Suspension Setup:
AMFLOW Edition

After chatting to a BUNCH of you crazy AMFLOW owners out on the trails around Perth, a pretty clear pattern has revealed itself.

The majority of lighter riders genuinely seem impressed with the stock suspension — that is, those under 80kg. There are plenty of comments praising the grip, comfort and support, and very few people are rushing to pull their forks and shocks apart looking for upgrades. The stock damping seems perfectly adequate for the lighter riders, with the usual edge cases including lightweight guys who ride twice as fast as everyone else, and those riders who are SERIOUSLY lightweight, like sub 60kg.

Lightweight crew... stick to your factory service intervals. You’ll be fine.

Now let’s talk about the 110kg riders...

The Clydesdales! Big fellas! I’ve got you covered.

Once rider weight gets up around the 110kg mark, the comments become much more consistent. It isn’t that people are saying the suspension is bad — far from it. It’s more that they’re struggling to get the bike to behave exactly how they want using air pressure and volume spacers alone.

The complaints tend to follow a similar pattern. Riders are increasing air pressure to stop the bike diving through its travel, but once they do that the initial part of the stroke starts to feel firmer than they’d like. Others have added volume spacers to increase progression, only to find they’re still chasing more support through the middle of the travel.

None of this is unique to the AMFLOW either. We see exactly the same thing with plenty of modern enduro bikes that are expected to accommodate riders ranging from 65kg through to well over 120kg using the same internal valving.

There are, of course, a number of ways we can go with this, but our in-house formula for heavier riders remains a solid starting point: increase low and mid-speed support, and slow the rebound down to better handle the required spring pressures.

Always happy to talk setup with riders here at the workshop.