# rabbit vs turtle ???



## sengkenken (Apr 4, 2009)

Hi I bought my fisher cobia 08 in January, and I just noticed the bottom of my tora shock there is a knob. it's like a setting with a sticker of rabbit and turtle. what's that for? 

is this the rebound setting?

i am 5.8 and 200 lbs. i set the pressure to be 190lbs. but not sure about that other setting.

any inputs are welcome.


----------



## larlev (Feb 22, 2009)

Yes that is the rebound...for starters set it halfway and see how you like it. It's all personal preference.


----------



## sstorkel (Nov 24, 2008)

Yes, it's rebound.

The first thing you want to do is get a feel for what rebound does. Here's what you do:

1) Turn it all the way toward the turtle; that's max rebound damping. While standing beside your bike, grab both brake levers, give the handlebars a quick, hard push toward the ground, then immediately release the pressure on the bars and allow them to rise back to their normal position. What you should see/feel is that the fork extends pretty slowly when you have max rebound. You may also hear a sucking sound coming from the fork if it's oil damped.

2) Turn the knob all the way to the rabbit position, then do the same experiment. This is the minimum rebound/no damping position. When you've got minimum rebound damping the fork should extend _very_ quickly! With minimum rebound, the fork may expand so quickly that it almost feels out of control or like there's extra movement at the top of the travel. With my Fox F120 RLC fork, the minimum rebound setting makes the fork feel almost like a pogo stick!

Now that you've done this, you know what the extremes of rebound damping are. Now it's time to find your setting. What I generally do is start with no damping (the rabbit setting). I then dial in rebound and compress the forks until it feels like the fork is just starting to be a bit slow at returning to full length. From there, I back off (turn toward the rabbit) a click or two. The idea is to dial-in just enough damping so that after being compressed the fork extends quickly, but smoothly. When the fork reaches the top of the travel, you want it to stop moving smoothly; no pogo stick action.


----------



## jj260676 (Apr 22, 2007)

Once you've adjusted the damping, its also worth making a note of how much travel you get out of the forks. Normally you can tell by looking as there will be a cleaner section of the fork stanchions where they have compressed into the lowers and above this may be slightly more dirty looking. Having ridden a bumpy set of trails with some decent impacts on the forks you can get an idea as to whether or not you are getting the full range of travel out of the forks. 

The reason I say this is that as an owner of two sets of rock shox air forks I believe that the pressures rock shox suggest for rider weights results in a fork that is set slightly too hard to give full travel. 

If you also find this to be the case just drop the fork pressure off by a few PSI. I can't speak for the toras, but I have found setting up Rebas and Revalations to be a balance of +ve & -ve air pressures and rebound damping, but once they're right they are an amazingly plush ride. 

Having ridden my revalations for an afternoon, one of my riding buddies actuall sold his fox floats!! (Although to be honest I would have liked to have had a go at tweaking them before he did)


----------



## lampy29 (Oct 16, 2008)

I keep my rebound more towards the turtle to use overly technical terminology. About 2/3+ of the way. I'm riding XC trails that have a lot of small bumps and the slow rebound I've found does a great job to suck up the impacts without bouncing back.


----------



## sstorkel (Nov 24, 2008)

jj260676 said:


> Once you've adjusted the damping, its also worth making a note of how much travel you get out of the forks. Normally you can tell by looking as there will be a cleaner section of the fork stanchions where they have compressed into the lowers and above this may be slightly more dirty looking. Having ridden a bumpy set of trails with some decent impacts on the forks you can get an idea as to whether or not you are getting the full range of travel out of the forks.


The best way to keep track of this is to take a small zip-tie and put it on one of the fork tubes. You want it loose enough to move up and down on the fork tube, but not so loose that it slides all over the place. At the beginning of your ride, you push the zip tie all the way down on the leg. At the end of the ride, suspension movement will have forced it up the tube and show you exactly how far the suspension moved.

BTW, I've never understood why people are so obsessed with getting full travel out of their forks. In my mind, you only want to get full travel on the most gnarly trail imaginable. On everything else, you should be using a bit less than full travel. That way, you know you'll have a bit of travel left if you ever hit anything extreme...



> The reason I say this is that as an owner of two sets of rock shox air forks I believe that the pressures rock shox suggest for rider weights results in a fork that is set slightly too hard to give full travel.


The pressures are just a _suggestion!_ Use them as a starting point, then measure the amount of suspension sag and adjust the pressure as necessary to obtain the appropriate amount of sag.


----------



## ProStacks (Jun 19, 2008)

sstorkel said:


> BTW, I've never understood why people are so obsessed with getting full travel out of their forks. In my mind, you only want to get full travel on the most gnarly trail imaginable. On everything else, you should be using a bit less than full travel. That way, you know you'll have a bit of travel left if you ever hit anything extreme...


Right. There is no way you are going to achieve maximum travel unless you ride off some insane drop or along a diabolical rocky section. Generally, a new/recently serviced fork will give you around 95% of its travel _at the very most_. From what I have experienced your fork gets harder after you hit around 90% travel, in an effort to prevent the fork from bottoming out.


----------



## boomn (Jul 6, 2007)

ProStacks said:


> Right. There is no way you are going to achieve maximum travel unless you ride off some insane drop or along a diabolical rocky section. Generally, a new/recently serviced fork will give you around 95% of its travel _at the very most_. From what I have experienced your fork gets harder after you hit around 90% travel, in an effort to prevent the fork from bottoming out.


I agree too. My suspension fork is also my insurance if I accidentally hit something way too hard or land a drop wrong or anything else that could possibly happen. I prefer to only use about 80% of my travel on normal trails and know that the rest is there for whatever crap happens. Or if I just want to go big

Air forks are typically "progressive" meaning they are stiffer the further into the travel you go and yet can be soft for small bumps


----------



## jj260676 (Apr 22, 2007)

sstorkel said:


> The best way to keep track of this is to take a small zip-tie and put it on one of the fork tubes.


Yep, this works but I've personally not needed to do this, maybe I've been lucky enough to do all my fork tuning when the trails have been dry and dusty but I've always been able to see a clear line on my forks.



sstorkel said:


> BTW, I've never understood why people are so obsessed with getting full travel out of their forks. In my mind, you only want to get full travel on the most gnarly trail imaginable. On everything else, you should be using a bit less than full travel


I certainly wouldn't say that I was obsessed with getting full travel, and maybe I chose the wrong terms for my explanation. Perhaps the phrase I should have used was optimum performance as opposed to full travel.



sstorkel said:


> The pressures are just a suggestion! Use them as a starting point, then measure the amount of suspension sag and adjust the pressure as necessary to obtain the appropriate amount of sag.


I'm more than aware of the fact the pressures are a suggestion/starting point however I figured there was a good chance the OP was not aware of this, hence the reason I suggested they run them at the lower pressure than the figure given by rock shox. The OP said he was 200lbs running his forks at 190lbs. I would be surprised if this produced optimum performance (as recently substituted for 'full travel').

As I said in my original post........



jj260676 said:


> I have found setting up Rebas and Revalations to be a balance of +ve & -ve air pressures and rebound damping


........which is surely in itself a demonstration of the fact that I realise the pressures are a starting point and that you need to measure and re-adjust until its right. In actual fact, isn't it actually the same as your last point but in different words?


----------



## sstorkel (Nov 24, 2008)

jj260676 said:


> I'm more than aware of the fact the pressures are a suggestion/starting point however I figured there was a good chance the OP was not aware of this, hence the reason I suggested they run them at the lower pressure than the figure given by rock shox. The OP said he was 200lbs running his forks at 190lbs. I would be surprised if this produced optimum performance (as recently substituted for 'full travel').


The point is: telling someone to run a particular air pressure just isn't good advice! Sag is really the only thing that matters. How do you know that 190lbs of pressure isn't right for a 200lb guy? He probably has a different fork, lives at a different elevation, rides different types of trails, and has owned the fork for a different length of time than you have. All of which means that the air pressure which works for you may not work for him. Setting the appropriate amount of sag, on the other hand, is a good starting point for everyone...


----------



## jj260676 (Apr 22, 2007)

sstorkel said:


> The point is: telling someone to run a particular air pressure just isn't good advice!


Right I think we just need to leave it at this point as I'm really starting to feel that you're not reading anything I'm writing or are interpreting it wrongly or I'm expressing stuff badly. All I originally said was for the OP to have a look at how much travel he was getting out of his forks as the pressure sounded a little bit high, and in my own personal experience have found this to often be the case. At no point did I give him a specific pressure to run them at. Then we've had the whole full travel issue confusing the matter which may have been a bad choice of words on my part and now we've got onto sag.

I actually think the point here is this: The OP only ever asked about the rabbit & turtle and probably doesn't give a sh1t about any of this and quite frankly at this time of night nor do I.

So if your happy to leave it there so am I. My forks work, I'm guessing yours do as well, and the OP didn't make any references to his not working so lets not waste any more time debating a non existing setup problem.


----------



## sengkenken (Apr 4, 2009)

*thanks*

thanks for all the suggestions.

I will play with the settings on the trail tomorrow. been raining for the past couple of days here in chicago ... sucks

btw just bought the shock pump from REI 20% off topeak until May 10th.

thanks again.

ps: maybe the rigid fork fans are correct, with rigid you don't have to play with these settings


----------



## Uncle Six Pack (Aug 29, 2004)

sstorkel said:


> The point is: telling someone to run a particular air pressure just isn't good advice! Sag is really the only thing that matters.


He never mentioned a particular air pressure. And, no, sag is NOT the only thing that matters, unless you never hit a bump. The air pressure/compression/rebound characteristics of the fork are what REALLY MATTERS. It just happens that sag happens to be a universally proportional way to get in the right ballpark for most riders on most air-sprung designs.



sstorkel said:


> ...lives at a different elevation,


irrelevant

Don't be a jerk to the guy, he is giving sound advice (remarkably similar to your own advice).


----------



## sstorkel (Nov 24, 2008)

Uncle Six Pack said:


> He never mentioned a particular air pressure. And, no, sag is NOT the only thing that matters, unless you never hit a bump. The air pressure/compression/rebound characteristics of the fork are what REALLY MATTERS. It just happens that sag happens to be a universally proportional way to get in the right ballpark for most riders on most air-sprung designs.


Right: he didn't mention a particular air pressure. He just said, and I'm paraphrasing, take the value from the chart and subtract a few PSI. That's just as useless as saying: "You should run 111.25psi" in my mind.

Yes, of course compression damping, rebound damping, and the design of the suspension make a difference in how it operates. But when you're setting your suspension up, the reading on your suspension pump guage _doesn't_ matter _as long as you're getting the proper sag._ Sag is what matters _not_ a particular PSI reading. Make sense?



> Don't be a jerk to the guy, he is giving sound advice


Let's summarize this "sound advice":

1) Use dirt on your forks to see how much suspension travel you're getting
2) Reduce air pressure until you're using up all available suspension travel (subsequently changed to getting "optimum performance", whatever that means)
3) Take the manufacturer's suggested air pressure and subtract a few PSI

Now, let's contrast that with _my_ advice:

1) Use a zip-tie on your fork to determine how much suspension travel you're getting
2) Don't worry about using up all available travel; it's OK to have a bit of travel "in reserve"
3) Use an air pressure that gives you the appropriate amount of sag

In any event, I think we've beaten this horse to death...


----------

