Suspension Examination:
 

After getting my suspension revalved by a tuner (and being happy with it) I was disappointed to find everything seemed to be softening up. My thoughts are its a combo of things
A) I got the suspension revalved when the bike was brand new, now everything is bed in there is a lot less friction and this has caused everything to become softer.
B) IMO I am riding quicker on this new bike, whether it's the bike itself or the suspension that have given me more confidence I don't know.

I am going to speak with the tuner and see if I can get it tweaked again to firm it up where it needs firming up, to make sure I was accurately reporting what the bike was doing I took this video:
http://youtu.be/sDPESqTMKUA

So my thoughts are that LSC front and rear is on the soft side. The g-outs I'm hitting are pretty intense and I'd expect the suspension to bottom on these but GENTLY. At the moment the sound of the front forks smashing into the bottoming cone and the tyre hitting the front guard isn't pleasant. I'm 3clicks out on LSC clickers so it's definitely the valving.
The shock is the same although not as bad, I don't know if I'd want it firmed up at the moment as it does squat and grip really well on hills etc plus I think I am still about 10 clicks out on LSC which is just under halfway out (total of 26 clicks)

Rebound is fine both ends, no pogoing or pushing and both ends stick like glue to the terrain even when riding off camber bumpy rocks. I will check the forks though as I think I'm in a fair way on the reb clicker to get it behaving this way.

HSC I'm not too sure with the forks, I suspect they could use firming up a tiny amount, I can feel them blow through the stroke on occasions instead of firming up. The rear i initially thought was too soft and it was blowing through then bouncing back of the bump stop but looking at the video it's just firming up and not moving past 3/4 travel. It'd be nice if the reiger shock had a HSC clicker as I could probably tune the spike out with that clicker...

Nath,
I cannot remember who you sent yours to to get done but you know who I used and mine was sent back really soft .
So soft in fact that the tuner I now use , swapped the single stage, 9 shim??? stack , (compression), for a dual stage stack.
He used the basic stack as a start and kept the initial plushness and then upped the second stage by about 120% to what it was.
Forks now eat anything I can throw at them and work really well in sand and loamy stuff. Rode a muddy mx track last weekend and it was great but was slightly stiff and ever so slightly jarring on stutters, but that is to be expected as I have not changed the setup at all since Finke and Hattah:D.
Overall I am very pleased.
Your shock looked ok to me and I do remember my tuner saying that both compression and rebound are intertwined.
I also have had my shock upgraded, mine is an Ohlins 888.
Cheers Mark

I used the same tuner you did initially mate ;-)
Like I said at the start I was really pleased but now I find it all to be a bit soft. I'll be attempting to speak with him today and see if I can have it fixed up without costing me too much money.

How did you go?
One good thing about him is that he said he would gladly fix the problem no charge. If you are close you probably won't have a problem.
I took mine to the new tuner twice with the forks to get the 100% correct.
Trial and error unfortunately if you are picky or know how it should feel.
Cheers Mark

Less then ideal, he said he will fix it, however as it has been so long (only 6 months or so and approx 20 hrs) he feels the goal posts have moved from where I wanted them 6 months ago as I'm getting quicker and have reached the limits of the revalved suspension - his words not mine. He will come to an agreement with me where I pay labour and parts to get them re-valved again. In short he'll give me a discount so I'm not paying full freight for a revalve again. :roll eyes:

Needless to say I'm not really happy with this outcome, I spent close to $800 with him the first time, spending any more then a few $ for more shims and $50 for oil/gas is out of the question.
However I can see where he is coming from. Initially I was very happy with the revalved suspension, it was perfect. However a combination of the brand new suspension breaking in (it was only 4hrs old when I had them done) and the fact that IMO I am getting quicker and more confident and pushing the suspension to a level I couldn't previously has unfortunately led me to my current pickle.

So tonight I pulled the forks down myself, and tomorrow, armed with the shim stacks he installed and the above video I'll go out and see him and ask him to do a revalve on paper for me, I'll buy shims and oil through him so he'll still be getting some $. I hope he agrees with this, otherwise I'm going to be very disappointed as I was led to believe (based on his words) that he was a good honest man to deal with.

Stay tuned...

Nate: Sorry to hear about your quandry, but you've brought up a couple points that guys should be aware of (as you now are).

1) Revalving brand new suspension can lead to a number of issues down the road. As you've mentioned the base components (seals, bushings etc) aren't broken in, and as a result their contribution to overall performance is still changing. Expect softer and plusher with time, leveling out about 10 hours.
2) Unless you've just bought a replacement bike for one you know intimately, at 4 hours you're likely not completely dialed in on what you want the suspension to do either (and it's giving a false reading because of lack of break-in). The PFP forks in particular feel firmer than others, but if you go softer to match feel you lose the performance they are capable of.
3) Good suspension *should* make you a better/faster/more confident rider. That usually means that you're hitting stuff faster/harder/differently than you would have previously, or even tackling more challenging terrain. Depending on where you are in the tuning window, that may require some more work to match your new riding prowess.

It's not much help to you, but I typically have my guys re-spring (if necessary) straight away, but discourage them from re-valving until the suspension is broken in(+) and they have a good feel for the bike. Then we'll re-valve and I keep working with them on clicker settings as long as they've got the bike.

+ if you've gone up more than a couple spring rates I'll do valving straight out of the box, or do fixes that I know work on a particular brand of suspension for riders of similar style and ability

Good luck Nath.;)

Steve, you've hit the nail on the head with your post. I should have just installed the heavier springs and ridden it until the suspension had broken in. Main reason I didn't is I had the money sitting there to pay for the revalve and had permission from the wife to do it - so i did it ASAP before she changed her mind :D

The other thing is as mentioned in point 3 I do consider myself to be a faster more confident rider now. I'm not bagging the tuner in this thread, initially he did a great job and I couldn't have been happier with the work done.

I was a tad disappointed when initially told I would have to pay for a service front and rear (total of approx $400!) during which he would revalve the stacks, however I've now realised it was because I was speaking with his son (a royal douche IMO). When I spoke with the actual tuner I was told we could work something out, but I would at least be covering labour involved in pulling down and putting back together the suspension. Fair enough.

I went one better and pulled down the forks myself, and today I went in to his workshop with the stacks recorded on paper. After showing him the video and then the recorded stacks and clarifying I wanted to firm it up a tad he supplied me with new shims and told me where to put them in the stacks. Couldn't have asked for a better solution IMO.

Now to install the new stacks and see what happens.

Also I've left the rear alone for now. I am smack in the middle of the clicker range for rebound and 10 out of 26 on LSC. So first ill wind in some LSC and see of that helps it sit up in the stroke a bit more.
I'm also wondering if a heavier spring may help, currently running a 6.0 and with 13mm preload I get static sag of 25mm and race sag of 98mm. The bike turns like its on rails so I don't want to alter race sag, it's also pretty plush and compliant so the smallish static sag doesn't seem to be a problem. Dunno what do you people think, would a rate (or two) on the rear help keep it sitting up a bit higher? Or should I not waste money and address it through valving/clickers instead?

Nath,
I too got no where with his peanut son. It was not until I actually got to talk to him that things happened.
They did not send the old valves back and his son said they would be lost by now???
Spoke to him and he posted them to me , no questions asked.
He really needs to teach that kid some customer service skills.
Glad to hear it worked out mate.
Cheers Mark