- Hey everyone, I am Chase at Rocky Mountain ATV/MC,
and today we're going to teach you some basics
about suspension and help you set up
and understand your compression and rebound.
- Alright everyone, so today in this video
we want to share with you just some good
general common information about suspension,
more specifically your compression and rebound.
We just want to help you understand a little bit more.
I know a lot of riders, when it comes to suspension,
they can be a little bit intimidated
when it comes to adjusting and tuning their suspension.
Especially, we don't really understand it all that well.
But the truth is, it's really not that difficult
to fine-tune and set up your suspension
as long as you understand the basics of how it works.
And the beauty about suspension and adjusting your clickers,
whatever it is that you're doing,
is that no matter what changes you make,
as long as you know what you're base setting is,
you look at your owner's manual,
they'll give recommended base settings.
Or if you've had your suspension revalved,
they'll give you a recommended base setting.
But any changes you make, if you're not happy
with the direction that you're going,
you can always just go back to your zero,
or your base settings, and start over.
So don't be afraid to change your clickers,
and then go back to your base setting
if you're not happy with it.
So, we're just going to talk about
really compression and rebound today
and help you out and understand that,
so you know how to make those adjustments
and tune your suspension.
Alright, so first thing's first,
you got to set yourself up to win.
And what I mean by that is you want to make sure that you,
as a rider, your weight and your skill level
match what the bike is setup for.
Because every bike you have to remember, every bike
that comes from a manufacturer, they do a lot of testing.
And bikes these days, they're so good stock suspension,
but they do have to do their spring rates
and their valving for their suspension
to try and cater to a pretty large window of riders
cause they want to be comfortable
for as many people as they can.
But not every rider that buys a bike
fits the category, or that window,
of the riders that the manufacturer's trying to target.
So it's really important, you got to make sure
that your spring rates and your valving are correct
for your weight and also for your skill level.
You know what, if you're 150 pound rider hopping on a 450,
probably going to be too stiff for you,
you're going to want to go softer,
softer springs, softer valving.
If you're a 200 pound plus rider hopping on a 250,
well it's probably going to be too soft
and you're going to want to go stiffer.
So you're spring rates, 'kay you're springs
in your fork and your shock are going to help support
the weight of the bike as well as the rider,
and then your valving is going to control
how fast your suspension, your forks and your shock,
they compress and they rebound.
And the way that works is as the suspension compresses,
the oil inside your suspension goes through a piston,
and then it's controlled by the valving,
it's called a valve stack.
You have these little round shims,
and those will actually control how fast
or how slow that oil works its way through the stroke.
And that's going to be your valving.
So you got to remember, very important
that you have it setup, that you have it set
your spring rate, and your valving setup
to your riding and your weight.
Now an easy way to find out if you need
a different spring rate is just simply checking your sag.
So whether you get it by brand new or used,
first thing you want to do is check your sag.
Look at your owner's manual, service manual,
cause they will give a window of where your sag should be.
But checking your sag will tell you
if you need a softer or a stiffer spring.
We have a great how-to video where we should you
step-by-step how to do that if you're not sure.
But going along with that, 'kay,
you got to remember that spring rates and valving,
they're meant to work together.
So if you get on a bike, and you're too heavy
for the spring rate, and you got to go up
two or three spring rates to get it to where it needs to be,
well you got to remember that by doing that,
the valving was meant to work with that stock spring rate.
So if you go way stiffer, you're going to want
to redo your valving to make it match your spring rate.
So just keep that in mind.
So first thing, set yourself up to win,
make sure you have the right spring rate
and the valving for your weight and your skill level.
Alright, so now that you got yourself setup to win,
you know the basics there, let's just talk
about a few terms that I'm going to say a lot in this video.
And the first one is stroke.
So what I mean by stroke is the travel of your suspension.
So when you're riding your bike,
let's say you go off a jump, and as you land
and your suspension compresses,
that is your compression strokes.
So the suspension is coming down.
And then your rebound, and your rebound stroke,
is as the suspension returns back to full length.
So that's your compression's going down,
rebound is coming up or returning, and then the stroke
is the full travel that you're getting there.
So those are really the terms that you got to understand
before you try and adjust anything.
So with that out of the way, let's talk
about tuning your suspension, troubleshooting it,
and knowing what to look for.
A pretty common thing that a lot of riders talk about is,
"Oh, my suspension feels harsh."
And there's a lot of different things
that go into suspension guys, I'm not going to be able
to talk about every single thing.
But there are a couple common things
that are really going to help you out,
to know how to make your suspension maybe more compliant,
feel a little bit more plush and more comfortable for you.
And also, you got to remember that with every fork
and every shock, there's a sweet spot in that travel,
in the travel of the stroke that you want to live in.
You want it to stay there, that way it's going to feel plush,
it's going to be compliant, it's going to be comfortable.
So as a rider, if you're out there riding, and you feel
like the initial part of your stroke, and the fork
and the shock is stiff and you feel like it's harsh.
Those smaller bumps, that little chatter,
you get a lot of feedback and it just doesn't feel
very good, well an easy fix for that
is just to soften your compression.
And by soften your compression, whether it's on your fork
or your shock, all you're going to do
is just take that adjuster, and we talk about clicks,
so you just want to go one to two clicks out.
And remember, we talked about valving.
When you soften your compression,
you go one to two clicks out, or counterclockwise,
what you're doing is you're allowing more oil
to pass through that piston and that valve stack
which will help it move easier.
So you want to soften you're compression.
Now a common issue that I see a lot of rider run into
and a misconception that's out there is
a lot of times a rider will go out ride,
and he feels like his fork or maybe his shock is harsh.
He gets a kicking sensation, he feels like
it's not absorbing the bumps the way it should,
so initially what a rider will do
is they'll go softer on their compression.
So they'll go out a few clicks.
They go out and ride, and going softer will help
that initial part of the stroke feel better,
but as you start to hit those bigger bumps,
they come back in and say, "Man, it still feels harsh."
So what they'll do at that point
is they'll go softer on compression,
and then they'll go softer again.
But the problem that you're creating by doing this
is that the softer you go on compression,
the more you're bypassing the initial part of the stroke
because you're letting so much oil
go through that piston and your valve stack.
And what happens is now, you're riding
too low in that stroke, and you're living
down there at the bottom of your compression.
And when you're down there towards the bottom,
that's where it really ramps up with your valve stack.
And that's where it going to start to feel harsh
cause as you get towards the bottom of the stroke,
that's there to help with bottom and resistance,
and it's not going to feel very plush.
So in turn, what you actually need to do
in a lot of situations, is rather just going softer
and softer to try and make it feel more comfortable,
is you actually might need to go a little bit stiffer.
So what I would say is if you're having that concern,
where you're going softer on compression is not helping,
go stiffer, go back to your base setting.
And then go two to maybe four clicks stiffer
on your compression, whether it's your fork or your shock.
And see if that helps fix it because by going stiffer,
what you're doing is now you're going to have more holdup.
In other words, what I mean by holdup is
your stroke is going to stay higher up, or excuse me,
your travel's going to stay higher up in the stroke,
and that's where you're going to find that sweet spot.
So try that, if you're going softer on compression,
it's not fixing the issue, you still feel
like your forks are harsh, maybe you're getting kicked
with the rear end, it's kicking side to side
or kicking you up, well go stiffer on your compression
and see if that helps fix the situation.
So now we got compression out of the way,
let's talk about rebound real quick.
So rebound, like I mentioned earlier, it controls
how fast your suspension returns back to its full travel.
In other words, if you hit a big bump or a jump,
'kay, you're suspension compresses,
and rebound is how fast it returns.
Now rebound is something that a lot
of riders might not mess with too much.
Lot of riders will mess with compression,
but they tend to stay away from rebound
cause maybe they don't understand it too much,
or they don't know if they should go in
and slow down the rebound or go out and speed it up.
But you got to remember that rebound is essential
and it's synonymous when it comes to traction
and keeping your tires planted
and getting that power to the ground.
So what a lot of rider will do,
and this is pretty common mostly,
it's more common with the shock,
is if you're coming through some bumps,
maybe some whoops as we have here at OCA today,
and you feel like the rear end is kicking up really hard,
or maybe it's kicking side to side, well the initial thought
that most riders have is they say,
"You know what, I need to slow down my rebound and deaden
"that feel, so I'm not getting that bucking sensation."
But, what needs to happen in a lot of cases
is rather than going stiffer and slowing it down,
you actually need to open it up, go counterclockwise
on your rebound and speed that shock up.
That way, it's returning faster to the ground.
Because if you hit one bump, your suspension compresses,
but if it can't return fast enough before the next bump,
well just like with compression that's too soft,
now you're going to be living in the bottom of that stroke
where it's going to start to feel harsh.
And eventually you just run out of travel
and all that energy, rather than
the suspension absorbing it, it goes
into the bike and then into the rider.
So if you run into that issue,
where you're going through some whoops,
or you feel like the back end is kicking side to side
or up and down, and you feel like your compression is good,
well adjust your rebound, try going slower or faster.
Remember you can always go back to your base setting.
But if you slowed the rebound down and you still feel
like you're getting that kicking,
it could be that you just need
to speed your rebound up to help that tire return
and utilize that suspension as much as possible.
Just remember that a slow rebound
with a soft compression is going to compound the problem
to where you're going to be too low in that stroke too much.
And the last thing I want to touch on
with the rebound is with the forks.
So remember, like I said earlier guys, don't be afraid
to adjust it, see what works and what doesn't.
But something that I have found for me
helps a lot to know if I need to speed up
or slow down my rebound or my forks,
is if you're in a high speed section
that's got a lot of chatter, maybe a lot of breaking bumps,
and you feel like you're getting that head shake
where the front end starts to feel twitchy
and you don't have a lot of control,
well something that can help with that
that I've found is you speed up your rebound.
A lot of riders will actually slow it down
because they feel like the rebound's too fast,
and it's make the front end not stay planted.
Well typically, in those situations
where you have a lot of bumps at high speed, again,
if your tire is not returning fast enough to the ground,
you're not living in that right part of the stroke.
So try speeding up your rebound a couple clicks
to help the front tire tread better,
and that way your suspension's going to better absorb
every single bump that you're hitting as you're doing that.
Hey everyone, so while we were putting together
this video and get it all edited up,
we realized there's a couple thing that we forgot to mention
that we want to show you right now.
First is where your clickers are located
on your forks and your shock.
Also we want to briefly go over
high speed compression on your shock as well.
So when it comes to your clickers, we'll start with forks.
Now in most cases, your compression adjuster
on your fork is going to be on the top,
and then the rebound adjuster is actually going to be
down here on the bottom of your fork link.
But just keep in mind that this
isn't going to be the same for every fork.
For example, KTMs that have say a 4CS fork,
you're going to have compression on the top on one fork,
and then the other fork is going to be for your rebound.
And both of those clickers are located on the top.
So if you're not quite sure where your clickers are
or which one does what, best advice I can give,
go look at your owner's manual.
Now on the shock, in most cases
your low and high speed adjusters
are going to be located near the shock reservoir.
So on this bike here, you can see
the low speed compression's going to be on the inner diameter,
you can use a flathead screwdriver to adjust.
The high speed compression is going to be this outside nut.
Now when it comes to rebound, most cases
you're going to find the rebound adjuster
down at the bottom on the clevis on your shock.
But remember just like with the forks,
it might differ bike to bike, so if you're not
quite sure, look at your owner's manual.
Now when we talk about high speed compression,
a couple things we want to cover here.
Don't get high speed compression confused
with how fast you're moving in terms of miles per hour.
Rather, it's the measurement
of how fast a shock shaft is moving.
So think of your abrupt high speed landings, or maybe
those sharp square edge bumps while you're out riding.
So for example, if you're out riding, you come off a jump,
you feel like you're bottoming too easily,
or if you feel like the rear end is maybe sitting
a little bit too low under acceleration,
well what you can actually do is stiffen up
the high speed compression and go in.
Or maybe you're coming through a corner,
you have some square edge bumps coming out,
some acceleration chop, you feel like it's really harsh.
What you would do then is actually soften up
the high speed compression to make it
a little bit more comfortable.
Now when it comes to adjusting that high speed compression,
in most cases, this isn't going to be by clicks,
it's going to be rather by turns.
And a good rule of thumb for adjusting that
is you want to go a quarter to a half turn
at a time when you're adjusting that high speed compression.
So again, that's where your clickers are located.
Now let's get you back out to the track.
Just remember, suspension, there is a lot to it.
The things that we talked about today, very basic,
but like I mentioned, as long as you have
a good understanding of how things work
in a general idea of that, then you're going to have
more confidence to adjust your suspension, tune it,
to get it setup how you like it, and what's going to
make you more comfortable and also faster as a rider.
But those are some of my basic tips
and troubleshooting ideas
when it comes to compression and rebound.
Now I'm sure you guys out there, you know a lot
about suspension as well, so leave your comments below.
Let us know what you guys have found
with your compression rebound,
things to look for or things you can find on the track.
Maybe the desert, the woods, things that indicate
if you're too soft or too stiff on compression,
or if you need to go faster or slower on rebound.
What helps you out, and that's going to help other riders out
who are looking for those same answers.
If you guys like this video, get subscribed
to our YouTube channel cause we're constantly
doing product spotlights, how-to videos,
and tip videos, excuse me, just like you saw today.
I am Chase, we'll see you on the trails.