RS Reba setups ?'s

**axebiker** · 07-11-2012, 12:23 PM

I picked up a second hand RS Reba Team over the weekend for my Salsa El Mar (it's a hardtail steel 1x10 29er in case you don't know). The crmo fork was okay, but after last week's abuse on the jeep trails around MT, I decided to "upgrade" a bit.

The first day was not very good. The setup felt okay, but it was setup @ 100-110mm, and the El Mar is an 80mm corrected ride. Handled like a chopper. I got it back yesterday and it handles better, but needs some dialing. I ride mainly low impact single track - no big jumps or anything - Fairly technical, with some rock garden and tight switchback style turns.

I weigh about 190 with gear. I'm set up @ 130 psi both positive and negative. Rebound is about right.

Any thoughts/hints/tips for this fork? I'm coming from a Fox F32, which I wasn't really blown away by.

Thx!

**radam** · 07-11-2012, 12:31 PM

I've got an older Reba and I almost always run it with a bit more air on the negative side. Seems to help with small bump compliance but you lose a bit of travel. I'm ~165 geared up and run 100 on the positive side, 105 on the negative side. This is on a 26" bike, btw.

**NuMexJoe** · 07-11-2012, 12:47 PM

Mine took a bit of fiddling, using a tuning method recommended by (I think) PUSH, but I'm happy w/ it now. First set your positive pressure to get the sag where you want it, making sure that your negative pressure is always at least 10psi less than positive pressure. That might take a couple rides to get it to where you're bottoming once per ride (or whatever your benchmark is). Now with that positive pressure set, move the o-ring up off the wiper about 1mm. Add negative pressure until that 1mm gap is closed, and go ride. It's not the method RS specifies, but I found it worked for me.
- Joe

**axebiker** · 07-12-2012, 09:20 AM

Thanks for the tips. I was never completely happy with the Fox that was on my Paragon, and while the one on my Trek Top Fuel was better, I always thought it should have performed better. The Reba seems better set up right out of the gates, but I just wanted to pick some brains to see if there were some common suggestions out there.