Suspension Tuning Help for a Heavy Rider

[FocoMTB]

I have been tinkering with the suspension settings on my new 2020 Santa Cruz Nomad (Carbon S Kit) and would love some input. When I ran the bike at my LBS’s recommended settings, it felt good but I noticed that I was using all of the rear travel and about 75 percent of the fork travel. I am not sure how many volume spacers are in the fork or the shock.

Fork: Fox 36 float 170mm

Shock: Rockshox Super Deluxe Select Plus (What a mouthful) 230mm x 60mm (170 rear travel)

Rider weight before gear: 240 pounds

Trails: blue/black and black chunky rocky ass trails.

Shop Suggested Baseline:

• Front 105 PSI with 10 clicks of rebound
• Rear 250 PSI with 5 clicks of rebound

To try and balance out the fork and shock I reduce the fork pressure to 99 PSI and and increased the rear shock to about 275. I was sitting a little over 30 percent sag on the fork and perfectly at 30 percent in the rear after this adjustment. Fox says for my weight I should close the rebound all the way on the fork but this did not feel right on the trails.

I feel like I am going crazy adding and reducing pressure, messing with rebound, and pondering removing or adding volume spacers. I’ve watched videos and done research but it feels like I am being pulled in different directions.

Any advice helps! BTW I love this bike and it isn’t that it is performing poorly, but I want to find the perfect settings.

[Alvin Mullen]

Unless you are bottoming hard, or you are not riding the hard as you plan, the shock sounds like it is about right. You should be using all of the travel on the hardest parts of the trails you normally ride.

I am not that up on your fork, but in general I find my bikes feel best with 20% sag on the fork and 30% on the shock. If you are running more than 30% and still only using 75% of the travel, I would guess you have more spacers than you need. But again, I have never had a bike with that fork.

[Author]

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