Rear shock question

dogman dan said:

Try increasing damper some first. If that doesn't tame it, then some more stiffness. But don't stiffen it too much, just what you need for your weight. Personally, I'd rather pedal bounce mildly, than put my lower back through too stiff a shock. But for sure, stiffen up till you don't bottom out anymore if you do some bunny hops.

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MadRhino said:

Compression need to be set to sag 40% with rider on the bike. This means that an 8 inch travel suspension has to go down about 3 inches when you are in riding position on the bike with all the equipment and luggage that you will be riding with.

Rebound control need to keep the wheel on the ground when you ride on bumps. With a hub motor, usual shock dampers don’t have enough setting range to tame the weight of the wheel. So you will have to set it to the slowest and start from there. Then drop a sand bag on the street and ride on it at the average speed that you will be riding, to see if the rear wheel does absorb the hit without bouncing off the ground after passing it. It will probably do, so you just leave the setting at the slowest and know the damper valve does not close tight enough. If it does pass it smooth, then you can drop a 2nd sand bag 4 ft away from the first and try opening the valve by small increments and ride on both bags until you can pass them both without bouncing off the ground.

That is pretty much the best that you can achieve, but if you succeed you can try setting the bags closer to one another. The fastest you ride, the more difficult it will be to tune that simple test. Even at moderate speed you might need to drop tire PSI to keep it on the ground.

Then you will know the limits of your suspension, and from which speed you need to stand on the pedals to absorb bumps.

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