Here’s another Shockwiz question/scenario then.

I was wondering about a Shockwiz and whether i should rent/hire one, but then thought “If i get it and set at Swinley, will that be right for Afan, will that be right for Ridgeway, will that be right for BPW”

Will i need multiple settings for different conditions or will people generally for for one-size fits all ? Of course at the moment i don’t change mine at all…. but that’s due to lack of knowledge or what i should or shouldn’t do, of course the Shockwiz would remove some of that.

Will i need

No

I think it really depends on how much work you want to put into it, do you want to tearing your hair out like Minnar about every PSI or what constitutes ‘first click’.

Do you really want to spend say 4 rides with ShockWiz attached, constantly refining the settings for one venue and then repeat the whole thing for another?

I think for most muggle riders a ‘one size fits all’ base is fine and the process of actually setting it up will give you the understanding that if you do find yourself wanting a bit ‘more’ for a different venue, you’ll know to say reduce the rebound damping for breaking bumps or whatever.

I wouldn’t want to get ‘addicted’ to the bloody thing, tackling every run like a Formula One Team.

I can be a bit of a tinkerer but I haven’t gone to that level. A good base setup for the mix of stuff I generally ride. Very occasionally i might tweek based on what I feel it needs, that’s usually adding more shock damping when jumping, or a little LSC or air if it’s really steep. Bit usually just ride with my optimized setup.

I hired one which was mentioned in a previous STW post from fatlama. Worked out at £20 for a week.

I picked a local 2 mile loop with a bit of everything on it, some climbing, some drops and jumps, some rough stuff and some fast flowing bits. I rode this loop and adjusted things after each lap until everything was in the green zone.
I made a note of these setting and now just work from these if I visit some where vastly different (uplift etc) otherwise these setting are fine for most of my riding.

I think it helps you focus on what your suspension is doing and what effect all the knobs and dial have rather than giving you the perfect setup.

Maybe I’ll just hire one then. Cheers

As above … it depends on how much you really want to win that world cup!

If you really want it then yes changing the settings to each track will see benefits. Otherwise if you’re just a casual rider wanting to get some fresh air and have some fun then running one setting will be fine.

Or a reasonable middle ground would be rent the shockwiz to get the optimal setup. Then spend some time to understand what all the knobs do and how they effect the shock’s characteristic. That way you can make confident on the spot changes to your set up without the shockwiz incase you go some where vastly different. eg Fort Will DH one ride and smooth canal path loop the next ride.

…and so we reach the logical end point of shockwiz tuning methodology.

It’s obvious to assume that optimisation for one specific terrain is not going to be appropriate, for all types of terrain, i.e. lovely smooth trail centres with jumps and drops vs. Lakeland slow speed tech, but how far should you go?

In theory, you could devolve shock settings to a point where each section of trail is optimised based on prior ride tuning, but how many times in a ride due you want to tweek your pressure, make changes to your ramp up and adjust your rebound and compression just so that your suspension is x% closer to whats needed for the next half mile of trail.Do you set your suspension for the 5% fast chunder in the ride, or the 95% fast flowy part of the ride. Do you stop and specifically change your settings to be sure you’re getting the best performance for each of these? You can easily fall down the rabbit hole chasing the green.

I found that shockwiz gave some great feedback and helped me to crystallise my thoughts on a couple of things, but I had to make some educated choices, because the shockwiz is just a tool. I spent most of my time accumulating data at trail centres (cyb and afan), plus some time on the Mendips in summer.

What the shockwiz gave me was approximately 15 to 20% more pressure and damping to compensate, with an extra token or two. It was a better ride for it too. It was poppier, more composed and faster. As soon as the weather changed to the wetter end of things, those settings were still good for trail centres, but in the more greasy, slidey and unpredictable environs of my local hills, I had much less traction and suspension compliance than I needed to actually make progress without the bike stepping out sideways constantly.

…and so, I have stiffer suspension for trail centres and hero dirt summer days, and softer suspension, with damping adjusted for spring strength for wet natural trails for the rest of the time. That’s about as far as I care to go along the ‘data nerd ruining his own ride with twattery’ side of things.

I have a friend who subscribes to the ‘big data’ approach and he is recording months worth of data as a single session to find his optimum set and forget. I’m not entirely sure how much data a shockwiz can store and I’m not up to speed with how he’s managing the data, but he periodically checks whats going on, makes some notes and cracks on with having a great time on his bike.

This is the future of electronic suspension by the way. On the fly autonomous adjustment of settings based on real-time feedback data, or pre-planned and recorded routes tied to GPS position data.

Useful I think, I’m hoping to learn something about setup by using one in different places. Local South Downs, Surrey Hills, BPW, Lakes. All different so I’m interested in what changes are suggested

Decided not to hire one

Bought one instead. Once I’ve done my bikes, my lads bike and a mates bike, I’ll be sticking it up for hire at £35 a week, which is £5 cheaper than on eBay. Looking forward to giving it a whirl.

I might take you up on the hire weeksy! Send me a message when you are ready to rent it out with details etc

Will do mate, will be a couple of weeks as not sure I can ride this weekend. So even if it arrives for then, I won’t get to test until weekend after.

Just been out for a play on the new bike with the Shockwiz fitted, didn’t feel like i was using much of the front end in honesty, i set the PSI to 105 which according the the suggestions may be a bit low, but i don’t really know yet. I’ll measure the sag etc and try and work the figures out it’s given me. The terrain was quite basic, but basic is where i usually find myself if i’m honest, it’s rarely rocky and gnarly stuff round here, sometimes i bit rooty, but i’ll try and sort that later in the week and do a couple of runs on some rooty trails i know.

I also need to watch some Shockwiz videos as it comes with very little in the way of instructions. I did a calibration first, but i assumed it would ask me what types of forks i’d plugged it into so it knows some info to expect from there.

It has a set of RS Revelation 27.5 130mm RL Solo Air installed on it. They’ve apparently been recently serviced. According to the chart on the forks, i’ve set them arguably a little on the soft side, but only about 10psi.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/23Qu87z]2019-01-27_04-15-52[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

that’s the image it’s given me, but interpreting that is another thing altogether 🙂

I don’t believe i have high speed compression i can change do i? I thought the compression was through the air pressure and the rebound from the adjuster at the bottom of the fork leg.

I’ll need to go through things in more detail though and give it a longer run, but didn’t have time for that today.

I suspect shockwiz is trying to get you using more suspension travel which may not be appropriate if you just went for a relatively tame ride. Looks to be telling you to reduce air pressure and remove tokens to achieve it. Also saying to speed up your low speed rebound. High speed compression and rebound I don’t think you have any control over so you may as well ignore those suggestion for now.

Also, if you tap the arrow to the right of each suggestion I think it gives you more guidance on how much change to make

Don’t forget that changes to air pressure or volume will change the damping requirements so you can’t look at any other changes until you have got the spring side correct.
More air pressure will require more rebound damping, but may require less compression damping…

It’s not a case of change all the settings at once. You still need to do each settings in order same as tuning suspension without the shock Wiz. Ride a section, change a setting, repeat, good or dad result, change one setting. Repeat.

what constitutes ‘first click’

The struggle is real.

If you add air, you may not need to worry about the token as it will balance out (possibly). Adjust what you can and ignore the bits you can’t. I’ve assumed my compression is low speed and not high – 2015 Pike RC – and found both change the same when I test (which I thought was a bit strange).

Based on that screen shot from Shockwiz, I’d suggest dropping 5psi. Don’t change any other settings until you’ve completed a fresh data gathering cycle. The lower fork pressure should reduce the need to remove spacers and increase rebound damping too.

Of course the proper solution for multiple conditions/environments/scenarios is multiple bikes! 😉

I think it is just trying to say you have too much of everything, so as others have said I’d start by letting some air out. Perhaps measure your sag before and after you let the air out as well. At 105psi I’d be surprised if you’re sag is above 25%.

Just to add I always find the recommended pressures on forks way too high for my liking.

Out… I thought we were putting it in ? LOL. OK, i’ll go with out and see… At this stage there’s a lot of trial and error for me on it and just interpreting the data given out from it. Due to school collection etc i can’t really get out for anything more than a 15-20 mins test at the moment. So it’s really hard this week to get anything constructive from the unit. Given a bit more time and a bit more playing with shock pump, i’ll get there.

Just for info. Once i get my bike done and sorted, i’ll be hiring my unit to to friendly forum members 🙂 So if you want a play, now’s the time to show an interest.

On the Shockwiz app, any indicator to the left of OK is Reduce – Air, no. Of spacers, damping. To the right is Add.

If you’re going to Swinley, hit Red 15-22 in a loop a couple to times, going as hard as you can then check the app, adjust and repeat. That little loop has enough roots, stutter bumps and compression events to give you the data you need.

Thanks for the clarification. I’m most happy about that as i felt when riding the forks were a little too firm if you read back to my initial ride on the Shockwiz bits above…. So when I thought it wanted MORE air in i was quite surprised. So if i’m removing 5-10psi i think that’s a lot closer to where i felt i should be 🙂

So again, thank you… It’s all a bit new to me.

More testing done with the shockwiz. Dropped some pressure out of the forks. Feels better, still not using all the travel but the jumps tested were small and basic.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/23SfyJH]2019-01-29_09-14-39[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/QHpRjH]2019-01-29_09-14-09[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

I’m supposed to drop some from my baseline pressure in ‘settings’ but i can’t find where to do that yet… But it’s 6psi down from 96psi to 90psi in the forks now… Feels marvellous 🙂

Another short test after finding the Reset Baseline Pressure button, i then set it a little too soft, so i’ve upped it slightly again with the Shockwiz tested. I’m happy the front end is complete now so will move onto the back end tomorrow.

Looking at pics i’m not using all of the travel, only about 75% on max, so I’m thinking it may need dropping slightly, but i’m more curious about the rebound as anything on the rear when i get to it.

Did a Calibration on the rear and then test 1.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2epbFDA]Rear setup1[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Looked close, so i slowed the rebound 4 clicks….

However that then left the air pressure too low.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2dnJuNL]Setup2 rear[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

So i upped by 15psi on the rear.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2epcdAW]2019-01-29_11-41-39[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/23Skw28]Rear3[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Final results here…. I’m happy with that I must say.

Unit will be available for rental after this weekend now…. Throw me a PM or email on weeksy59@hotmail.com

How long is the loop your using for data gathering, and over what sort of terrain? A 49% confidence value suggests you’ve gathered barely enough data for Shockwiz to make any confident recommendations. I would leave it connected for a few proper rides before I’d consider it ‘Job Done’.

Oh yeah, i 100% get that matey, it’s been short testing and over the terrain i’d generally ride, but i’m aware it will need ‘more’ for a complete setup, but i’m happy that where it’s put the tuning is feeling right, so i’m not thinking much is going to change.

90% of my riding is fairly tame, Swinley is a big day out in that context, not due to skill levels, but just where i ride, it’s non technical.

We stuck the Shockwiz on my riding mates T-130 for the day, last time out we noticed his front end had 0/30 clicks on the rebound on the forks. Ooops. No wonder it’s never felt quite as inspiring as he’d like. We went for 15/30 clicks for a quick check/tester. Set the pressures and away we went. We spent most of our time repeating sections, rooty, fast, jumpy, techy, slow, tricky…. Really useful for the sort of riding the Shockwiz would like us to test. First check was for air, setting showed we wanted about 15psi less, which surprised him as he thought it was softish anyway. But went with it and away he went, the next stop was 25 mins later and it showed the front as being pretty much correct for both compression and rebound…. So we moved onto the rear, did the calibration, set the pressures to about correct and off he went. It then reported again the pressure was a bit too high, so that was dropped from 152psi to 137. After the next check he said it felt a bit wallowy, the Shockwiz reported the pressures were now correct but the rebound needed slowing, which we took off 3 clicks, so we’ll see next time as the riding time was over as i had to collect my lad.