mountain bike shock air pressure?

Question

i have a mantiou 4 way air shock on my bike and in the manual it says the air pressure needs to be set at 50-70% of my body weight. Is this in pounds of kilograms?

Answer 1

Cian, don't pay too much attention to the manual. Ask the frame designer. The reason is that different bikes have different leverage ratios, and on one bike you could need 170 lbs, on another one 140 lbs for the same shock.

Something that you should or could do is measure sag. Sag is the amount of distance (measured in percentage) that the shock eats of travel just by sitting on it.

Most air shocks have a o-ring on the stanchion. If it doens't have one, you can use a zip tie. Put the oring on the seal, and then gently climb the bike dressed and fitted as you usualy ride, and see how much the oring has moved.

If you do more XC stuff, probably you would like a sag around 20%-25%, but if you hit more rocks and bumps and roots, 30-33%.

And you should try it a bit. One tip of advise, write the settings down every time you change. That way, you know which pressure to go back to if you didn't like the new settings.

Answer 2

Wow, Bad Leroy Brown, that was quite the explanation. I’ll make sure to go back and vote for your post if the asker doesn’t choose one. Anyhow, now that we are all experts on shocks, the only thing I have to say is that after riding with friends who have air shocks while I was on my hard tail, and watching them constantly stop to futz with their suspension, I opted for coils when I bought my first squishy all mountain bike. The shock and fork each have one adjustment: stiffer or softer. I just dialed it in at first and now I don’t have to think about it, and that’s how I like it. Now, I have a different bike that I use for XC and endurance races, and I still use coils despite the extra weight. I’d rather not have to worry about my shocks than lose a few grams off the weight of my bike.

Answer 3

baba