It may be surprising to hear that low-speed rebound has a lot to do with how much traction your bike exhibits. When your tire hits a bump, your suspension compresses and energy is stored in the spring. With too little rebound damping, the spring is allowed to extend in an uncontrolled way. This uncontrolled movement can cause the tire to skip or bounce along the surface of the trail and as such, creates a loss of traction.

If you feel like your bike is wanting to slide out in corners or if the rear wheel skids too easily when braking, try speeding up the low speed rebound.

While it makes your bike feel snappy, playful, and efficient in the parking lot, a very fast rebound setting is a hard thing to control once you get up to trail speed.

Rebound should be quick enough that you feel like you have adequate traction, but not so fast that your bike feels nervous or twitchy when rocketing full speed through a rock garden. If you feel like a pinball getting bounced though rough sections, try slowing your rebound down several clicks (clockwise).

Slightly slower rebound makes the bike feel more predictable and gives you a greater sense of control. This, in turn, can help you gain confidence on the trail.

Ok, so you’ve adjusted your rebound a bit slower to increase the feeling of control. Your suspension doesn’t rebound as erratically now, but if you take this adjustment too far you can wind up with suspension that feels harsh. This is because now your suspension is spending too much time in a compressed state, where the spring force is much higher. (This is explained in Full Travel, pt. II if you’ve not read it already). 

We call this behavior “packing up.”  

If you’ve adjusted your rebound to be slower to try to increase the sense of control, but have recently become aware that the bike feels overly harsh, then try opening the rebound back up again by a few clicks. This will allow the suspension to return to it’s extended starting point sooner, getting you back into that range of lower (softer) spring force. The wheel is allowed to flutter more easily over bumps and the suspension will feel more plush.