- 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.
