LIFT DAMPER TUNE SELECTION HELP

A mountain biking mecca with hundreds of miles of single track covering highly diverse terrain, you could hardly imagine better testing grounds than MRP’s Western Colorado home base. But our product testing encompasses a lot more than simply getting a couple units out on the local trails – awesome as they are. During the Lift Damper development, we solicited feedback from dozens of test riders, iterated hundreds of shim stacks, and ran thousands of dyno tests to validate theory and correlate rider impressions. The thoroughness of those endeavors gives us great confidence in our recommended rider weight ranges. Weight-based tune ranges are useful, but they aren’t the end of the tuning story. The broad diversity of bikes available, wide assortment of styles and techniques used by riders, and the myriad of personal preferences and performance expectations held by riders makes it impossible to segment the total range without some overlap. 

 

For riders in the overlap zones, here are the factors you should and should not consider in when choosing between tunes. 

Weight 

The first thing we consider when tuning suspension is weight. Your weight provides considerable force since it’s the largest mass in motion. Our suggested weight ranges reference a rider's weight – not rider weight ready to ride, but just bare weight. We do this for simplicity, and because most rider’s gear weighs roughly the same – and the differences aren’t large enough to skew the recommendations in a meaningful way. It’s a similar story for bike weight. The bike weights of our test riders ranged from 29-37 lbs. with an average weight around 33 lbs. But, if your bike weight is significantly heavier than this average –  40+ lbs –  consider choosing the firmer tune if you’re in one of overlap ranges of our recommendations.

 

Riding Style and Preference 

Do you like to plow or pop? Prefer a planted or playful ride? In both examples, the former would likely prefer more and the latter less damped suspension. This is not a binary choice, but rather helps steer you in one direction or another. When looking at two adjacent tunes, it’s not as though one represents a pogo stick (undamped) and the other a baja-ready trophy truck (highly damped), but that’s a useful metaphor to illustrate their differences. The lighter of the two tunes will suit the rider who likes a more active ride, values feedback from the trail, and likes to work the terrain for speed and fun. The heavier tune better suits the point and shoot style rider who wants the confidence provided by suspension that feels surefooted and highly composed, even when the terrain is ugly.

Travel 

Stroke length influences ride feel because it’s the distance suspension can respond to an event.  There is a widely held opinion that total travel has an inverse relationship to overall damping. Aggressive short-travel riders are trying to do more with less, so tend towards a quicker ramp up of damping and support. Conversely, long-travel fans have a lot of stroke to work with and lean more towards a preference for lighter high-speed compression tunes. Consider how much travel you have and how that compares to minimum and maximum travel of the Lift Damper model compatible with your fork.  

 

Terrain 

We’re blessed to have a wide variety of terrain outside the doors of MRP HQ and an even greater variety a short drive away. A byproduct of that is that Lift tunes aren’t just suited to one type of terrain, but rather they perform excellently everywhere! 

 One thing we have in abundance locally is very rocky, almost violent trails, and that’s an area we think Lift particularly shines – and where the shortcomings of other dampers are obvious. If your trails sound similar, and “harsh” is word you’ve used to describe your experience on other dampers, don’t let that lead you to believe you need a lighter tune than we prescribe for your weight. That leap of logic is understandable, but we’ve designed the Lift damper to feel supple and smooth on square-edge hits regardless of tune, a product of its damping profile and low-friction architecture.

The Lift Damper is NOT a one-trick pony when it comes to terrain. We don’t recommend letting the general character of your local terrain push you one way or another. The externally adjustable low-speed compression and rebound adjustments allow you to fine tune your ride once you’ve already filtered it through the weight recommendations, riding style preferences, and travel considerations.

 

We hope this guide helps you pick the best Lift Damper Tune for you. But if you still have questions or concerns, please reach out. We’re available 9am to 5pm Mountain Time on weekdays via phone, e-mail, or the online chat function.

And remember, while it’s always nice to get it right the first time, every Lift Damper can be re-tuned relatively simply and easily with our Tuning Shim Kits.