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What causes a DH fork to not absorb stutter or braking bumps?

Udi

RM Chief Ornithologist
Mar 14, 2005
4,917
1,210
@ChrisRobin
Late to the party here, but one thing I didn't see mentioned explicitly in the replies above (though djjr touched on it briefly) is that on a conventional LSC/HSC damper, you ideally do want a reasonable amount of HS preload to provide compression damping support where it's needed. If you keep winding back HSC and increasing LSC, you can easily end up with a damper that has excess damping at very low shaft speeds - which unfortunately also results in excess damping at low shaft amplitudes (i.e. chatter / braking bumps). A classic symptom of inadequate HSC is needing to wind on excess LSC to get the support you desire, then having too much bump force transfer to the hands and resultant pain.

The correct amount does vary from damper to damper and I have little experience with the Charger 2, but I'd explore using more HSC and backing off the LSC. As others suggested, at the same time it's worth making sure you're running enough spring pressure - air forks naturally do offer less support - make sure you haven't reduced the spring rate to compensate for your absorption issues.
 

ChrisRobin

Turbo Monkey
Jan 30, 2002
3,364
194
Vancouver
Ahhh good point ^^^^

I'm gonna give her another try with more air pressure (as per the app), and more HSC to see if that helps. I'm still impressed by the smoothness of the chassis so there's gotta be a way to make this work. I considered buying a 2021 Fox 40 to match my 38 on the other bike but then remembered I can get a couple Avalanche cartridges for the price difference of a Fox 40 after selling the Boxxer.

I even considered the Push HC97 but reviews are a little mixed.