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I love my Rise but I will say I prefer the damping and plushness of my Heckler MX-S. Maybe a good setup can get the Rise closer. I also have carbon handlebars that I will be installing on the Rise. Do you think a tune and some carbon bars can help close the gap? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Here are the specs of the two bikes:
Heckler MX-S
RockShox Pike Select+, 140mm
FOX Float Performance Elite DPS

Orbea Rise M20
Fox 34 Float Performance 140 3-Position
Fox Float DPS Performance 3-Position Evol custom tune 210x55mm
 

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The Heckler is about 44lbs. The Rise is about 38lbs. I would say thats the difference you are feeling. The heavier the bike then generally they track the ground better and present as more plush. Maybe put a coil shock on the Rise, that would help if you wanted more plush. Also service the fork.
 

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That could have something to do with it. Heavy E-bikes may feel plusher due to the higher weight of the bike and ratio of sprung to unsprung mass. The moving (position wise and with the ability to absorb) rider on a Mebike makes tuning quite challenging compared to heavier chassis like Mx bikes and cars. The heavier you make the chassis, the more this gets tuned out.
 
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I have an m20 rise as well... the stock DPS is definitely under gunned on a bike with capabilities like the rise. However, there are some things going on with the overall structure of the fox DPS/DPX2 and the tune that orbea selected for these bikes, that make tuning them a bit interesting.

Orbea specifies the DPS shocks with a compression tune of LCL (linear compression light) and a rebound tune of LRM (Linear Rebound Medium). It's actually a pretty smart specification of the mid/low end fox air shock products considering some structural design issues with these shocks in particular. The DPS and to an even greater extent, the DPX2, suffer from significant impacts to compression from the rebound tune/setting. To get the best of out these products, you really want to be able to run with the rebound adjuster as open as you can get away with, and then get the compression where you want from there. This is because the rebound adjuster, causes what's called, cross talk to the compression adjuster. (consequently, this is why many setup manuals and keyboard suspension experts suggest setting air spring and rebound first, and then falling back to tuning compression to suit). This is why the rise blue paper setup manual, is suggesting some rather wide open rebound settings like -10 for 200-210 psi... which is significantly more open as a starting point then fox's tuning manual for the DPS.

This is because orbea specified the linear medium rebound tune, so that they could separate the rebound/compression cross talk issues as much as possible. So what does that mean to you as someone that is looking for a bit more "plushness" out of their DPS? Well, I have a few suggestions based on my "just enough knowledge to be dangerous" level of experience:
#1 - Ensure that you are setting the bike up with the proper sag (I like about 28% on this bike with the DPS, although the choice between 25 and 30% is personal preference and with a higher performance shock, I prefer 30%).
#2 - Start by following Orbea's recommendation on rebound starting points.
#3 - Set the compression on the medium setting

I would ride the bike like this as an initial test setup ride, and pay careful attention to if the bike is riding too low in the travel, or if you are bottoming out.
If riding too low in the travel (pedal strikes, pedal wallow, odd mid stroke support followed by out of no where harshness) - add air pressure in 5psi increments
If mid stroke support and wallowness isn't an issue, but you are bottoming - add the next size up volume spacer (.2 is stock, .4 is the next size up)

If both of these are good, but the bike is too choppy, you are reaching the limit of the DPS architecture to achieve what you want... but not all is lost. This is the turning point where you have a choice:
Choice 1 - Run a smidge softer air spring setup (5psi under orbea recommendations or maybe 32% sag), run the compression lever on the middle setting, and run a .4 or .6 volume spacer
Choice 2 - Run a bit less sag (28psi, or 5psi over orbea recommendations, generally), run the compression lever on the open setting, and run the .2 or .4 volume spacer

With the DPS, you generally have a choice between little to no compression damping (open setting) and using the air spring to compensate or running a bit too much compression damping (medium setting) and backing off on the air spring slightly and compensating with volume reducers to control the bottom out events. The DPS is never going to be perfect and for that matter, the DPX2 has a good chance of not being perfect unless you're exactly in Orbea's ideal design factor for rider weight and aggression level... however you can get a balance that will get it good enough where you can toggle back and forth between open and medium based on the terrain you're riding. Open for janky, choppy baby head type of riding, and medium for machine built flow trail style riding.
 
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