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.

While writing the first blog post “Welcome To The Coiler…”I got totally side tracked by Welcome to the Jungle by Guns N’ Roses. I started channeling my inner Weird Al and singing “Coiler…Welcome to the Coiler…” Yes, I’m old…stop hatin’. But it made me think about “the jungle” that is bicycle suspension and service/intervals.

Service Intervals

All of the suspension manufacturers are, pretty much, on the same page as far as Service Intervals.

After Every Ride. This isn’t really a service but they all list it anyway. Wipe down your suspension with soapy water to remove any dirt, dust or debris.

50 Hour services (35 hour if riding in dusty conditions or aggressively riding). This service is generally a lower leg service for a fork or an air can service for a rear shock.

50 Hour Fork Service generally includes the following:

• Remove lower leg assembly
• Drain oil and remove dust wiper and foam rings
• Clean the exterior of the upper stanchions and the interior of the lower legs
• Install new dust wipers, foam rigs, oil and sag ring
• Reassemble fork using new crush washers
• Clean exterior of entire fork

50 Hour Shock Service generally includes the following:

• Remove air
• Remove air can
• Remove oil, dust wiper, seals compression rings
• Clean exterior of stanchion and interior of air can
• Replace dust wiper, seals, compression rings oil and sag ring
• Reassemble shock
• Clean exterior of entire shock

200 Hour Services or Annually (whichever comes first) (150 Hours is you are riding in dusty conditions or riding aggressively). This service is similar for both the fork and the rear shock so I won’t separate them out. The 200 Hour Service includes everything in a 50 Hour Service plus service to the damper unit/assembly and service of the air head seal on air sprung forks. This service all applies to most dropper seat posts and includes basically the check points.

Why Are Service Intervals When They Are?

Service intervals are set to ensure that your suspension will give you a long life…I mean it should because you saved your pizza delivery tips for 6 months to save up for that $750 Fox fork. Unfortunately, just because you saved up and spent a lot of cash on a fork doesn’t mean that its going to serve you forever.

I think we can all agree that cleaning your gear is self explanatory. Sorry, as I typed that I was told no we can’t assume that because people are ignorant and everyone has ADHD and cleaning our stuff isn’t a priority. So that being said…Clean Your Gear and it will treat you better!

So, what about the 50 Hour Service? Well this one is here to extend the time before having to do a 200 Hour Service. The main point of the 50 Hour Service is to make sure that the inside of your shock is clean and in good working order. The dust wiper is there to clean dust off the stanchion and keep that dust from entering the fork or shock. The problem is the dust wiper isn’t very effective against dried or caked on mud and dirt. When the dust wiper can’t do its job then dirt particles get inside your fork and or shock and degrade the oil, and reek havoc on the seals and stanchion coatings.

Then we have the 200 Hour Service. The MacDaddy service that no one wants to do because “it’s too expensive” or “I just got the shock 3 seasons ago and I don’t ride much” (much meaning they ride 15 hours a week all summer and fall) lol. This service is designed to make sure that the damper is functioning correctly and that all of the oil is “where its supposed to be”. Over time the dirt from your stanchions get inside your suspension and it degrades the oil, which deteriorates the seals. When the seals deteriorate then oil moves to places where it shouldn’t be (much like a blown head gasket in your car). This causes the damper to not work correctly (sucking sounds, lock out doesn’t work, ect).

Our Take On All This

In short…Yes, I agree with the Service Intervals.

The long of the short of it is…No one does what they are supposed to right from the start. Most people don’t wipe down their gear after each ride and then wonder why suddenly it doesn’t work. Do you ask why your car’s engine blows up after 50,000 mile of not changing your oil? Do you ask why your home boiler or furnace kicked the bed only 12 years into its life, but you never had the thing serviced?

No, you don’t because you change your oil in your car and you have your furnace serviced annually, this way if you miss one service it isn’t the end of the world.

So why blame the suspension manufacturers for telling you that your suspension needs service more often than you think is needed? Are you a suspension engineer for Rock Shox or a Chemist for Motorex and just think that marketing cooked up a way to make money, but you know the “real” facts? I didn’t think so.

These Service Intervals are effective at keeping your suspension running smooth and giving you the best chance at a long happy, squishy, life with your ridiculously technology rich suspension. But, if you are that one person out there who wipes their suspension down after every ride, then Yes, you can get longer than 50 hours between each 50 Hour Service. If you do, you can go longer than 200 hours before your 200 Hour Service. But lets be clear, the services still need to be done because broken parts are more common in un-serviced units and replacement parts are more expensive than service.

MTB Shock Lab Staff

We are Mountain Bikers…We ride bikes…We break bikes…We fix bikes.

Ride and Repeat!

Since we ride and break so many bikes and suspension systems and them fix them, we thought it fitting to share what we have learned with the masses (by masses we mean the 3 of our friends and hopefully our customers while they are drinking coffee or instead of reading the newspaper).

Since we ride mountain bikes you may be thinking Coiler? They had to rip off an entry level Kona full sus name, or maybe the fact that some suspension uses coils, or maybe they are taking the name from the coiled, springy, hose thing they use to service suspension…either way nothing original. Well you are all WRONG! We like snakes! Rattlesnakes…specifically because they are sweet and they coil up all intimidating. HA!

OK the rant is over and the truth is…the name of our 200 Hour Service is ButteryCoils and many forks and shocks do use coils so its fitting…”Haters can hate.” Now lets get down to business, the business of mountain bike suspension and bicycle suspension service.

As The Coiler progresses and evolves we will be doing comparisons forks, shocks, air vs coil, do you get what you pay for?, service intervals, is service really needed? and so much more. We want to hear what you have to say and what you think (so comment on this post), we want to know what you want to hear about, learn about, and see (so email us with any ideas and recommendations).

Along with The Coiler Blog we will be starting a YouTube page as well. We will be showing you the basics of setting up suspension for your riding weight and style. We will be posting videos of in-depth services of forks, shocks and droppers. Some of these videos will be “How Too’s” and some will just be cool to watch. (Most damper service requires specialty tools, nitrogen and a vacuum, so a walkthrough isn’t really practical).

The bottom line is that we ride mountain bikes and service mountain bike suspension. We aren’t bloggers or web designers, but we are doing it anyway. We are fun loving thrill seekers who jones for the high of that epic switchback climb and crushing lift access trails at mach 1. Our site will have issues, our blog will be a work in progress, our YouTube channel dope, lol. This is because we are doing it while servicing suspension and fixing droppers.

We focus on what we love so you can keep riding the way your bike was meant to be ridden! The MTB Shock Lab staff.