At its core, suspension exists to keep your tires in contact with the ground. When properly tuned, good suspension keeps your wheels from bouncing or skidding as they encounter bumps and loose surfaces. The happy side-effect of this is that your ride is also made smoother and more comfortable – but that is not the primary reason for suspension’s existence. The primary reason for suspension on any high-performance vehicle can be summed up in one word: control. 

Without well-tuned suspension, every bump in the trail forces the wheels the leave the ground. The resulting, jolting motion causes harshness and loss of control.

Control is everything. Control allows you to turn, speed up, and most importantly – slow down. Suspension’s real job is to increase the amount of control you have over the bike as you roll down the trail. More control allows you to ride with more confidence, and more of both allows you to ride at higher speeds (if that’s what you want to do).  

In addition to added control, good suspension should feel supportive. It should give a predictable and consistent feeling of platform that you can push against when riding over uneven ground. It shouldn’t sag or squish so easily that it feels unstable, vague, and mushy.  

When suspension is doing all of this properly, you will feel a strong sense of confidence in how the bike is going to respond to different situations like drops, holes, or rough sections. The bike will feel more predictable – more like an extension of your own body and less of a separate beast beneath you. We’ve all felt the dreaded feeling of being kicked, bucked, or bounced around by poorly tuned suspension. In fact, many times riders experience this feeling of being kicked forward over the bars, it's because their setup is too soft, not the other way around! When you’re having to focus on preparing to fight unruly or unsupportive suspension, you have to take focus away from the trail. It’s for this reason, that a predictable setup is usually the best. A predictable bike allows you to be in control of the situation at all times, not the other way around.  

So what's the takeaway?  

When adjusting your suspension, look for a distinct feeling of confidence and predictability. When making any tuning decision, ask yourself: “Does this change make me feel more confident?” or “Does this change make my bike feel more predictable?” These are the tuning questions that really matter. If you follow these trains of thought, you are likely to wind up with suspension settings that work for you in the right ways.  

Remember, even with perfectly tuned suspension, riding mountain bikes is always going to be some level of uncomfortable and rough. This is why it can be dangerous to chase comfort as your primary tuning goal. Riders that spend too much time chasing a soft, overly plush feeling often wind up with a bike that’s lacking in support. It actually rides more harshly because they’re spending more time deep in the travel fighting higher levels of spring force pushing back on their hands and feet. (More on this in Part II.)

Once you free yourself from the false pretense that riding down a trail is ever going to feel as smooth or comfy as a paved road, you can tune for the things that will allow you to ride more relaxed and with more confidence. You’ll be in charge, and you’ll be able to attack the trail more aggressively than before. It may seem counterintuitive, but you may even find, that the stiffer, more supportive setup is actually more comfortable in the long run!