Based on your comment "Most of the time I fiddle with my setup over and over and over trying to get his feeling but I honestly don't know how I got there in the first place or got away from it."
That makes me think you are making adjustments without understanding what they do.
Have you noticed that suspension setup guides almost always work in this order:
- sag (get the right spring or air pressure)
- rebound
- LSC (or platform)
- HSC
Rather than thinking about the fork and shock as "suspension with a bunch of adjusters", if you keep the spring/rebound/compression separate in your mind, it can be a lot easier to set up correctly, change and get back to a setting (that's easy anyway if you record every setting before changing it).
So when you talk about the bike "floating over the bumps", you need the springs just soft enough that it absorbs a bump, then rebound fast enough for the tire to drop off the bump and stay in contact with the ground. Without dealing with compression settings, just getting the spring/pressure and rebound into the right range get most bikes working pretty close to what you are searching for. It's not always easy to get everything dialled in perfectly, but when you are not adjusting blindly, it's not as hard as you think.
That makes me think you are making adjustments without understanding what they do.
Have you noticed that suspension setup guides almost always work in this order:
- sag (get the right spring or air pressure)
- rebound
- LSC (or platform)
- HSC
Rather than thinking about the fork and shock as "suspension with a bunch of adjusters", if you keep the spring/rebound/compression separate in your mind, it can be a lot easier to set up correctly, change and get back to a setting (that's easy anyway if you record every setting before changing it).
So when you talk about the bike "floating over the bumps", you need the springs just soft enough that it absorbs a bump, then rebound fast enough for the tire to drop off the bump and stay in contact with the ground. Without dealing with compression settings, just getting the spring/pressure and rebound into the right range get most bikes working pretty close to what you are searching for. It's not always easy to get everything dialled in perfectly, but when you are not adjusting blindly, it's not as hard as you think.
