Pedal Pod
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Pedal Pod
EP: 4 Suspension Secrets from the forest ft. Sprung
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Episode 4 of Pedal Pod — we’re in the forest with Jake from Sprung Suspension talking simple, real-world suspension setup.
We cover sag, rebound, and how to get your bike feeling properly dialled on the trail. No fluff — just useful tips you can actually use.
Okay, so welcome to the pedal pod. This is episode four. So it's flown by already. I'm Gareth.
SPEAKER_00I'm Rebecca.
SPEAKER_02And today we have got Jake from Sprung Suspension with us. Welcome, Jake.
SPEAKER_01Hi, yeah, thank you for having me. It's uh lovely to be here. It's um yeah, nice to still be involved in the cycle center after an incredibly long time.
SPEAKER_02Exactly, exactly. So we thought today we'd start with a little bit of background because uh Jake Jakes just alluded to, he's been involved uh with pedals and actually you know with Sprung and the wider industry for you know a long period of time. So, Jake, take us back to how you first got hooked on bikes.
SPEAKER_01Uh so um I moved to the Forest of Dean from the middle of Gloucester when I was 10. Um, remember kind of I was little fat kid, I looked like one of the South Park characters. Um I kind of just remember it's I've actually got this really clear memory of I was I'd kind of been told that mountain biking was a thing and the Forest of Dean was good for it. And bearing in mind this was year uh 99, so it was still very early. Um, and I went into Lidbrook post office, and um there on the shelf was a copy of MBUK, and I was like, that actually looks pretty cool. Like, oh yeah, we'll bought where so I bugged my mum to buy me this copy of MBUK, uh, which I bet she regrets. Um and uh that was it really and got it home, was re and was just like this looks amazing, and um ended up doing a lot of saving up, bought a bike that wasn't a Halford special, uh, came to Peddler Bikeway and met some people who've been my friends ever since, and the rest's history. It's um yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So what was your first bike then? So if you were going back to the late 90s, early 2000s, could you remember?
SPEAKER_01Well, my first like semi-mountain bike was uh like a relatively nice but still a Carrera from Hellford's, which was rubbish.
SPEAKER_02I don't know, I just need to remember that Carrera was actually pretty cool then.
SPEAKER_01It was pretty cool, but it was still like URT, did like the suspension wasn't a thing, and um I saved up, so I saved up really like yeah, really hard, saved up, trying not to swear.
SPEAKER_02Um and then that's right, it's an adult podcast, it's fine.
SPEAKER_01And then I bought a secondhand 2001 specialized in Juro. So it was the year before they went to the like the smooth monocoque frame. It was still welded tubes with big gussets, and um, and that was in hindsight horrendous. But at the time it was so good. It was the dog's bonnets in the stuff. It absolutely was and then yeah, from that, um yeah, I ended up buying uh secondhand orange Patriot off Charlie Hatton's uncle, Uncle Gord. Shout out Uncle Gord. Yeah, so um, and then yeah, just went on from there. But it's uh it it was bikes then versus bikes now are pretty different.
SPEAKER_02They have transformed a long way, haven't they? So but you also like you know you know, a lot of people won't know, but you actually were you know quite a successful little racer in your own right as well, didn't you? So you got into bike uh racing and and you know you did you did pretty well.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I you're a pretty tidy rider. Oh, I mean, yeah, and I think that's that's kind of what pushed me into the industry and then media and then suspension was I I'm okay at riding a bike, but I can't race. Like I hate it, I I hate every minute of it, I don't enjoy it. Nothing about racing my bike makes me happy, but riding my bike, I absolutely love it. Yeah, and um trying to as a kind of teenager who was like, I need to do something with bikes, like they're my life, I need to progress in in this as a career, and I wasn't sure how it was even possible without being a racer at that point. Um and yeah, I mean, I I tried racing, I was to be frank, kind of shit at it. Like I I would win practice, like I can yeah, I can win practice, but racing horrendous. And then I I'll psych myself out and I'll either ride down like I'm you know, some old granny, or I will ride so fast and crash, and it and I I just I could never get that right. I I couldn't psychologically do it, but needed to make a career in it otherwise, and that's kind of how I ended up where I am now.
SPEAKER_02Sounds like you were the next Vivian Jones.
SPEAKER_01Uh I mean I I was long before Vivian Jones.
SPEAKER_00So how did you manage to go from racing slightly okay to media?
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, so um I hadn't done a huge amount of racing, I'd done some kind of like local stuff at that point, and I was, you know, trying to find a way of carving it into a career. Um and I happened to be down at Peddler Bikeway one day and stumbled upon Steve Jones um of then dirt fame and uh managed to just go riding. And I'd I'd met him a few times before, but not that not that much. And um yeah, we we kind of just hit it off. Um and I mean, yeah, I owe a huge amount to Steve and Mike Rose from Dirt for kind of going, oh well, you know, if you're not really sure, just come in, come into the dirt office and you can like help us out a bit. And I became Jake the T-Boy from Dirt. Um and that kind of gave me a way in and helped me get some contact and work out what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. And media was amazing, but there are some massive kind of cons to that as a career. I I did it for a bit, it's ridiculously hard work for very little money, um, crazy deadlines. We need 500 words on this bike by tomorrow, and you're like, right, but I can't I can't make that happen, or it it was very difficult in that sense. Um, but yeah, I mean, duh in those days, this was 2007, and it was like heyday. It was so good. Road bikes all the time, uh had enough shifts at Peddler Bikeway to kind of make ends meet. Um yeah, it was it was to me that was kind of like the glory days of of getting in there and kind of making starting to carve it out.
SPEAKER_02And dirt obviously was one of the magazines to be able to have, wasn't it? It was obviously massive in terms of the UK riding scene at that time, and uh you know, probably was like you said, a very, very cool place to be able to start start out.
SPEAKER_01It was amaz it was you know, it was it was bi-monthly, so you didn't it it kind of covered stuff that wasn't quite so news related, and it was the start of the internet, so Dirt Mag had a website, and anything immediate went on there, but the magazine had kind of cooler stories in it and lots of behind the scenes, and yeah, it was it was actually something that I'm I've never been into reading, but I would read it. Um, yeah, it wasn't about the pictures, the pictures were incredible, but it was the the content and the whole package was just so good, and um something that isn't really a thing anymore with with the internet having taken over in the way it has.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. I well I remember I read a uh article, I think it was on a Moab in uh in Dirt magazine, and it was what saved on the shelf for many, many years and going, I've gotta go, I've got to go. And it was one of those things that inspired you to be able to, you know, book the flights, go over and go and ride some really, really cool spots because again, it was you know, you didn't know about them unless you'd read them in the magazine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. It was before uh you know Strava, it was before Trail Forks, it was you know, Pink Bike was a relatively big thing, but a lot of pink bike was photo sharing. You'd upload photos of like here I am doing a whip, and then and um and you'd get you know a few comments from local people going, oh that's cool. Um yeah, it it's it's pretty mad. Just yeah, the the industry has changed so much in that time, and I I've managed to kind of navigate my way through it.
SPEAKER_02So from Dirt you went to MBUK, is that right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so in in in 2010, um started with MBUK. Um yeah, it was kind of a bit of a it was the first time I had a chance to actually make a living from bikes. So um I moved into a house share in Bath, which was absolutely horrendous and extremely expensive. Um but yeah, it it was a bit of a shock to the system just uh trying to actually adult um and failing to be totally honest. Um yeah, and then yeah, so MBUK was was amazing. I was at MBUK until 2015, um with a few other things, you know. There's all there were always projects kind of bubbling on the side. Um, you know, the the first ever press camp I went to with dirt was to uh desalp in France, um, which was that's a a whole other story where we got left without transport and I had to end up getting lifts and ringing buses and and um but that was just standard dirt, wasn't it? Well I'm not saying anything.
SPEAKER_02Gonna drop Steve Jones and Mike Rosen it too much.
SPEAKER_01No, I mean I don't I don't actually think this was their fault, but as part of it, I ended up being um kind of taken under the wing of Greg Herbold, who was the um he was the first ever mountain bike world champ. Um and at the time he was doing a lot of uh development work for rock shocks. Um, and that was kind of where this little spark for suspension started. I'd always been super geeky about it and always been quite into kind of if I set my bike up well, it can be doing part of the job for me, and then it's one less thing to worry about. And so yeah, Greg Herbold was like, oh, fancy uh, you know, riding this thing and telling us what you think of it. And it was it was like a revelation fork, it wasn't anything special. Um, but then after that, the next summer I went back out to the Alps and he was still there. He well, he had obviously been back to the US and was back, and we met again, and I ended up doing some testing on some monarch pluses, and yeah, it just it kind of this suspension thing had always been a bit kind of bubbly in the background, and um, yeah, with all the magazine work as well, and yeah, just natural kind of progression into what I thought I could do a good job of.
SPEAKER_00At what point did you go, this is really interesting and I I enjoy it? To I'm gonna start a business.
SPEAKER_01Um so I mean, it had always been a total pipe dream. Um, yeah, total, total pipe dream. And I remember it really well the day that I was like, fuck this, I'm gonna do it. Um I'd had a I was working at Peddler Bike Away, I'd had a shit day. I was like, we I'd just I just got back from New Zealand, I'd been back about I don't know, three, three months, two, three months. Um, been to New Zealand on like massive travel in, had an amazing time, got back, and uh it was just this like I don't want to be a lifer at Paddler Bikeway. Gareth sitting there going, how dare you? Well no, but like you know, I I it was it was I I love this place and it has literally made me who I am. But I did I I wanted more, wanted wanted more than just I'm just gonna come in and you know unpack some stock and do some spreadsheets. And I I wanted something more, and I had a bit of a meltdown. Um and I was like, fuck it, let's let's like is it doable? Can like can we do it? Can we actually start this business? And you know, I'm not from a background of money, it's not like it was easy to just be like, oh yeah, that's fine, I'll just so it was it was a mission, but we got it, made it happen. Um and yeah, that was so we kind of incorporated the business in November 2015 and then opened in February 16. So then that was uh somehow 10 years ago, which is pretty crazy.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say, because you're you're a big thing now as you're coming up to your 10th anniversary, aren't you? So uh that's uh that's massive, isn't it? Because not many businesses survive that length of time.
SPEAKER_01I know, and and to be honest, I don't know how we have. Um uh my you know, I I'm there are certain things I'm good at, and it running a business is not one of them. Um it's something I've had to learn over time, um, and I've made a lot of mistakes. Uh I think we're on you know we're on top of it now, but it's it's not been an easy ride, it's not been something that I'm naturally good at. It's you know, I'm a I'm a bit of a suspension nerd. I'm I can tell you all about the suspension and how it works and go deep into flow rates and like we can make that happen, but when it comes to running a business, it's it's super difficult. And if you're not sat on that initial pile of cash to start it from, it becomes you know exponentially more difficult, or at least that's what my substory violin is going to tell you.
SPEAKER_02Well, they say, you know, what what kills most businesses is cash flow, isn't it, at the end of the day? Oh, yeah, and it's and staying on top of your cash flow is absolutely massive.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it yeah, it's it's nearly killed us a couple of times over the years, and we've been lucky enough to have been, you know, bailed out in one way or another. But yeah, and we're we're now stable and good, but it yeah, it's I mean, it's taken ten years and a lot of hair loss to get there.
SPEAKER_02Brilliant. So so obviously, you know, you got into set and sprung up, which is which is cool, obviously. Um initially you were based down here at the cycle center, and then you kind of outgrew it and and relocated to Sinderford, which is where you're based now, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I mean being we opened here in um two converted containers in the hire yard. Um, and it was probably the very best beginning to the business we could have uh asked for. You know, we we were right in the middle of it at the cycle centre, you know, really, really good in that respect. Um quite quickly kind of outgrew the size of what we thought we could potentially, you know, bike storage, parts storage, stock, places to work. Um it just became quite difficult. Um I mean working with the forestry in some ways, even though I was only down the line, was still difficult at times. Um and bearing in mind what we do, we had to make this decision of you know, do we stay here where rent is relatively high, costs are relatively high, uh space is relatively low. Um and yeah, after a lot of analysing it and working out what was or wasn't possible or feasible, um, yeah, we decided to move to Cinderford in that was at the end of 2019. Um which COVID then hit, start of 2020. We got the keys to our unit in Cinderford on the 6th of December 2019. So we were just in the middle of moving in and COVID happened. Um which yeah, again, it was just throwing a massive spanner in the works, but um yeah, we're we got through it and we're still here, so it's a win.
SPEAKER_02Exactly, exactly. And and one of the things before we because we want to obviously pick your brains about suspension and and you know give some of our listeners hopefully some real top tips that they can kind of look at themselves. But before we kind of gotta get into that, obviously you've also kind of done a lot of work at a World Cup level with um most recently the Mondraker team, haven't you? Yeah, um so just tell us a little bit about that how that came about, and uh um and yeah, it must have been pretty cool to be working in a factory team at a World Cup.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, yeah, that was that was pretty good. Um, I guess that the best way to start would be um kind of I I'd always had a bit of a background in dabbling in race work. Um I mean I met a guy called Luis Arayes who uh later on designed um multiple GT and Cannondale World Cup bikes. Uh he had a company called K9 at the time, this was 2006 or 7, I think. Um and I kind of he was developing a down bike, it was super interesting. I was a late in my late teens and just like I'm just gonna sponge as much information as I can. You know, if there's something I can learn, I'm gonna learn it. I'm gonna offer to do whatever I can for as little money as possible and just learn as much as I can. So that that's kind of where that started. Um over the years, worked with a few other World Cup teams and bike manufacturers, um, little things on bike development. Um had to sign quite a few NDAs, which annoyingly are timeless. Um but uh yeah, so I mean quite a few kind of little development jobs which turned into slightly larger development jobs, then um some sets of linkages for World Cup teams and stuff to try and improve bike's performance. And I mean it it was put to me, and I'm I like I hate saying it because it's like I'm blowing my own trumpet, but we're a relatively unique setup in that we can do the whole lot from frame design to suspension tuning to riding the bike as well in a semi-okay fashion, you know, we're quite unique in that sense. Um and uh the Mondraka thing came about because um Ollie Morris, who is a friend of everyone, um now managing the Nuke Proof team, absolute legend, uh came in one day and we were chatting away. And I was just I'd had a bit of a shit time at home, and I was just like oh yeah, again, kind of what can we do to kind of grow and sort the sort business out and cover more costs, and and um Ollie was just like oh Ollie was doing some work for MS Mondraker at the time and was just like oh we're having some trouble with the bike, and Brooke, who was on the time at the team, needed a kind of solid, dependable mechanic, as well as the team needing someone to sort out suspension. Um and I was like, well, you know, we'll have a chat about it, see what happens. Um and then yeah, that's so I did a couple of years of that, um, which culminated in a lot of the um kinematic design for the Mondraka prototypes that are being ridden now. Um so yeah, it was that was a a cool project to see through. Um definitely had some frustrating constraints. Um where you know some bike companies have this idea that all bikes should look the same, or and it's you know, F1 cars and rally cars don't look the same. But Mercedes do, you know, they don't do both. Yeah, there's there are there are brands that will do both. There are like you can't expect a bike to do one job to look the same as a bike that does a totally different job. And I feel like I understand brand identity, but from an actual performance point of view, you sell bikes if you win races, not because your XC bike looks like your downhole bike. And um, yeah, some of those constraints got quite difficult at times. Um but yeah, I mean it it was successful. They've you know, there have been races won on the bike that I I did the work for. So yeah, I mean that's it it couldn't really be better than that.
SPEAKER_02No, that's it. I mean, last year obviously the Mondraker team had quite a lot of success at the World Cup level, didn't they? So um uh obviously the proof's in the pudding, as you say. So I yeah, I never thought of it from that perspective. So bike manufacturers obviously almost want a silhouette, don't they? So they see you can tell a bike is a specialised, or you can tell a bike is a Mondraker, or you can tell a bike is a trek, or whatever, you know, whichever brand, Santa Cruz, probably another really good example, aren't they? Yeah, um, but actually, you know, when you're looking at it from a uh kinatics point of view and suspension design, you're thinking, well, actually, that might make sense for an XC bike or might make sense for a trail bike, but doesn't make sense for a downhill bike or an enduro bike.
SPEAKER_01Oh totally, yeah, totally. And I mean, all bike companies are you know, all bike companies have their own uh things that they really want to stick to. Some design, some it's some it's design language, some it's performance, some of it's you know, I just graphics need to be right, and oh well, we don't like putting a a cradle in the down tube, or we don't you know, little things that some people get really kind of sticky about. Um and actually having worked on a few different projects with a few different brands, if I was to go and design a bike for myself, it wouldn't really be the same as any of those other things I've done because it's you know you're you're stuck. in that you're you're constrained by a bike manufacturer to like it has to look like X or and I mean the Mondraker one is a is a good example um in that before we even went into the design phase of just actually designing the bike I went to Spain sat in a meeting and they go this is what the bike needs to look like and you're like right well you've kind of like the amount we can play with that is actually not huge. Um so it it makes it quite difficult in some ways like how can we optimise this but still make it look you know how it needs to. Yeah. Um yeah but but equally it's you know it's still a successful bike and where we're at with bike design now compared to 15 years ago you know you'd be hard pushed to go and buy yourself a shit bike now you know with the the amount that you have to kind of pick with between bikes that kind of discerning oh well do I get this one or this one? They're both going to be good buy the one that you like. Like it and it I hate saying that because I'm so you know inside I'm like oh well I'll get obsessed over the numbers but actually at the end of the day anything that you buy these days is going to be good enough that you can go and ride it have a good time and you know if you're happiest with the nice purple one buy that like yeah and I I I realize how awful that is for me to say but it's yeah it's just it is the case now nothing's shit anymore. What you're saying is actually it's all about the suspension setup isn't it well I mean to be to be fair you set up maintenance whether it's suspension or just the whole bike you know if you go out if you've got a hanging Santa Cruz or a or a really well maintained 10-year-old bike that 10 year old bike's probably still going to be better. So there's it's a very 3D kind of matrix of what's good and bad. It's not as easy as oh I've bought this new bike because you know we have it in at work where oh I bought this e-bike six months ago I've done 200 hours on it and all the suspension is fucked. And you're like right well you haven't maintained it oh but it's only six months old. Right but so it it's definitely a constant battle at the minute with new people coming into the sport not realizing that they need the maintenance.
SPEAKER_00So yeah I mean would you say that's the biggest mistake people make with suspension then is maintenance or is there another thing that they just I mean setup is you know setup is not the easiest thing but if you follow a few easy steps you'll get it to a point where it'll work.
SPEAKER_01Maintenance is the key really and if if you're not maintaining your stuff like don't bother you know and we see a lot of work as well where people are keen to buy upgrades without performing the necessary maintenance and that that upgrade that gives you a you know very very marginal gain on percentage of how well your fork or shock works when you haven't serviced it for 18 months that marginal gain's totally gone anyway so how about instead of spending 300 quid on the upgrade just service it twice more so it it's a very difficult thing to try and navigate with people because I'm I can be pretty blunt with you guys but when there's a customer going oh but I really want this thing and I've read a review of it and it's like yeah but if you if you're not willing to invest in that ongoing maintenance then just yeah you might as well not bother.
SPEAKER_02Yeah yeah yeah and it's one of those elements isn't it in terms of you know that you know you're investing a lot of money in the kit up front and then people aren't thinking about the ongoing maintenance costs of it because they're going well I'll have crappy to drop X on a bike but actually it's just as important as you touched on actually then to be able to go why don't you spend a little bit less on the bike and actually let have some money set aside so that you can regularly maintain it to be able to keep it riding at the standard percent and if you know if you were lucky enough to go out and buy yourself a 911 you know you would take that in for a service when the service light came on.
SPEAKER_01You don't go oh I'll just wait till the cam vault snaps and then I'll do something about it.
SPEAKER_00You know it it's a it's a fur it's a bit of a stupid analogy but it it's true and you know with mountain bikes it does work yeah and for most people they might not know when it needs to be serviced because there is no light.
SPEAKER_01So tell us how often should you really be servicing suspension generally every hundred hours um and the beauty of most people now being on e-bikes is that the bike will tell you you know you can see how many hours riding you've done you can see how far you've been um and I mean generally if you've got to the point where there's a problem you've gone too far you know try and make it so you're doing preventative maintenance because that will in the long run make it cheaper. Yeah and I know it seems expensive but you know realistically um a four core shock service on a motorbike which is the same service interval so it's hundred hours on any motocross bike endure bike you know and a lot of the time similarly to mountain bikes they don't make that service interval before a seal starts leaking or there's a problem generally caused by poor maintenance from bad washing or whatever else um but a four core shock service on a motorbike like a couple of hundred quid so actually mountain bikes have still got it pretty good.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02And you've touched on something there because obviously the market has massively changed now because um you know most new bikes sold are e-bikes so how has that changed in terms of the the maintenance particularly of your suspension um because obviously one of the elements is people probably end up riding them a lot more and a lot harder and there's more wear and tear I'm guessing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah literally just that is um the it's so easy with an e-bike to just go I'll just grab it and do an hour. And because of that the compound of riding time is where it becomes difficult with people and the motors that will tell you how many hours you've ridden on it it's so good for that service interval. And the way your fork and shock performance degrades is so slow that you don't have the it's not like going I can't just put a chainware gauge on the fork seals you know there's no there's no easy gauge for oh I'm three quarters of the way done. But how many people do that? Yeah luckily I'm out of that um yeah I mean it there's no way of there's no way of doing that and you just have to be on top of it. And yeah I mean it's not it's not something that is necessarily practiced as well as it should be in mountain bikes as a whole.
SPEAKER_02You know people's attitudes are very much oh it shouldn't break and when you go well have you looked after it and they go no well funny isn't it because some people will think they have because they've washed it for example yeah yeah oh yeah and actually it's it's a a guy's a question for in my mind and one I'm sure the listeners would love to hear about is is how can I keep my suspension running sweeter for longer I mean it in all honesty the number one thing is keep it clean.
SPEAKER_01The main thing that will kill your seals is dried on mud shit whatever it is on your stanchions or on your body of your air shock. The way that those seals are designed are they they're called wiper seals they wipe. What they don't do is scrape. Yeah um so yeah so I mean they are designed as a wiper of mud that is you know wet or dust or stuff that will just wipe um once you've got mud or whatever it is dried on that will just go straight past that seal. And that that is the main killer of suspension is just not keeping it clean. And the main reason why you know we we've done some testing with the you know suspension maintenance sprays that you can buy that are basically just silicon spray. And in my experience they give you a very very short term gain in performance but the main thing they're making you do is actually do that cleaning stage. Yeah um and that that that's the key like keep keeping it clean. If you see a problem stop you know if your frame bearings are on the way out stop you know it all of these very kind of obvious things that I think people just go oh it's a mountain bike it'll be all right and when you when you start glossing over those little problems that's when you end up with you know you the the maintenance bill runs away.
SPEAKER_02Yeah so you touched on obviously keep keep it clean was a key key element and I I noticed earlier on you're saying about the hundred hour service interval is absolutely key key as well. Obviously you know e-bikes great you said for measuring that but a lot of people will still be riding analog bikes so how do you almost kind of keep a track is there telltale signs that you can look for in terms of going this is is is a need of service because obviously you said the the suspension performance deteriorates so slowly you're probably not going to feel it when you're riding the bike because it's you know it's a gradual process isn't it yeah it is and I mean stuff that we would um say from a feeling point of view is if your bike feels like it's a chopper in turns you know if that would generally be if your fork's kind of super sticky you go into a turn weight the bike and it just feels like the fork doesn't move you know that's a that's a sign of right it's probably due some love.
SPEAKER_01The way I generally try and say to people about maintenance if it if you're on an analog bike and you don't know is if you're riding two hours a week there's 52 weeks a year there's your hundred hours. So if you're riding two hours a week it's once a year I mean some of us are lucky enough to ride a lot more than two hours a week um and it very quickly increases that service interval. You know if you think that there's someone on an e-bike commuting you know if you commute an hour each way five days a week to work you're smashing that service interval pretty quickly. And just because if you're doing easy riding that does not mean you can go longer on the service interval. One thing we see quite a lot is especially people on uh e-bikes that are being used for kind of more gentle riding um where forks and shocks are just sat around sag for the entire time it's being ridden you generally get one really really worn out patch at sag because it's sat you know where where if you're riding rough stuff the amount of time spent in each kind of percentage of that suspension travel is a lot more spread out whereas if you're just gonna sit on the bike and ride around the family psychotrail you know you're you're just sat at SAG the whole time and that just causes even more accelerated wear which is you know not what people would necessarily think.
SPEAKER_02Okay you touched on a point there so for the people who who don't know is you know obviously what is SAG and how one of the elements I suppose is it leads on really nicely to how to set our suspension up is is sag is going to be a big part of that isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah sag is the key. And if you're talking about it from kind of suspension dynamics point of view it sag is what gives you your ride height so and that's kind of where you need to start if your sag is wrong just kind of not quite forget it but you always end up whatever you do and whatever your process is for setting a bike up you always end up back at that sag dynamic ride height air pressures area to make any kind of bigger or kind of more um more kind of wholesome change um to just tell us if you have too much or too little sag, what is that going to do to the bike? How's that going to make it feel um hard or soft um so I mean the the main thing we would we look for is balance um so if you've got a bike that's balanced but slightly firm balanced but slightly soft fine you can crack on um if you've got a bike that is one end way firmer or softer than the other that is when you'll just feel like you're riding something that is shonky you know um you know being bucked down trails and that action is what a lot of people come up with you know I'm riding down a trail and it just feels like I'm going like this and yeah well that is generally what we see um and the the the most common stuff we see is forks too soft and shocks too hard.
SPEAKER_02Which I guess would give you a very front end heavy kind of feel wouldn't it you know feel like you're going to get pitched over the bars.
SPEAKER_01Yeah and it's it's kind of um counterintuitive as well that people people go oh my fork's feeling really firm and harsh and I'm getting loads of vibration through my hands and a lot of the time the best thing that those people can do if their fork is well looked after and serviced is actually put more air in um because they're then sitting at a place on the airspring curve without getting too complicated that the fork can be more reactive. When you're just sitting later on in the travel it's your bike's not working as well as it could be the fork's not working as well as it could be and we see lots of people go down the road of I'll keep letting air out and keep adding volume spaces and you just end up at this point of like how did you get to this and it's basically because they've gone down this road of wanting more of the same thing the same thing the same thing and actually you know if you're not getting that speak to a service center speak to a tuner you know there's there are a few good ones in the UK you know call us you know we'll we'll we'll we'll help um but yeah I mean setup wise there are some pretty easy things to kind of start with and and go from.
SPEAKER_02So talk to us a little bit about that. So you said about SAG being the most important element.
SPEAKER_01So what kind of sag should people be looking for from their shock or from their from their fork and how would they go about setting that up um so you've got your O-ring on your fork and shock um I mean the easiest thing to do without wasting a load of time is like there's plenty of good videos on YouTube just search for one maybe we you know maybe we maybe we should do one but I mean realistically percentage wise you want to be looking for about 20% of your fork travel and between 25 and 30% of your shock travel. It always used to be it was thir it was 30 and 30 then you know the way that bike design has changed and the way that fork airspring design has changed has meant that to achieve better balance on newer bikes we're changing the way that we approach SAG slightly um and you do see some suspension tuners who are stuck in 2010 and like oh we still run everything super soft with loads of damping and it's but bikes these days don't work the same in that respect. So um unless the bike has been designed around it. So yeah realistically 20ish percent on your fork and 25 to 30 on your shock is a good place to start. If you're in that ballpark and you're still having loads of problems then get in touch with someone who can help you know the there are businesses of specialists who can help you with this stuff. So you know it's not a case of suffering in silence or moaning to your mate because um yeah you know you your mate the plumber or electrician or whatever is um you're only gonna be as educated as you are off watching the odd YouTube video.
SPEAKER_00Well I've heard this before we have people are like I did that rooty section on sheepskull and I'm you know I'm just gonna whack the rebound right up because that'll deal with it. And it's just yeah the education isn't there so it's really interesting to hear what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01Yeah I mean and that that's the difficulty is it's suspension isn't a dark art it's not magic it's just it it's physics, science, maths, you know, but actually from a feel point of view and I think this is something I've was actually wanting to kind of like fit in is that you have a window of right like when people go oh is it right that isn't a type you know that isn't a a finite point of being correct you know we have a window of what will work um and then that window covers personal preference conditions everything else so as long as you're within that window then you're all good you know but a lot of people aren't in that aren't you know some people are miles away and you know we we see a good balance actually of people coming in through the doors at Sprung who you know some people are actually pretty close and just need you know a little tickle to to get them exactly where they need to be and some people you're like right okay let's let's effectively start again yeah um and there's nothing too embarrassed about with that you know you don't catch me going and trying to do your job you know it's in I mean we we all have stuff we're that we're good at and you know use the people that are good for that job I don't try and we reware a house you know yeah there would be a fire you know yeah yeah yeah yeah and so they're obviously you've talked about sag the two other main ones that people will look at at the suspension obviously are the compression and the rebound.
SPEAKER_02So I guess you know once you've got the sag right you start to probably look at those two elements.
SPEAKER_01Yeah so how about would you go setting that up for the first time and again you know we're not looking to you know we're just you know giving people some basic advice that help you get the bike you know as you said 90% there rather than walking in and going it's so way off it's it's you know so I mean as a start um have a look at the stuff you will have had with your bike you know there is online settings so rebound is determined by your spring force because all you're trying to do is control that rebounding force of a softer spring or a harder spring. So if you've got a a firmer spring your damping has to do more to try and slow that force down as it's extending um similarly with compression you know you're you're trying to slow down that compression you know when you hit a bump you're trying to keep that more controlled. So the the harder you hit stuff things change whether that whether hitting stuff hard is then through you being heavy or whether that is through you going really fast or being heavy and fast. So really you're you're trying to get to a point where the bike is controlled and the wheels can track the ground as from actually going and setting your bike up outside if you're starting from a place where you literally have no idea it's quite a nice exercise to go out onto a fire road and uh turn it all the way one way and all the way the other. So you just have a feel of right okay this is this is kind of what's going on this is what's changing the way we would approach it from a racing point of view which is so you kind of have to have this compromise between comfort and speed and it's the same for everyone because the fat the fastest setup is generally one you can't hold on to you know and and if it's really fast for 30 seconds and then you're like blown out and crashing then it's not really fast is it so you have to balance that kind of comfort and comfort and speed not of compressional rebound but actually like how fast you want to go. We would generally say have your rebound as fast as you can deal with it. So so you're not getting bucked you know the reason for that is it allows your wheel to recover so if you hit 10 kind of you know a really rough section 10 bumps in a row your wheel can recover between each bump so if your wheel can't recover you never get it back to the level of travel where it can get hit again. So you end up riding along on the bump stop um compression wise the the compression's a bit easier to navigate from point of view of feel um generally with low speed compression if you feel like your fork or shock is diving and just bobbing away underneath you add some low speed compression and if you start feeling like it's really harsh take some away and that's the easiest way to to go through it in words without pictures.
SPEAKER_02Yeah yeah yeah that's one of the the challenges isn't it as well yeah and I one of the questions I suppose I I had to ask ask is again, you know, where does repeatability fit into that process? Because that's something that I know I'm really guilty of d uh not doing because I'll just ride a different trail all the time and then go, Oh, I suppose it feels great.
SPEAKER_01But that's actually but that's super relevant because You know, repeatability for and it's something we see a lot with racers who are oh, I want my you know, we get loads of requests for putting data on bikes. And I mean, I've been putting data on bikes since working with Luis in 2007. I've a lot of experience of putting data on bikes, but actually, you know, you want something that's an okay setup for everywhere you go, realistically. You know, we're not most people, and I imagine like everyone listening to this isn't going to be in a position where they can bolt a£2,000 data kit on every weekend, you know, it's and then interpret the data and do the right things with it. It's just not feasible. So that repeatability thing, there's an amount of how relevant is it to you, you know, and even me. My bike is set up so I can just grab it and ride it. Like, I don't want to fuck about with settings. Like, you know, I'll just want to grab it, grab it out, and it's gonna be okay everywhere. And that realistically is a setting that you know, anyone in this room we should be able to get to relatively easily, you know, sometimes it's a bit of effort depending on the bike and what suspension you've got, but you know, you should be able to get to a point where you're not having to fuck about with settings every time you ride. You know, we're out on our bike because we enjoy it, not because we want to be twiddling knobs all the time.
SPEAKER_00I have to ask then, which trail here at the cycle centre do you think is the best after you've done some sort of suspension setup to try and ride to see how it's feeling?
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, uh so we when we we've done loads of testing here over the years. Um, corkscrew is always good because the bottom section is just fast and there's lots of little compressions and then one really big one. Um I mean lately I've really enjoyed Twisted Sister. Yeah um there's like a really good mix of everything on it. It's it's fast, it's repeatable, um and kind of nothing, you know, you're not you're not in a you don't want to be riding stuff that's on the edge of you know of ability or repeatability. You know, if if your riding's not at a point where you can repeatedly hit I don't know, trying to think of a feature somewhere. Um, you know, if you can't hit you know, if you can't repeatably hit a feature, then don't try and use that for bike setup. Try and do stuff that's well within what you can you know what you can repeat in a way that you feel like, you know, none of us we're not machines, we're not machines in any way, anyway, you know, we can't we can't exactly repeat the same riding time after time. And also the trail changes. You know, we're riding mountain bikes, it's not a tarmac sport, you know, you can't you can't hit that turn the same every time. It's just not actually physically possible because the turn changes, or the jump changes, or the rock garden changes, or so suspension setup for mountain bike has to be quite generalized, especially if you're not racing the World Cup and you can pull up your settings from Valdezol last year and you know see what you're at and then go, oh look, put that as a base setting for this year, which for most people they're not gonna have access to that data. Well, and and equally for most people it's pointless. You know, we we're not most people are into mountain bikes, and you know, me included, you guys as well, you know, we're not going out to try and win races every day, we're going out because we love riding our bikes.
SPEAKER_02We might be out into beating our mates.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, very true. But you know, I mean looking for that 10% to allow us to go slightly faster and drop them. Yeah, I mean, equally in my experience working with World Cup riders as well as working with you know any anyone, um the consistency in your setup will mean more to you than making changes every day. So you learning once you've got it to a place where it's working okay, that consistency in riding that same setup and just getting on your bike and knowing how it's going to behave, that will that will reward you more than going, oh, I could make a little gain by two clicks here or two clicks there. Because then you're you're constantly having to relearn you know how the bike's behaving, what the bike's doing. You know, from a from the point of view of any kind of mortal bike rider, that consistency is is so rewarding in terms of kind of longevity.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and so where does, for example, um, I'm guessing with suspension, and again, you know, you'll you'll correct me if I'm wrong here, that when they're setting that up for a bike, um, they're working on kind of almost a middle ground. And obviously, there's probably a lot of riders that fall either outside of that in terms of being either too light or potentially too heavy. Um, so what kind of like, you know, what can they do to be able to get the suspension working for them?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was a great question. Like bike companies have this impossible task, don't they? And you know, having been on both sides of it, I I see it and I I feel for everyone involved because for riders it's a shit outcome. And for you as a I don't know, 120 kilo person or a 50 kilo person, you get shit outcome too. Like no one's a winner. Um, bike companies have to have to deal with you know making a bike that's gonna work okay for everyone. Um and again, it's something where is different in mountain biking to a lot of motorsports. You know, if you go out and buy yourself a motocross race bike, you're you're willing straight away, you know that you're gonna be wheeling that bike from the shop into a suspension tuner to get it done right before you've probably even ridden it once. Whereas with mountain bikes, there's this, oh, you know, we've it's been mountain bikes forever, so it'll be alright for everyone. And it's not always the case. Um, you know, if you are extremely light, extremely heavy, um you know, extremely fast, you know, if you're rate, you know, if you're racing World Cups, you know, you probably won't want something that fits in that cookie cutter. You know, we need to make it okay for everyone. And at that point, that's when you need to get in touch with a suspension tuner to go, right? Well, I've bought this bike, I've got this issue, you know. Sometimes it is people with brand new bikes, sometimes it's people with you know bikes once they've you know ridden it a bit and gone, oh, something not quite right. Um, but yeah, at that point, get in touch with you know your your local friendly suspension tuner and you know they'll help you out.
SPEAKER_02So what you're touching on that, and just without going into too much technical detail, what can then you guys do um to be able to meet those kind of scenarios where someone's either too light or too heavy? How would you kind of go about then getting the bike working as well as it would be for that average rider that the uh the bike manufacturers are planning for?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I mean, yeah, actually, you know, regardless of how whether you fit into that initial bracket that the bike works okay for you or not, there's always gains that can be made. Um, and those lighter and heavier riders are just forced into that sooner. Um basically, we would look at how the springs are working, whether they're airsprings or coil springs, and then what we could do to improve the performance of those. Um, you know, for heavier or lighter riders, uh changing numbers of volume spacers or even volume spacers in negative chambers, or you know, there's there's loads of stuff we can do um to change spring rates and damping to work for you know whoever it needs to work for. Um, you know, and that's where we as a suspension center with a huge amount of experience, all of the machinery, all of the kind of test equipment, you know, where we can do something a lot more specialist than you know necessarily, you know, some some bike shops do suspension in-house. And you know, although they'll do a perfectly reasonable job of you know servicing your Rock Shock's bike, it's they don't have that capability to do you know that next step.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, quick question as well, um, because obviously your weight plays a huge difference on the bike. How much of a weight change should you then look at changing your suspension? Because uh I've got a kid who's growing faster than anything you can imagine. Yeah. Like how often should I be looking at her suspension and going, it might need an adjustment?
SPEAKER_01Or I mean it it's a difficult question because if you were gonna be super on it, you'd be on it all the time. And then again, you lose that consistency of feel. So you have to kind of pick something that's gonna work for you. Um, and whether that's you know, every you know, just every month, every eight weeks, every just you know, keep a tab on it. But you could easily end up down a rabbit hole where you're doing it too much, um, but equally end up down, you know, the opposite end of the spectrum of going, oh, it'd be all right, and then it'll end up miles out. So you just have to do something that's gonna work for you. Um and you know, the rider. Yeah, and I mean there's no right answer. I w I wish there was, it would make my life really easy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like you gained 10 kilos, let's reset it.
SPEAKER_01I mean, yeah, yeah, generally, you know, if you if you're changing by more than kind of five kilos, I'd be like, right, yeah, let's let's change it. Um, and I mean I've I've been putting weight on like anything since a couple of years ago, thanks to a child that arrived. And um, yeah, I mean, yeah, I you have got to keep a tab on it because you do just go, oh fuck, bike feels soft, and you're like, ah, that's where I'm like five kilos heavier than I was. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I'm guessing with that then you would go back to because things you touched on at the beginning, wasn't it? Was go back to sag.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So you kind of like look at oh, how much sag am I getting on the bike now? Yeah. Oh, suddenly I'm on 40% travel. You need to do something about it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, what SAG is always your step one and always your kind of fallback, you know. And if even if yeah, maybe not that morning, but you know, even if that that month you'd made a few other changes, you always just revert SAG is the first thing you always go back to checking because it's if you're if that kind of sag element isn't correct or within that window of correct, you're always just fighting this compromise with everything else you're doing down the line.
SPEAKER_02Perfect. Well, we're we're coming towards the end of our podcast now. So if we were like thinking about um uh you know some top tips now you wanted to give them to to riders in terms of simple things they could do to get the suspension set up right, what would it be?
SPEAKER_01Um buy a digital shock pump. So uh like you know, they're not cheap, but you can actually be semi-accurate. Well, you can actually be accurate. Um get your suspension serviced, you know, look after it. Or buy a new bike from pedal syndicate. Or buy a new or buy a new bike from pedal syndicate.
SPEAKER_00What he's trying not to say is come to sprung, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01But no, but I mean, but really realistically, you know, we're I mean, I I'm but part of why business, you know, I'm not a salesman. I'm I'm not gonna sell you something I don't believe in, I'm not gonna sell you something that we don't think is the right thing for you just because we've got it on the shelf, you know. We're same as you know, same as you guys. You're you know, it we're kind of all about this tailored approach of the right thing for that person, and you know, I'm not just gonna be like, oh yeah, come and use us. If what's the you know, if you if you're gonna be able to do it from a YouTube video, crack on. You're like equally, I can confidently say you'll never do it as well as we can. But if you know, times are tight for people at the minute, and if you need to do it from a YouTube video, I'm not gonna hold that against you. You know, we we all actually ride bikes for fun, we're all in very different positions in our life, and you know, we actually we don't do it because we don't enjoy it, you know, and you've got to keep it fun, and um yeah, I mean that's probably the one of the biggest tips is like don't get too into it, don't don't read into it too much, don't get caught up in it, don't start going around in circles, you know, ask your local friendly center for some help. You know, everyone will do the right things for you if they can.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and going back to what you said earlier, I think you know that that hundred hours thing which really stood out for me to be able to go almost track your uh your hours so that you know when your suspension is going to need services so that you're not going back and then he said ending up costing yourself a fortune because actually it's it's not being properly maintained. So it's that exactly to keep your bike riding nice all the time as well.
SPEAKER_01So proper we literally last week had a guy with a Fox 38 off a six-month-old e-bike, fork's a write-off, and you know, he that's a 1500 quid fork. Yeah, it it was and by write-off, I mean it was absolutely rinsed. Like it it was, you know, we were looking through it and it was like what is usable and very little, yeah. Um, and at that point, it's it's not a nice conversation for us to have with a customer because you know, no, no one wins out of that. Like we don't try and sell you stuff or we don't tell you your stuff's fucked because we get a kick out of it. It's like no one wins, it doesn't make anyone feel good.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no, that's it. And and obviously it just costs you uh basically a new set of forks, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, when people yeah, yeah, and we don't necessarily you know, by the time we've sold you, if we ring you up and go, oh your shop needs this part, it's 20 quid. Realistically, that part's gonna cost us 14, 15 quid. So by the time we've rung you, fucked about, dealt with it all, we're not actually making any money on that, and it's not a nice phone call for us to have to make, but we do it because we do a proper job.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And um, you know, we people aren't trying to sell you stuff. It's you know, maintenance is not um some people think it's something that's been invented so people can make money, and it's it's not like you know, we we're not in that business.
SPEAKER_02No, as you said, you touched on, we we're all here because riding bikes is fun, yeah, and actually you want it to remain fun, and it's not gonna feel uh be fun if your bag feels like a bag of spanners, does it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, we everyone that works at Sprung rides, we we all ride, we all love what we do. You know, there's a reason why you end up in the bike industry, and it's you know, I love going to work every morning, and that's you know, that's something that's so satisfying.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and if you thought about the younger rider, because that's the one element we've got here a lot. Obviously, there's a really kind of big, keen, uh kind of young scene of people really kind of uh either aspire into or really getting into their riding. Um, what what kind of like top tip would you give them just to be able to get kind of like it set up?
SPEAKER_01Um set up for younger riders. It's always difficult. Um generally just do do the best you can and try and learn it, you know. And the the younger riders that are learning how stuff feels are the ones that tend to kind of progress faster and then be able to relay that information to people. And you know, you don't have to use words for it, you know. You can just make noises or you know, it feels caca caca, or like, you know, we I make words up all the time, like I nadagery and pattery, and you know, like, oh, is it a bit pattery along there? You know, like we can, it's about being able to, you know, pattery is not a real word, but I bet you both know exactly what I mean. I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, so I mean it you know, we can you just just try your best to learn how things feel and then be able to explain that in some way, and that is probably the biggest tip to anyone, kind of regardless of age, but kids are in this amazing stage where they can pick it up and run with it. And that, you know, that's probably the key because if they can communicate to other people how it's feeling, then stuff will get better way faster.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. Well, I'm hoping in about five minutes as we end this podcast, everyone at home is gonna be like, Do you know what? I'm just gonna work out how many hours it was since it was last service and go check my setup.
SPEAKER_02Some of them are gonna have a lot of pick up the phone and book it and book me and book it in for service response.
SPEAKER_01Hopefully, yeah, that'd be great.
SPEAKER_02And just one final question for me, because you've obviously been in the industry a little uh you know a little while, as we've touched on. Um, what has been the the biggest thing you know that's happened to bikes over that time period that's made the biggest difference, do you think, in terms of the way we're able to ride them today? Oh wow.
SPEAKER_01I mean it's a difficult one because I mean as a package, the bike has evolved so much. You know, if you think in 2005, like a 150 mil travel bike, you'd be like, Oh, that's a that's a big bike that. And now 150 mil travel bike is what most people just consider a trail bike. So um, I think just quality of everything has improved by so much. Uh, e-bikes, I think, have you know they've changed the sport, and it's still arguably e-bikes, you know. Is it gonna end up being a different sport? Is it gonna end up being the same sport? You know, I've got both, I ride both, I love both. It's you know, it's not it's just they've been such a big change. E-bikes, dropper posts, good suspension, good bike design.
SPEAKER_02There you go, you give it four. Sorry, brilliant, that's fantastic. No, no, we're gonna pin it down. So we're gonna wrap things up there, and just to say to people here, look, we love to hear your feedback, you love to hear your comments. So put a comment in, you know, look on look at us up on YouTube, look us up on your your podcast provider, and leave us a little comment and a like because we want to hear feedback, we want to keep improving this. And said, you know, our goal has very much been about, you know, we want to keep this related to the Forest Adine, and and that's why we've had you know Jake on and we've we've had you know KT and and Wendy from YMTB. It's it's all about kind of the the this amazing local riding team we've got. So we want to keep it relevant. We'd love to hear what you'd like to hear about. So drop us a comment, give us a like, and uh hopefully share this with your friends as well. So thank you very much, and thanks, Jake. No, thank you very much for having me.