LISTEN:
I’m a dud when it comes to suspension. I’ll explain that better. If I was a Pro Racer you would expect me to come into the pits during a practice session and say something like, “The rebound dampening feels a little too fast on that back section“. The mechanics would then jump on the issue and adjust the suspension based on the feedback I gave them.
But that wouldn’t happen. Instead I would be more likely to say something like, “It’s fine“.
The mechanics would take the rest of the day off and I would spend the rest of my track time extracting the most out of the bike I had under me – not trying to improve it.
Back in the 80’s there was a famous Porsche racer named Stefan Bellof who kind of did the same thing. He was notorious for not giving his team a whole lot of feedback and doing the best with what he was given. It drove team managers nuts, yet he was wildly successful – up until his untimely death.
Now, I am not suggesting in any way that I am comparable to him. All I am saying is that I just can’t feel the same things and/or articulate what I AM feeling.
Putting it another way, have you ever gone wine tasting and some wine sommelier says he detects “hints of acidic cherry, cigar box and bubble gum…“. and you’re like – WTF? Where in the hell is he pulling that from? Is he high?
Well, that’s me with Suspension.
A while ago I swapped out the stock fork springs for something appropriately heavier. New (proper) Fork Springs and Seals. Next up, I wanted to then see if I couldn’t work with the shim stack to finish the job.
I initially reached out to the guy who had done a great job on my 950. I got a great initial reply but then I was ghosted. Over the period of a few months I kept trying but for whatever reason – no reply. I posted on ADV and got a few local recommendations.
So I started with the first on the list. I hit his website (https://clicksuspension.com/) and of course started poking around. Did you know the page that always has the highest number of clicks (pun intended) is your About Page? Click Suspension is Mike “Nezzer” Marquez. It’s a one man operation (just like me).
I’ll skip a bunch of the details but the guy is a co founder of Santa Cruz Bicycles (I’ve owned three different models), was on the UCI mountain bike world cup tour as a tuner for Rock Shox, then joined FOX and developed their Fox racing shocks for 17 years – and holds the patent for their F.A.S.T. technology! As for the moto side, he’s worked on a huge list of MX factory teams. So, the guy clearly knows his stuff.
I’ve always run Fox suspension on my MTB
I found his email and phone number and sent him an email. We got on the phone minutes later. I explained what I had done so far and that I was looking for shim stack work. His first question was, “Where are you on your clickers?“
My answer was quick and easy. “They’re right in the middle, 15 clicks out!” said I.
But I knew trouble was coming. I knew because I knew what he was getting at, where he was going.
SPRING THEORY
Let’s take a small detour for a second. Yes, that’s a pun off of String Theory (which we are definitely not getting into!). I’m not going to get deep but understand that all of this a compromise. Suspension is about time and energy and a lot of what we are trying to do is essentially slow down time. Hey! Maybe we will get into string theory after all… NOT!
In simplest terms: Your springs hold everything up. Bigger springs hold up more weight than smaller springs. Bigger springs are also harder to compress. We can all agree on that, right?
Here’s where it gets weird.
Want a more supple ride? Put in BIGGER Springs!
What? No Way! That’s the opposite of what you just said.
Hear me out. We want the springs to absorb the bumps but springs being springs also want to spring back too and we don’t want too much of that to be happening. So we have shocks and forks with valves and shims. These are things that push fluid through small openings to slow that springy thing down. See, we really are slowing time!
Picture my bike fully loaded. I hit a big bump. My wheel moves up, and my forks compress the stock springs. The fluid flows and the spring compresses and if the bump was big enough, the bike might bottom out. That’s bad.
So what do we do? We click our clickers and make the compression dampening harder or what they refer to as “slower”. That means smaller holes for oil to push through. I go out and hit the same bump once again and this time the slightly smaller oil passages slow down that oil flow enough so that we do not bottom out.
Yay for us!
But what if that doesn’t fix it?
We would probably click more clickers until it did. Yay, all fixed!?! Right?
Except, now we have such small little oil passages that riding down the road and hitting little tiny bumps the same little oil passages gives us a harsh ride. Remember, this is with our stock wimpy springs.
Now let’s say that instead, we put in a bigger, heavier, stiffer spring?
(all those words mean the same thing in suspension lingo)
As for our little oil passages, we can now open the holes back up.
Now we hit our same big bump, but this time our bigger spring does a better job pushing back against the force of the compression. Because it’s doing a better job, our little oil passages don’t need to be so little. We absorb the impact and everything bounces back to normal. No bottoming out.
What also happens is that with our slightly larger oil passages – riding down the road the bike is going to actually feel softer. Really! To be fair, not each and every time, every situation is different, your mileage may vary. But chances are, if you are heavier than the factory planned for this could be the actual truth for you too. By the way, I’ve heard that KTM models their bikes with a 165 lb rider in mind.
My point in all this is there’s a whole lot more going on in suspension than just adding parts and hoping that fixes the issue. In the end it’s all a big huge compromise. Somewhere between the smallest and the biggest springs, and somewhere between the largest and the smallest oil passages is our best compromise for our suspension for us on a particular section of road.
You might have heard of things like high speed and low speed compression / rebound and that’s simply where they’ve figured out how to split the bigger bumps from the smaller bumps.
So back to Mike’s ominous question to me.
“Where are you on your clickers?”
To be totally honest, I set them right in the middle and rode the bike never thinking about how they feel. I told Mike this too. If you can’t be honest with your suspension guy, what kind of a person are you?
He suggested that the first thing I should do is to go out and “bracket” my clickers.
In my next post I’ll go in depth with that very topic.
BACK TO CLICK SUSPENSION
I dropped my forks off at Mike’s place on Christmas Eve. I picked them up on January 1st. His turn around time might have been faster but it was also the Holidays and I told him I was in no particular hurry.
When I picked them up I got to spend a good amount of time talking to him in his shop. I got to ask pretty much any question I had and got very specific answers.
One of my questions was, “Why don’t you use SKF seals?“
All I know, is that SKF is widely considered the best. Why? I don’t know. But that simple query led us deep into a whole other topic. You know those green / orange seals? That’s SKF and everyone swears by them – most likely because they heard other people swear by them. Honestly, they really don’t know.
Kashima
Friction is the enemy of a good working suspension. Anything you can do to minimize the friction (or stiction) is a good thing. Kashima is that gold looking coating on some forks and shock shafts. Pretty much all my mountain bike’s had Kashima.
Not that you can see it, but so did my Hayabusa.
Kashima is on some of the high end stuff. It’s not cheap.
Remember that Mike worked with FOX way back when? Fox bought into the use of Kashima on their high end stuff. The active ingredient in Kashima is the molybdenum disulfide. That’s the slippery stuff. Somewhere he got the idea that instead of just putting a coating on the fork tube, why not put it in the oil and even embed it in the fork seals themselves.
That’s why my fork came back with BLUE dust seals.
Click Suspension’s fork service includes what he calls his Liquid A Kit.
So now the slippery stuff is in the seals, and in the oil itself making it even slipperier and saving wear and tear on the fork internals. I found a short video on his site. Not sure who this is but wow!
Remember, that friction / stiction is bad. Mike then pulled out a loop (magnifying glass) to show me the knife cut lip on his seals. I could see a difference but not sure what difference that might make. On his website I found this explainer.
Are all fork seals the same?
No they are not. Liquid A Kit fork seals have a precision knife cut oil lip. Using this method of manufacturing we get a sharp sealing lip. When we knife cut the seal lip, it exposes the micro pores of the rubber. With the pores of the rubber exposed, the Nano7 slip particles infuse into the seal lip rubber to further reduce slide friction. Our low friction fork seal kits offer leading edge technology and are engineered to be long lasting.
I’m very happy with my decision to use Mike. I know a little but this guy knows a LOT. The proof is in the pudding, right?
My next step is to go out and ride the bike and get a good idea on how to answer “Where are you on your clickers?” Per Mike’s suggestion that’s by “Bracketing my Clickers“.
Stay tuned!
Check out CLICK Suspension at
https://clicksuspension.com/
(831) 588-6720
Neezer@clicksuspension.com
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, had a big cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and is currently building a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
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