FINDING GOLDILOCKS

Q: I just bought a 2019 Giant Trance with a Fox 34 fork on it. It’s the Rhythm model, and I just can’t seem to get the setup right. I can’t find a balance between too soft and too hard, and I keep blowing through my travel on heavier hits. My last fork didn’t have this problem, but it was a coil-sprung Marzocchi. What can I do to make it better?
Emery Gonzalez
Las Cruces, New Mexico

A: Ramp control is sometimes hard to set up on OEM forks with limited damping controls. The particular fork you have uses the GRIP damper, which is a great damper but lacks fine adjustment. Having ridden a lot of bikes with a variety of different forks, we always have to play with settings to get the bike to behave correctly. With the fork you have, there’s a rather simple solution—volume spacers. Most modern air forks have a way to adjust the air spring, whether it be with plastic tokens like Fox, RockShox and others, or with an adjustable coil spring that controls the first part of the stroke, like DVO with the OTT (Off the Top) system.

Achieving small-bump sensitivity with ample bottom-out control is one of the big challenges with suspension, especially forks. The trick is finding the balance, which can be different for everyone. In our experience, most manufacturers will send out their stock forks with one token already installed (some don’t have any) and will set a couple aside in the extra parts box for the option to add more if needed. When setting up a bike for testing, we’ll generally check how many tokens are installed and add or subtract as we see fit. Depending on the fork, we’ll usually go with two tokens, which we’ve found is a good starting point to see if we need more or less.

Longer forks have more wiggle room to find just the right number of tokens, while shorter-travel bikes can be a little harder because they need to ramp up so quickly when hit with a big compression. This may be the issue you have with your Fox 34. Our recommendation is to open up the air spring to see what’s in it currently, but we’d guess one or none. We’ll suggest you put two in and then air it back up. It’s important that you make only one change at a time, so start with whatever pressure you run before adding the spacer, but don’t be surprised if you end up preferring a little less. And, be sure to test ride a trail you’re familiar with that will test your suspension (i.e., not your city’s bike path).

From there, it’s simple. If you still bottomed out too much, add a token; if you didn’t use as much travel as you think you should’ve, lose a token. Beyond bottomless tokens, it’s important to ensure you have your compression and rebound settings right so the fork will respond to the trail efficiently. If your rebound is too slow, it’ll start to stack up in chattery sections, which means it won’t allow the fork to complete the stroke before taking the next hit. If the rebound is too fast, it will start to bounce you like a pogo stick from rock to rock, which is hard to control. Some fork brands offer suggestions based on rider weight for where to set the rebound, and we find that to be a decent starting place, though we do tend to adjust it a click or two depending on the rider. We hope this helped answer your questions. Of course, if this has made you even more confused, we’d recommend visiting the friendly folks at your local bike shop so they can lend a hand in getting you comfortable on the bike.

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