Suspension

Jargon

1. Pre Load - A load against the suspension in it unweighted position, not the weight of the spring but the pressure that the spring is under when no weight is against the suspension.
2. Negative Spring - A spring that pushes the suspension back past it's unload position, allows the wheel to extend quickly into depressions
3. Spring weight - The force needed to move a spring 1 inch
4. Leverage - The ratio between rear wheel movement and movement on the rear shock
5. Sag - The amount of movement that occurs when the rider sits on the bike
6. Damping - A resistance to the the springs movement, stops the spring giving a pogo effect.
7. Linkage - An extra linkage is added to take stress away from the shock, Four bar linkage allows the designed to modify the path that the rear wheel takes during compression
8. Air / Air - Air spring air damped
9. Air / Oil - Air spring old damped
10. Coil / Oil - Coil sprung and old damped
11. Elastomer - A rubber like compound that acts a a spring .. has its own damping characteristics, also knows as MCU

Adjusting

1. If your fork never bottoms out, something is wrong and you are not using all that plush suspension movement that you have paid for. On average your suspension should bottom out one or two times per ride. If it doesn't do this soften the Preload, don't worry about bottoming out to much as all forks have some sort of guard against this causing damage.
2. Damping is control, it's the rate that the suspension reacts during and after the bump, the rebound is dampened and it stops the bike from jumping about after the bump has been absorbed. Not enough damping and the suspension will have you bounding about too much and the suspension will not have recovered enough for the next bump on multiple bumps.
3. Preload is the load that needs to be applied to the suspension in order to make it work, if the Preload is 150lb and you way 149 no movement when you get on the bike. Most manufactures recommend one to one and half cm of movement front and back when you get on your bike, this depend though on how much actual movement you have.

Advanced Tuning

1. Typically sag is 15 percent of all wheel travel for XC and   25 for downhill
2. Faster and more responsive steering can be achieved by decreasing the rear sag as this will increase the head angle
3. Slower and more stable steering can be achieved by increasing the read sag as this will decrease the head angle

Maintenance

2. Most forks and some rears springs need regular servicing, mostly this involves stripping,cleaning and reassembling.
3. Air sprung forks need the pressure regularly checked.
4. English riders .. make sure that your seal's are covered, most forks come with a rubber springy protection thingy that simply stops grime getting into your forks .. if you don't have one of these in the English winter your forks will start to suffer come spring.

Multi Link (4 Bar Linkage)

You can tell if your bike is multi link simply by looking at the sear stay (that's the one between the rear wheel and the top of the seat post) if there is one or more than one link between the rear wheel and the mount for the rear shock it's multi link.

The idea of the Multi link is to modify the travel of the rear wheel so that it does not cause much change in chain whilst traveling through its movement, also this helps reduce pedal feedback

SETUP

Multi link designs tend to suffer from compression by large body / leg movements. The main thing to remember whilst riding a Multi Link is not to throw your body around but keep it smooth. The compression because of body movements problems is worse whilst sprinting as body movements are exaggerated in these conditions. There are two ways around this problem, either to have a rear shock with on the fly lock out (now you know what that's for) so you can have all your suspension but lock the rear end for springs. The other method is to set the shock harder .. this means that it will not be effected as easily on by body movements or small / medium hits.

RIDING

Climbing .. especially if you have the suspension set soft you should sit in the saddle and spin your legs for all it is worth, try to avoid getting out the saddle a stomping, just try and keep the action smooth.

Going down on a Multi link requires more care, depending on the setup of the suspension Multi Links either extend or squat. Squatters are OK as applying both brakes at the same time will cause both wheel to dive at the same speed. Extenders are a bit more of a hand full, applying the front wheel first will case the front end to dive, applying both at the same time will cause the bike to lurch as the front dives and the rear comes up. Apply the rear break first and the feed in the front, rearwards movement is highly recommended.

Because of the Multi Links tendency to lurch forward under breaking you will need to keep the weight a little further back than normal, but this will cause the front to become a little lighter than you would like. One tip on fast corners it to try and keep both pedals weighted rather than put all your weight on the outside pedal

URT

The URT design simply means that the three points of the rear (bottom bracket, rear wheel and suspension mount) triangle make up one complete (if the bottom bracket and rear wheel are on the same suspended piece of frame) its a URT

 

SETUP

The URT is a strange beast to set up as the seatpost and the the cranks are on different sides of the suspension system they when you stand up the weight is on the swingarm and is unsuspended, when you sit down the weight is on the frame and becomes suspended weight, this means that the suspension will sag more when you are seated, this is worth thinking about because if you set the spring hard you will have a bike that has plenty of suspension travel whilst seated but when you get out of the saddle the bike will become more or less a hardtail .... if you are a downhiller or general player you may want to set the so that the travel is around the 15 - 25% mark when you are standing, this will give you better landing travel but the bike will use loads of travel when you are seated

RIDING

Because the suspension on a URT is less active when you stand you are better of to stand whilst you climb on smooth climbs, if it becomes bumpy on the climb sit down in order to allow the suspension to become more active

On Down Hill get in the saddle to allow the suspension to become more active. URT bikes pitch the rear one up under braking so try to do a little backwards weight movement under breaking, you can also try applying rear break first in order to get the rear to get pulled backwards a pitch the rear down before applying the front break

In fast corners stand to make the handling more rigid and predictable, keep your weight on the outside pedal (outside pedal down and leg straight) in order to increase grip.

Single Pivot

This is the opposite to the URT and it places the bottom bracket on the frame and the rear wheel on the suspension swing arm, the rear swingarm is mounted to the main frame via one Single Pivot (hence the name). This has the advantage that no matter to rider position (seated or standing) his weight is always on the main frame and is always suspended .. it has the disadvantage that the distance between the BB and the rear wheel can change.

 

SETUP

Single pivot designs are a lot simpler to setup than URT designs as the amount of Sag does not change if you are seated or standing, just set it to the type of riding you are going to be doing and enjoy

RIDING

Climbing on some Single Pivot designs can be an interesting experience of you get out of the saddle ... they just simply don't like it and some (not all) will bounce about all over the place, keep in the saddle and try to spin the pedals in order to climb

Going downhill move your weight backwards (the steeper it gets the further back it should go) and enjoy.

In corners get out of the saddle lay the bike over and get your weight on the outside pedal (outside pedal down and leg straight, this improves grip and control)