This is what you’d be playing with inside a rear shock:
An article from Pinkbike:
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Yeah, no tokens.
This must vary for SID Ultimate Forks compared to others because 63psi would give her a ridiculously squishy fork with probably >50% sag. Below 90psi, she exceeds 30% sag.
In my case, I find 150-170psi in the fork optimal, and do occasionally bottom it out (no tokens, but soon MRP ramp control). I weigh 220 with gear.
Duly noted!!
I’ll get these tools for sure. That picture of the internal components of the shock looks “fun.” 
Not 100% sure I’ll play with shim tuning yet, but so far my “I’m going to do it all” approach has served me well since we’re often miles out in the middle of nowhere boondocking in our RV.
Cool. I think she might just ride really gently so we’ll go with softer sag and continue to use no tokens, and work on riding speed. She flies uphill… not so much downhill, over rocks, or through berms yet. 
Working on a shock damper isn’t rocket science but unless you’re up for investing in a ton of expensive tooling, send it out. Stick with the lower leg services, air spring services. Some shocks can be bled by hand, others require the use of a vacuum bleeder, some shocks can be charged with a standard shock pump, others require the use of a nitrogen charging system. That’s a ton of coin and lots of time, that said, turn around times on service might take you down this deep path! Lot’s of fun things to learn about shim stacks, tuning, etc… so it’s doable, it’s just not super easy either.
How much coin we talkin? Time-cost of taking bike to shops capable of doing reliable service in reasonable time may be insurmountable.
By quick search on amazon, looks like bleeder and nitrogen charger, if needed might be under $200 all told. Does that seem reasonable?
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Not likely, but let’s do this: catch me up, what shocks are you mostly interested in servicing down the road? There are so many variations on filling shocks, some are pretty easy, and some require a steady hand, a safety needle, and practice.
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RockShox SID Ultimate Fork
RockShox Nude Shock
Was going to say that, maybe she just avoids the kind of situations that would bottom the fork out. Making it more squishy might not help, it might make her hold back even more, because of the feeling of the fork diving in. I’d leave it as it is, until she herself thinks it needs to be more squishy.
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Forks are easier, and often you never even need to touch the damper, so I’d have no trouble recommending taking that on.
Check this out, I think you could at least take on the air spring service they show here:
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Yeah, for sure will be doing the 50-hr services.
Great point. Thank you!
I’m back. Quick refresher: wife and I are riding 2020 Scott Spark RC 900 WC w/AXS. We use them for anything non-pavement.
My goal is to have:
- 2 bikes
- 3 wheelsets with tires on, ready to roll.
- Wheelset 1: Gravel oriented.
- Wheelset 2: XC MTB race oriented.
- Wheelset 3: Enduro / Trail
If gravel riding: Michelle will use #1 and I’ll use #2.
If single track: Michelle will use #2, and I’ll use #3.
I need recommendations for the tires for wheelset 1.
and…
I need recommendations for the wheels for wheelset 3.
Current setups:
- Syncros Silverton SL 26 carbon wheels, Rekon Race 2.25 rear & Ikon 2.35 front (just cuz that’s what came on the bike). She’ll race on Aspen WT 2.4 or some other brand of lower rolling resistance XC MTB tire for XC and marathon MTB races.
- DT Swiss XMC 1200 wheels, Maxxis Aggressor 2.35 DD rear & Bontrager SE4 2.4 front.
My thoughts on tires:
- I know plenty about road tires, and plenty about XC, Enduro, and DH tires… but nothing about the in-between for gravel. Help!
My thoughts on wheels:
- I think I’d like to keep them light-ish, and if reasonable… maybe just get a 30mm internal width race XC wheelset for wheelset 3, and just slap my enduro-oriented tires on them and call it good? Seems to have been working so far… thoughts??
Thoughts on how to put it all together? I can of course move tires from wheelset to wheelset for initial setup but would prefer to mostly leave them “set” at least until race day.
UPDATE: I posted the above question, rephrased a bit, here to get a little more visibility.
Alex,
You probably have it all sorted out by now, but The Lost Company bike shop guys do some nice video blog type stuff. They just did a couple run throughs on Maxxis compounds and sidewalls.
For me, I don’t go through a lot of tires each season. So each purchase time, have to go back and review the acronym alphabet soup to ensure I get the ones I want.
It’s the first couple in the list. Will be obvious.
I do have it all sorted and practically memorized now, and I’m sure, like you, I’ll have forgotten by the next time I need new tires. I look forward to using this as a reference for that inevitable future!
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