What spring should i get for downhill? heeeeelp!!!! plz plz plz answer?

Question

i weigh 132 pounds and i'm 6' tall, i have a manitou metel and the spring is a 400, but it bottoms out on a 3' drop what spring should i get now? an 450 or a 500?

P.S. i dont mind if i loose some progessivity(sensibility) i just dont want it going very close to bottoming out on small jumps i loose a lot of speed and control! help!!!!

Answer 1

For a 132 lb rider a 400 spring should not bottom that easily. Has the shock been set up properly? The next issue could be your riding style, if you are just dropping 3~4' with no run off it will take a huge spring to stop the bottoming. If you select a spring with too high a rate beware that fast downhill performance will suffer.

EDIT: How many hours are on the shock? Is it set up for 30% sag?

If the shock has not been serviced in a few years and you put a lot of time on the bike you probably need a new spring and an oil change. You also didn't mention has this always been a problem or did it start recently and getting worse.

EDIT2: You could use a Fox if it has the same free lenth and diameter.

Doing some quick figuring based on your comment on 20% sag, and refering to a few spring tables you might want to consider a 550 or a 600lb spring. When the preload adjuster is tightened to the spring and you give it one more turn after contacting the spring, then when you adjust the preload if you have to turn it more than 2~3 additional times your spring rate is too low.

Answer 2

buy the fox