You know how you said that someone should have told you to read the manual, well to find all your blue knob answers, read the manual! Haha.
Not sure which shock brand that is but assuming that it’s either RS or Fox, they both have great websites that explain everything. Fox forks and shocks also have a four character code on them that identifies the tune which you can enter into their website and it will give you extra information.
The good thing between brands is that they use the same colour coding for the knobs and they all work the same way.
Blue is compression damping. More to the + and the shock will get stiffer and harder to actuate as the oil chambers get closed off. Going - and the damping will be reduced. A heavier rider might want more damping (towards +) as they will blow through travel faster (inertia and all that jazz).
The red dial is the rebound speed. This is used to control the speed at which the fork returns to it’s open stroke (uncompressed length). If you were to find, for instance, that you are going downhill on some rough terrain and the hits seem to be getting harder, or you feel like the suspension isn’t working, then there is every chance that the rebound is too slow and the suspension is basically jacking down in it’s stroke and not returning in readiness to take the next hit. The rabbit is faster rebound, the turtle is slower.
When making adjustments make use of common motorsport tuning parlance. Don’t go one click at a time. Go four. This will give a noticable difference and will tell you straight away if you’ve gone too much. If it’s too much, come back two clicks and test again. If it’s not to much, obviously progress another two clicks. You’ll never feel a difference one click at a time. Be extreme first and then come back.
Also test your new settings on the same section of trail and on the same lines. If you try out a new setting in another trail you have lost your point of reference. You don’t see race cars making an adjustment and then heading out on a different race track.
And also adjust one setting at a time, ie rebound only or damping only or pressure only. Eliminate one thing at a time otherwise you will not know what it was that actually made the difference.
A way up the thread you were looking to take the air shaft out of the fork. No one mentioned that when removing the top nut on the fork first let all the air out, unless you want a 32mm hole through your skull…same goes for the rear shock if fitting bands to add progression…let the air out.
An item to consider is an MRP Ramp Control. This is a cartridge that replaces the top nut and Schrader valve on the air side of the fork. Once installed you can adjust the dial to increase or decrease progression of the fork in the same way as adding or removing tokens but without having to disassemble your fork, and can be done on the trail. Coming up to some big drops…wind on the progression…nice flat trail, wind it off. The Ramp Control is equal to having between 1 and 4 tokens in the fork. There are other fork tune kits available on the market but the MRP is one of the eaiser to use.
(ie. change one variable when I really want to learn something)
