about how much effective travel I can expect to get from the fork (I am aware that I could change the travel of the fork by changing the internal spacers but I don’t want to do that, my question relates to maximising the travel within the 120mm distance).

I have set it up with 25mm sag (approx 20%) at slightly below the air pressure that is on the chart for my weight (73KG). However, I can never get the fork to compress the last 30-35mm of its travel.

In effect, I only have 60-65mm of effective suspension.

I have only used the fork for light XC and, being old enough to know better, the fork has never been jumped, raced or rallied. The lockout works as does the rebound, there hasn’t been any oil leaking. clanking, banging or knocking.

Am I getting the best performance possible from this fork or is there something I could/should do to make it work better? Thanks in advance.

At 200 miles with the riding you’ve described you may not have bedded it in yet. My 2019 Recon RLs improved in performance notably after about two months of summer riding.

I weigh about the same as you @ 75kg and run sag set at a 18% on the 130mm Recon fitted to my 130mm Habit and I’ll reach near enough full travel on most rides (XC loops with a bit of mild gnar and a few drops)

The service manual is online here:
https://www.sram.com/globalassets/document-hierarchy/service-manuals/rockshox/front-suspension/gen.0000000006173-rev-a-service-manual-2018-2021-judy-30-recon-english.pdf

On page 19, you can see the “Bottomless Token”. There is more detail on page 39. If your fork has tokens fitted, then try removing one. This will make the spring rate more linear, so it will use more of the travel.

To be honest, I think you should just increase the travel if you can. It’s not a huge job and it’s a one off thing.

Also, the recommended air pressure and sag are just rough guidelines. Somewhere between 20% and 30% is normal, so trying a lower pressure would also be sensible. Just experiment until you find a setting that suits you.

R&RMark, thanks for the feedback. It sounds like we are doing similar riding so maybe I should just keep on for a while and see what happens. The forks have good reviews compared to their price so I’d be really pleased to see them up their game a little. I’ll also do a little more with the set up – the biggest point I’d like to improve is getting more travel when the forks are compressed, at the moment they stop a long way (say 30mm) from the maximum (although feel responsive up to that point).

thols2, thanks for the link. I think my ones aren’t the ‘gold’ but rather the ‘silver’ version and so don’t have any bottomless spacers – the chart seems to say that no forks have them fitted from the factory but that up to two can be added. I’ll do a bit more reading of the doc, thanks again for suggesting it.

I have set it up with 25mm sag (approx 20%) at slightly below the air pressure that is on the chart for my weight (73KG). However, I can never get the fork to compress the last 30-35mm of its travel.

In effect, I only have 60-65mm of effective suspension.

I think the charts are always conservative, it depends how hard you are hitting the fork.

30% sag is more normal for trail use. dont worry too much about bottoming it out, they have bottom out bumpers, you want to be kissing the bumper once a ride ideally.
Although, bear in mind that the fork seals wont touch the crown. Let all the air out and compress the fork to see where the bottom of the travel actually leaves the marker oring (or dirt line) before you go chasing the last 5mm.)

After that, it sounds like classic air ramp up, so you would want to increase the volume of the air chamber if you can. but that depends on whether the fork has that.

I am watching this thread with interest

I have a RS SID which sounds very similar. It is also an RL damper and maybe they share some similarities. I am running 15-20% sag which is on the firmer side, but even with 30% or more the problem is the same- I only use 60-70mm travel, even on the chunkiest trails I can find which is very different to anything I have had before. There are no bottomless tokens installed.

One other thing that would be interesting to know OP is how much travel you can use with no air in the fork? I can only get 85mm or maybe 90mm at a push.

I took the fork in to TF Tuned and it seems it is a combination of things. Related to the lack of full travel with no air; they said RS forks come with a really long bottom out bumper which they cut down a bit for me. It has made no difference. The second is that the RL damper has quite small holes in the compression circuit and it is quite easy for it to get choked. They swapped to lighter fluids apparently in the hope of improving the flow but there was no other internal tuning which could be done to change the compression behaviour.

Basically, that is how that particular damper will always be and RS made a conscious choice to make it like that. At least that was the opinion of TF.

It has frustrated my enough to look for a rigid fork but maybe this thread is a good reminder that maybe I should push for a better fix or damper swap

sag is a guide – most people will apply such force that if they run 20-30% then once or twice a ride they’ll use all the travel. if this isn’t you (as you might ride on smoother surfaces\less aggressivly) then more sag (40+%) might be needed.

I’d also wind off the compression damping and wind on the rebound damping – all of that will make the fork work deeper in its travel, but at the risk of packing down on repeated hits.

how are you measuring the travel used? remember you may have a small amount of negative travel (beyond it’s natural full extension) to avoid top out clangs.

how do you set your sag? sat down or stood up? if you are at 20% sag stood up ‘attack position’
then the travel you are getting sounds about right especially if most of your riding is sat down light xc.

You shouldn’t be getting full travel unless you get a decent hit on the fork.

I don’t think I’d want to be touching full travel on every ride as mentioned above. The only time I’d want to hit full travel is on a high impact – perhaps when I’ve made a mistake and that last bit of travel is there to save me.

I’d run a bit more sag than you suggest – something like 25-30%. Ignore the psi guide on the fork leg – that just gives you a rough idea for initial setup. I’d set the fork up for more sag based on your standing ‘attack’ position on the bike. Your forks are also still very new so may bed in a bit more yet.

Assuming you have a motion control damper you’ll probably find that ramps up more towards the end / over big hits than say a better ‘charger’ damper out of a higher model fork. I had a Yari that was like that – I changed the damper to a charger out of a Lyrik and freed up more travel straight away. With the Recon there isn’t much you can do about it really. You could try lighter oil in the damper leg but from what I’ve read it won’t make a huge difference.

Final thought – has your fork got an adjustment on the top of the right fork leg? If so with motion control I’d run that wide open (full anti clockwise towards the ‘-‘) – which will take off as much compression damping as possible. It might make the fork a bit more divey but it’s a trade off.

ramping up has nothing to do with the moco damper. ramping up is down to the volume of the air spring.

If I was the OP I`d just run a bit more sag if I wanted a smoother ride/use more travel. lockout for uphills and more open for the downs.

One other thing to check would be if you can get full travel with no air in the fork.

If not it might be worth checking fluid levels in the damper side. It’s relatively easy to do being motion control and if it’s over filled could be why you can’t get anywhere near full travel.

ramping up has nothing to do with the moco damper. ramping up is down to the volume of the air spring.

whilst true, the OP doesn’t state its ramping up too much, just that its not getting full travel. Removing compression and increasing rebound damping will help a fork use more travel.

Many thanks for the extra suggestions and feedback. Once the factory hooter sounds, I’ll go out and see what gives, especially in terms of whether it is possible to fully compress the fork with no air in it. I’ll report back.

An update. Yes, the fork compresses to within 10mm of total travel after the air has been taken out so this suggests there isn’t a major physical block in the system or too much fluid/oil. I think I’ll reserve judgement until I have ridden the bike some more and see if that loosens things up – I’ll also try a few combinations of air pressure and damper settings at minimum compression to see if that helps.