[oreo]

It's a 2005 36 TALAS RC2 fork. I weigh about 120-122# and have 40psi in the TALAS chamber. Manual says <125# should have 45psi and when I called FOX they recommended no lower than 40 psi.

The question is: do I measure sag on the fork when I'm in normal riding position or when I have my upper body weight learning over the bars and am standing up on my pedals? When it's the former I seem to have way too little sag per the manual recommendations, but when it's the latter I seem to have more luck getting close to the recommended. Or do I just say, 'forget the manual,' pump the fork pressure up/down depending on whether or not I get full travel?

MANUAL says (for 150mm travel mode):
Freeride Plush sag- 38mm, but I'm not coming close (unless my body weight is over the bars) as you can see by actual the measurements.

Acutal sag (normal riding position) 15mm @ 40psi (from the fork seal to the bottom of my zip time on the stanchion)
Actual sag (weight over bars) 32mm @ 40psi (from the fork seal to the bottom of my zip time on the stanchion)
I have a feeling you measure sag when you're in a normal riding position, but if so, what's up with my fork (why am I not even close to recommended sag?)

Thanks.

 

[Bordershy]

According to Marzocchi

you should be in "attack mode" or standing with weight slightly over the bars.However this could be that with current all coil zoke forks we(the consumer)are no longer able to set sag with preloading the springs mechanically without air pressure.Thx marzocchi.Really,thx

I would set sag to attain desired feel & use as much travel on bigger hits as possible.With air that can be a tall order,but that fork has a lot of adjustment so you should be able to get there with fiddling & time.

Nice fork btw.Fox gave you all the nice stuff that made us old zoke fans love zokes.Too bad they kinda forgot what got them there.

 

[Ronnie]

You are probably going to spend most of your time in the seated riding position so you should set your sag there. Unfortunately I would guess that most manufacturers make their forks for an average rider of about 160 to 170lbs. I'm assuming that your fork is new, so the good thing is that it needs to loosen up and will probably sag more once it has broken-in. I haven't had a Fox in the past few years. I've been riding Manitou whose manual says up to 40 hours of break-in time. I've noticed that I've had to increase the pressure over the first few weeks to keep the same sag. Ride it some more and see what happens.

Ronnie.

 

[Alexp]

I weigh 190 lbs. and I only ran 50 PSI to get decent sag on my 36 TALAS. The problem with doing this is I blew through all of my travel ( I had a 36R so hopefully you should be able to adjust your compression to combat this) on even small hits. Those forks take a while to break in as Ronnie said, so give it a little time and just ride on it, mess with the pressure, and set it where you like it regardless of what the measured sag is. Did fox tell you that you would damage the fork with lower pressure than 40 PSI ? If not then just use less pressure.

 

[oreo]

Called Fox

They say to set the pressure where you get the desired amount of sag w/o concern for damage to the fork. As to measurement of sag, they recommend to measure it when you are in the position you will find yourself most of the time.

BTW, it's a used fork...will have to fiddle with the settings and hope that compression damping and bottom out resistance works well as I plan to lower the air pressure more. I have a DHX coil in the rear and it's nice and plush, looking to achieve a similar feel in the front.