We get a lot of questions from customers about how best to set up their suspensions. This can be a tough question to answer, because so many riders are looking for different results. Some riders are just street riding with very little off-road, others are full off-road, and others are somewhere in between. While we have lots of choices for forks and shocks to have your bike perform better for you, you should not forget about tuning the suspension, including setting the sag. An appropriate amount of sag allows the shock enough travel to perform well on compression and rebound.
Setting the sag is an easy process that sets the bike in a proper location for the riding you do. Sag is how much the bike settles down from the fully extended suspension position when you are sitting on it with just your riding gear (no luggage). The standard starting point for the amount of sag is roughly 1/3 of the suspension travel. This means that if your bike has 12” of rear wheel travel, the starting point for sag should be around 4”.
You can start this process putting a piece of tape on the body, seat, or exhaust directly above the axle. You will need an extra set of hands for the next part. As you extend the rear shock all the way, like you are trying to pick the bike up, measure the distance between the rear axle and the tape you added. Now you want to sit on the bike, and make this same measurement again, noting the space between these two points. With this info, you can set the sag by adjusting the tension on the shock spring (compressing or loosening) with a spanner wrench, to create the space needed.
You may need to measure this a couple times to get to the sag you want. For riders that spend a lot more time off-road or on poorly maintained roads, you can always add a bit more sag (up to 40%) for more traction and control.
You can perform a similar process on your front forks to set the sag by increasing or decreasing the size of the spacer above the fork springs. Please note that many fork kits are pre-set for the amount of sag that the kit manufacturer has determined to provide the best performance.
While we have many upgraded suspension components that will improve your bike’s performance, adjusting them to your specific body and riding style will help squeeze the most out of your bike.
