[Johngal]

I have just bought a new bike with the above Fork. I am only 75 kg and do not do a lot of jumps. I am having difficulty setting up the fork to fell nice and plush over rocky single track. Fork feels really harsh . My old fork just had 3 settings and was easy to dial in, I don't know if the recommended air pressure is too much?. Any help appreciated.
Cheers John

 

[targnik]

Sell it and get a Pike

Sent from my HD1900 using Tapatalk

 

[silentG]

Out of curiosity what PSI are you running in it? What about your rebound, LSC, and HSC settings?

 

[Mike Aswell]

There's a long thread about this somewhere I think in the suspension sub forum that there is a good bit of info in, including posts of mine...but ultimately I do kind of have to agree with targnik. I spent an entire season fiddling with mine. I've used a shockwiz. I'm also on the smaller side like you and ride rough technical terrain where I don't think it should have been a poor choice for a fork. Eventually, with my settings wildly outside of Fox's recommended settings, I got it feeling better but not great. But if I had the purchase to make over again I absolutely would go a different direction.

 

[cookieMonster]

I have just bought a new bike with the above Fork. I am only 75 kg and do not do a lot of jumps. I am having difficulty setting up the fork to fell nice and plush over rocky single track. Fork feels really harsh . My old fork just had 3 settings and was easy to dial in, I don't know if the recommended air pressure is too much?. Any help appreciated.
Cheers John

Just so you know, a brand new fork has a break in period, and will feel sticky for quite a while until the bushings have been burnished in for a while. That would account for some of the harshness. I have a 2012 36 Van that took almost a whole season to reach its ultimate potential.

Don’t be afraid to deviate from the manufacturer’s recommended settings. I just bought a Marzocchi Z2 (a Fox 34, essentially), and have found that I like it best at around 10 psi less than what the manual recommends. That may change as the fork breaks in and temperatures warm (the warmest ride I’ve done with the fork to date was around 28 degrees F.)

Finally, compression and rebound settings are very personal and condition dependent. Personally, I don’t like much low-speed compression unless I’m riding extremely steep terrain, and then, only enough to keep the front end a bit higher in its travel. I’ve found that air forks really don’t need much added high speed compression because of their inherent progressive nature.

Rebound is also very condition dependent and is impacted by how much pressure you’re running. The more pressure you run, the more rebound damping you’ll need, and vice versa. I like my rebound pretty fast; just enough to control things a bit, and no more. I ride a lot of rough, high speed terrain, and too much rebound damping there makes the fork pack up and not respond fast enough to each successive hit.

If I rode flow trails and more jumps I would run more damping and an overall stiffer setup. Hope that helps!

 

[Harold]

I have just bought a new bike with the above Fork. I am only 75 kg and do not do a lot of jumps. I am having difficulty setting up the fork to fell nice and plush over rocky single track. Fork feels really harsh . My old fork just had 3 settings and was easy to dial in, I don't know if the recommended air pressure is too much?. Any help appreciated.
Cheers John

you know there are subforums here, right? and one of them specifically covers suspension. AND, get this, there's a lot of people talking about suspension setup! who knew?

 

[DIRTJUNKIE]

You should be at 15-20% sag with your riding weight on the bike. After that it’s just a matter of playing with the compression / rebound clicks I’d recommend one click at a time with those.

https://www.ridefox.com/dl/bike/my21/605-00-216_RevA-36-Tuning-Guide.pdf

 

[JohnnyC7]

Fox's suggested settings are a good start but don't be scared to adjust from there. I would start by reducing pressure 5 psi at a time and leave the damper settings at the recommended position

I recommend a basic service and burnish the bushings from new as it reduces a lot of the friction of a new fork which makes a huge improvement to exactly what you describe

 

[jeremy3220]

Look up the concept of bracketing. Most of the time you're better off testing and bracketing than trying to reason through it or ask people what you should change.

 

[brash]

You should be at 15-20% sag with your riding weight on the bike. After that it’s just a matter of playing with the compression / rebound clicks I’d recommend one click at a time with those.

Setting sag on a fork is such a crap shoot.

Do 3 sag readings within 2 minutes of each other using the same method and I bet all 3 are different.

Don't get me wrong, it's fine to get a rough baseline, but that's about it IMO. Riding the bike will tell the real story.

 

[Dougal]

Yes they suck on rocky trails. I rode one end of last year for a month and had to install a Secus, modifiy the damper midvalve and reshim compression and rebound circuits to get it moving like it should. I'm also right in the average weight range (same as you) so if a fork should work out the box it should work for us right?

Fox recommended settings are IMO rubbish. Here's a spring-rate graph of my F36 GRIP2 with 1 token, secus fitted and 60psi. It's bang on 40lb/in:

The sticker on the fork says 70psi. But if you run less than 70psi the rebound is dead too.

 

[reo-fahrer]

But if you run less than 70psi the rebound is dead too.

in the 2021 part list for the 36 GRIP2 there's beside the default "820-03-526-KIT 2019 GRIP2 REBOUND VALVING, LONG TRAVEL" a new one "820-03-642-KIT 2020 GRIP2 REBOUND VALVING, LIGHT" listed. Do you have any details for what purpose this has been added as option?

 

[Muddy-Runs]

Yes they suck on rocky trails. I rode one end of last year for a month and had to install a Secus, modifiy the damper midvalve and reshim compression and rebound circuits to get it moving like it should. I'm also right in the average weight range (same as you) so if a fork should work out the box it should work for us right?

Fox recommended settings are IMO rubbish.

Disagree, its a great fork.
Just because you didnt like it and had to modify it to your liking says nothing.

OP, it takes some time to adjusting it, but it worth the work. As others said, you should start with 20% sag, fully open HSC/LSC and Fox recommended rebound for your weight as a starting point and slowly adjust from there. Also you should consider taking the volume spacer out if you having one.

 

[Johngal]

Out of curiosity what PSI are you running in it? What about your rebound, LSC, and HSC settings?

Hi,To start I set it at recommended setting on fork which is about 75psi , I have reduced this to around 60 and the guy in the bike shop slowed the larger rebound dial by a couple of clicks from recommended setting as well. Do you have some suggestions?

 

[Johngal]

Just so you know, a brand new fork has a break in period, and will feel sticky for quite a while until the bushings have been burnished in for a while. That would account for some of the harshness. I have a 2012 36 Van that took almost a whole season to reach its ultimate potential.

Don’t be afraid to deviate from the manufacturer’s recommended settings. I just bought a Marzocchi Z2 (a Fox 34, essentially), and have found that I like it best at around 10 psi less than what the manual recommends. That may change as the fork breaks in and temperatures warm (the warmest ride I’ve done with the fork to date was around 28 degrees F.)

Finally, compression and rebound settings are very personal and condition dependent. Personally, I don’t like much low-speed compression unless I’m riding extremely steep terrain, and then, only enough to keep the front end a bit higher in its travel. I’ve found that air forks really don’t need much added high speed compression because of their inherent progressive nature.

Rebound is also very condition dependent and is impacted by how much pressure you’re running. The more pressure you run, the more rebound damping you’ll need, and vice versa. I like my rebound pretty fast; just enough to control things a bit, and no more. I ride a lot of rough, high speed terrain, and too much rebound damping there makes the fork pack up and not respond fast enough to each successive hit.

If I rode flow trails and more jumps I would run more damping and an overall stiffer setup. Hope that helps!

Yes all good info, I just need to get my head around what is going to be best all round,

 

[jeremy3220]

Hi,To start I set it at recommended setting on fork which is about 75psi , I have reduced this to around 60 and the guy in the bike shop slowed the larger rebound dial by a couple of clicks from recommended setting as well. Do you have some suggestions?

Lower pressure means the rebound should be sped up. It should be easy to determine the best pressure and rebound when you go through your bracketing. Like someone else mentioned, I'd remove all the volume spacers and start your bracketing session with the compression open. Set your pressure, then your rebound, then compression, then go back and retest your pressure (if it changes go through the full gamut again).

 

[Dougal]

in the 2021 part list for the 36 GRIP2 there's beside the default "820-03-526-KIT 2019 GRIP2 REBOUND VALVING, LONG TRAVEL" a new one "820-03-642-KIT 2020 GRIP2 REBOUND VALVING, LIGHT" listed. Do you have any details for what purpose this has been added as option?

I haven't dug through those. With the way the rebound works the internal setting of the VVC system used on the high speed rebound knob has a huge effect. This VVC system adds stiffness and preload to the rebound stack and it can be adjusted anywhere from doing nothing to super tight with the same shim stack.

On my F36 Grip2 I had the VVC backed right off internally and still removed shims from the rebound stack to get it to move fast enough. Crazy that such measures are needed on a stock fork for a standard weight rider! But that was just the rebound side.