"How’s your bike’s suspension?" This question is guaranteed to make grown men fall to their knees in supplication to the suspension gods - or - prompt the following intelligent and thoughtful response: “I dunno.” Suspension is an art form practiced by certain mysterious mechanics around the country who know suspension mysticism and rites of exorcism. There is a blend of mathematic and spiritual forces that must work together in order for you to achieve harmony with your bike. (Assuming you jet it right. Which doesn’t happen very often. The jetting gods are as fickle as the suspension gods.) If you are in the “I dunno” category, just stop reading here and go back to nursing your collarbone or whatever else you broke last time you got pitched off your demon bike. If you really want to understand suspension - then buy a book because by the time I’m through with you you’ll be more confused than when you started. Sorta like my husband, since he married me. The theory of suspension says that once you adjust your bike by: revalving your fork, setting your fork clickers, changing your shock spring, setting your shock clickers, resetting your static sag, resetting your clickers back to where you started, setting your rider’s sag, giving up and putting your clickers all the way out on the shock and forks and hope for the best - you will then be able to hit a rock in the trail and only fly 10 feet as opposed to 50 feet. Truly an amazing difference! At which point you will then reset all your clickers all the way in and get swallowed in the sand never to be seen again. You will then throw your bike in the garage and sell it at the next opportunity claiming it’s possessed, buy another one and start all over. Fun, huh? So to help you facilitate your descent into madness by setting your suspension, I have included this handy suspension guide complete with definitions. Or, you could just put your bike up for sale and save yourself the trouble of reading further. Rebound: The measure of the amount of time it takes for your bike to spring back up from compression to hit you squarely in the butt, sending you over the handlebars and into a cactus. Compression: What your buddies will do to your chest if your rebound is too fast. Adjusting your compression will allow you to decide how hard you want to hit the rock you didn’t notice, in order to land in fresh cow manure. Static Sag: How loooooow can you go without looking like a chopper? Rider Sag: What happens if you don’t wear a sports bra or riding shorts. Also an accurate measurement of how many extra calories you ate. Rider sag and static sag will tell you if you need a new hobby - I mean, shock spring. Preload: There’s a factory worker at every manufacturer whose job it is to adjust shock preload to a specified weight of rider. When you get your new bike, that weight is set for either 500 lbs or 50 lbs. - hard to tell. I am convinced these people snort fork oil.
Now, if you take all these terms and mix them together on your bike, you will be confused. First you should set up your rider sag and static sag. This can be accomplished with a tape measure and a stiff drink. If you can’t get your sag within proper limits, finish your drink and go to bed. You can order the shock spring in the morning. Or not. Now you get to figure out your compression and rebound. Here’s the deal on that: Compression and rebound are voodoo-based. Compression and rebound work in tandem with each other and when you change one, you have to adjust the other ... sometimes. If you turn your clickers to the right, you will stiffen your compression and slow down your rebound. This can be bad. Or good. Depends. If you turn your clickers to the left you will soften your compression and speed up your rebound. This too can be bad. It can also be good. How lucky do you feel? If you wrench the clickers out and throw them at the neighbor’s cat, then give the bike to your worst enemy you’ll be happier. If compression is soft and rebound is soft (fast) I’m not sure where you’ll end up, but it won’t be on your bike. If rebound is soft (fast) and compression is hard, then you are Ricky Carmichael. Rebound is directly proportional and inverse to compression as ‘hard’ means ‘stiffer’ in compression, but hard means ‘slower’ on rebound. And vice versa. So when you’re moving your clickers, make sure you have a slide rule, compass, diagram and voodoo fetish. Did I mention oil viscosity and oil height and it’s effect on suspension? Do you really want me to? I thought not. Oh, you can also have high and low speed valving. I wouldn’t know about high speed so I’ll shut my mouth. “How?” you ask in wonder, “Did you achieve such an understanding of suspension?” I know, I know, we can’t all be blessed with such insight and the ability to confuse people while we explain it. I learned the hard way. My first bike was an XT200. If you asked me how my suspension was I probably would have answered you whilst upside down and on the ground, because that’s where I spent most of my time. I was a member of the “I dunno” crowd. Hey, I was lucky not to reverse my clutch and brake levers in an emergency stop. I was lucky to start it come to think of it. I never got out of second gear and I wouldn’t have known a fork tube from You Tube. My second bike was an ‘86 KDX200 and the beginning of my husband’s nightmare. I jumped on the KDX, a mere 2 feet taller than my XT, and promptly fell over when the bike’s shock wouldn’t give under my weight and I couldn’t touch the ground. I spent the next couple of weeks on familiar territory - the ground. The evil green witch would pitch me off every chance it got. I mentioned to my husband that the bike sure seemed harsh. Chris, being an old hand at bikes had feedback on that. “Ha!!” he laughed. “What do YOU know about suspension Ms. Chick Rider.” Dang. It sounded like an intelligent thing to say. Then our friend Jim got on my bike. Jim: “Good Lord, is this thing set up for a gorilla?!”
Chris: “Shut up Jim.”
Me: “I KNEW it!” We started messing with these cute fun little clickers, and to my absolute delight I could feel the difference between one or two clicks! Chris grabbed the Tums and snarled at me. Chris: “Please please tell me that you, Ms. Novice, can’t feel the difference between a click or two.”
Me: “That would be a lie. Oh, and by the way, what’s static sag and rider sag and what would a lighter shock spring do?” Chris sucked down more Tums and a beer. My third bike was a ‘90 YZ250WR. Chris got a new KTM and gave me his WR. (He spent the next 3 years trying to appease the jetting gods.) Now I had not only discovered clickers, but also discovered you could send your suspension AWAY and have a professional suspension wizard drop the suspension and revalve it for your weight!! Chris just handed me the credit card and wept. Every bike since then goes through COMP at our house. The Chick Orndorff Modification Program. This includes cut down handlebars, grip heaters, flywheel weights on anything over 200cc’s, a cut down seat, a bandana, Sparky the Hedgehog who has perched on all my bikes since 1993 AND revalved and (sometimes) dropped suspension! Yes, for the mere cost of a new helmet, boots, gear and aftermarket exhaust system, your wife too can have proper suspension on her bike. Please don’t cry. The other day my sister asked me to perform the COMP set up on her bike and set it up how I like it. She had sent the suspension off to Drew Smith at W.E.R. to have it resprung, lowered and valved. He did an awesome job. Now it was up to me to fine-tune the beast. With screwdriver in hand and my husband standing by for instruction I assumed a meditative state and began intoning orders. “Drop the forks in the triple clamps.”
“No smart alec, don’t drop them below the triple clamp.”
“Tell Connor to quit doing donuts over the prairie dog holes.”
“Let’s soften the compression 2 clicks.”
“Let’s try softer rebound.”
“Okay, that was a bad idea.”
“I need 2 more millimeters of static sag.” Did I know what I was doing? Oh, not really. In fact, I’m not so sure I don’t have compression and rebound reversed again (boy, THAT was an ugly ride). But unless my sister reads this article, she’s in the “I dunno” group, so she’ll ride whatever I say is good. Chris is still in a snit though. He was muttering for days, and though I couldn’t quite make it out it sounded like: “Two millimeters my dyin’ butt. I’m taking suspension advice from a woman whose shock spring comes out of a Bic pen.” And guess what? Chris bought me a brand spanking new KX250 for my birthday. My Gas 200 has retired after years of fun. My KX is stock, it’s huge, I’m short and it needs . . .a lot of work. Chris still isn’t sure what possessed him to do it, but he suspects I voodoo’d him. He may leave me. But he’ll be back. I have to help him with his suspension. | 
