Suspension
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Velotechnik
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Suspension and damping
Your bicycle is equipped with a rear swingarm
for the suspension of the rear wheel and
(optionally) a suspension fork for the front
wheel. This system compensates slight bumps
on the road to make riding more comfortable
and to reduce stress for your bicycle.
A well-adjusted suspension improves the
traction of your bicycle on uneven roads.
Especially when riding in a bend this allows a
higher speed and also improves safety.
In order to achieve maximum riding comfort,
the suspension settings have to match your
weight as well as the road condition.
The goals of the adjustment are:
•
maximum use of the available suspension
travel without the suspension frequently
bottoming out
•
quick reaction of the suspension without
obvious oscillation after having passed a
bump
•
avoiding self enforcing oscillations, that
means increasing oscillations of the sus-
pension system due to pedalling influence,
rhythmic body movements or permanent
wavy underground
Often, the terms suspension and damping are
used inaccurate in everyday language.
The spring is the elastic element that com-
presses and expands due to the load changes,
which e.g. occur on bumpy roads. While
expanding, the spring releases the same ener-
gy it took to compress it.
The rear swingarm is suspended with a steel
coil spring in the standard version. The op-
tional rear shock ROCKSHOX Monarch uses
air as spring medium.
The damper slows down the process of com-
pression and expansion. That means the
bicycle does not immediately "spring" back to
the initial position or even further than that
after having passed a bump. The damper
converts spring energy into friction and finally
into heat, and thus takes away energy from
the suspension system. The damper prevents
the spring from swinging uncontrolled after an
initial stimulation. In addition, the damper
helps to avoid self enforcing oscillations of the
suspension caused by recurrent stimulation
like pedalling forces within a crank revolution
or the rhythmic up and down movement of
the legs.
In case you have mounted the optional sus-
pension element R
OCK
S
HOX
Monarch, the
hydraulic damping of the rear suspension is
adjustable. The more you increase the re-
bound setting, the slower the system comes
back to the normal position after a compres-
sion.
Adjusting the damping and suspension
You should always set the damping as low as
possible to give the bicycle the possibility to
quickly react even to several bumps in a row.
You can ride the bicycle with a considerably
lower damping rate than for example a MTB:
due to the relaxed and steady position of the
body the recumbent does not experience
extreme variations in the load as it is known
from dancing on the pedals while riding uphill
on a mountain bike.
In addition to this, varying pedalling forces
have very little influence on the suspension of
the bicycle due to the No Squat design of the
suspension system of the bicycle. So when
you adjust the damping, always start with a
low damping rate.
It is necessary to choose the correct spring
stiffness to have a well operating suspension
system. The spring stiffness is a measure for
the compression of a spring at a certain load.
It is either given in "N/mm" (Newton per
Millimetres) or "lbs./inch" (Pounds per Inch).
Sometimes you only find "lbs." printed on the
springs.
Suspension