How should I dial my suspension for a desert race?

[Stock 400 rider]

How should I adjust the preload, compression, damping for a desert race? The surface will be a litlle bit wet, no dust, hard packing.
Thx

[wilkin250r]

Where are you desert racing? I have never heard of any desert racing outside of Nevada or those areas close to Nevada (like CA or AZ). Most of it is centered between Vegas and Reno.

Desert racing typically doesn't involve major air, so bottoming resistance isn't your major concern. So it's ok to have soft shocks. At the same time, you want to go as fast as possible over irregular terrain, which means you WANT soft shocks. Both thes factors together say turn down your compression.

Your preload will be determined by your particular course, mainly by any whoop sections in your course. The typical rythm for a non-whoop section is a few small bumps, a big bump, followed by a few more small, than another big. You're generally NOT worried about your shocks packing up, since you typically have a few small bumps between big bumps, and those small bumps will give your shocks time to recover. However, you ARE worried about possibly being kicked over the bars. So you want to crank your preload up to keep the rebound under control. But if you're looking at any whoop section with repeated big bumps closely spaced, you'll need to back off on your preload to keep the shocks from packing up.

[Stock 400 rider]

Thanks a lot for the reply. I got it!
I`m just not positive about how soft should the compression be? And what to do with the rebound, should I put it in soft so the shocks are ready to "receive"all the small bumps of the course? I think so

[cdalejef]

The adjustments are gonna be different for everybody, you just need to ride in those conditions and adjust untill they feel good to YOU.

[Stock 400 rider]

It`s gonna be a race. I can`t see the course I`m gonna ride

[cdalejef]

You can ride in the area and get a good feel of what the track will be like. We don't get to ride GNCC tracks before the race either but you can tell alot by just walking part of the coarse.

[dawnchris]

Originally posted by Stock 400 rider
How should I adjust the preload, compression, damping for a desert race? The surface will be a litlle bit wet, no dust, hard packing.
Thx

Uhhhh.........a desert race with no dust? Thats ludicrous!

[Stock 400 rider]

It`s raining this time of the year dawn and Jeff the race it`s not in US so I really can`t ride in the area or even walk some part of the 150 miles. Sorry I didn`t mentioned before.

Any help on suspension?

[wilkin250r]

Originally posted by Jeff@QuadShop
The adjustments are gonna be different for everybody, you just need to ride in those conditions and adjust untill they feel good to YOU.

This is true, I certainly can't give you "three clicks here, two clicks there" detail because I don't know what type of suspension your riding now, or how it is set up and valved. Most of you adjustment will depend on your initial setup and what type of riding your shocks are designed for.

Now, with that being said, I still stand by my previous advice. Generally, you won't be seeing big air during a desert race. MX shocks are typically stiffer than an XC setup, with more compression damping to handle big air landings, they don't care too much about little bumps and irregularities because they aren't as prevalent on an MX track. So if your shocks are set up for MX, you'll probably want to crank the compression down. If your shocks are set up for XC, they are probably pretty close already.

Rebound: Probably more important for your rear shock. If you compress your rear shock on a landing, and it rebounds too quickly, it can pitch you head-first over the handlebars. You are traveling over very irregular terrain that you can't preview, so it's much more likely that a big bump will catch you by surprise and pitch you foward. So you may want to crank the rebound up a little bit to keep that under control. Again, if you anticipate big whoops, then you run the risk of your shocks packing up.

Preload: Personal preference. Go with whatever feels best.