rockshox floodgate

Rybes

what is it and what does it do. ive read the part on it on the rockshox website at what it does but it dont make no sense to me. is it like a safty valve ?

cheers all 8)

supersonic

It is a blow off valve. When the fork is locked out, or nearly locked, you can set the Floodgate to either bypass the damping circuit with minimal effort, or with a lot of effort.

So you can tune how the fork behaves when locked out, and how it reacts over bumps ie stays locked, or unlocked for the hit (then it returns to locked).

Rybes

cheers super. so locked out is almost rigid ? from what ive read even when locked out theres a small amount of travel. motorbike suspension is easy, that i can do. i was thinkin these forks would be similar but it would appear im wrong. oh well, more learnin on the way.

supersonic

Yep, the full lockout retains a small amount of travel for traction.

Basically you have a compression damping adjuster, which fully turned locks the fork. the Floodgate adjuster sets the blow off force required.

warpcow

There are some excellent explanations of Rockshox dampers and how to tune them on mtbr:

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=136225

As you'll see, it's possible to use the floodgate to control the damping, rather than just as a blow-off setting for the lockout. The 'middle' setting they describe (1/2 floodgate, 1/3-1/2 compression) makes rockshox forks dive much less under braking and dropping in to things. It assumes that you don't use a remote though, otherwise it's exactly as Supersonic describes and only works when the compression is fully closed ('locked').

Rybes

cheers for the help blokes 8) and thanks for that link warpcow. im now goin to sit and read it all. i have no remote lock off so all is good.