the front suspension on my bike is very stiff, is there anything i can do?

Question

its a very thick fork

i bought it for 400$ it has a mercalli downhill fork and my friend bought the same bike and it really soft but its too late to return it and its always been stiff

Answer 1

If it is an air fork, you can let out some air...

If it is a coil fork, and you can't adjust the damping, you need a new spring kit installed...

some really cheap forks are just not servicable.

Preload adjustment simply adjusts how far the fork moves down when you get on the bike... nothing more.

Answer 2

Was it stiff since you've bought it? or it became stiff afterward? If it became stiff over time, probably you could take it to a bike shop to have it serviced.

If it was since new, it would depend on which fork it has.

Low level forks probably don't offer any adjustability, so you might be out of luck.

Mid to high level forks, you have some options. As most have said, if it's an air fork, you could play with the air pressure (you need a shock pump), let some air out of the fork and see how it feels.

If it's a coil fork, you could change the spring to a softer one.

Again, you need to say which fork you have, probablye there's something you can do, but we need more info.

Answer 3

We need to know the brand and model of the fork before being able to answer this question.

Answer 4

cheap bike= no adjustability.higher end forks are adjustable to a certain degree.if your bike was less than $500, then if you want more active suspension then you need a new fork [with adjustability].

Answer 5

if it is an air fork let some out, if it has preload adjustment make it softer (turn to the minus side), if it has travel make largest