A Humbling Reminder and How to make it Less Humbling Next Time!

Today I got my humbling reminder…No matter how good of a rider your are, there is always that one place that just kicks the crap out of you.

For me, today, it was Rockland Preserve in Madison Connecticut. Don’t let the kids skills area or the perfectly manicured pump track fool you. Rockland is a BEAST! and Yes, it’s in CT (a state that no one, except the people who live there actually think of and like riding).

Rockland is a difficult place to maneuver, when it comes to suspension setup. Rock gardens can eat bicycles, the roots can hide a garden gnomes behind them and the berms are smoother than a babies bottom. The climbs can be long and grueling or they can be short and punchy, as the spring greenery fills in it makes visibility around endless switchbacks non existent. Drops, rollers, skinny’s, log rides, teeter totters Rockland has them all sprinkled around like Jimmy’s on Ice Cream.

Suspension setup for Rockland: Set it and forget it? Absolutely not…what works other places won’t work here. Lockout/Full Open? Nope…Full open will kill you on the climbs and the terrain is too harsh for using a lockout. Damper Control knobs on your fork and shock? Not a Chance…Rockland should be called “Rock Land” and turning control knobs while riding is death defying. Handlebar Remote for your suspension? Possibly…But not likely unless you have 3 stages and tweaked it for this place.

After todays ride, my recommendation for suspension setup would be an extra 10% of air pressure in your rear shock, but leave your rebound and compression setting the same (unless you have high and load speed compression, then I would firm up the low speed compression a couple clicks along with the extra air pressure). For the fork I would I would make the same recommendation, except an extra click on the low speed compression.

Don’t be afraid to tweak your suspension setting for different locations, and when you find the sweet spot for that location make sure you jot it down someplace. Maybe consider a little black book for your suspension tunes…man little black books are great for a lot of things (if your a techy…you could name your document file name “little black book”)!

Ride On
MTB Shock Lab Staff

If you like suspension tweak suggestions for different areas let us know and we will do our best to help get you dialed in for the ride, if we don’t know the place…well, maybe we will take a trip and go exploring.