I really feel i can do without the midvalve

[georgieboy]

I know this is a little a harsh statement, but pls read that "I" am the one who can do without a midvalve and not you all can do without a midvalve. The last year i have done a lot of suspension fiddling myself and came to the conclusion that with my kind of riding, doing no big jumps etc, I can make my fork work with only the basevalve. I don't need the extra damping from the mid.
The reason is that with the midvalve seeing so much oil, it is nessesary to use a lot of freelift and light stacks, to avoid harshness. This means that the stacks is bending a lot with fear of damaging. And i feel that with the amount of bending it is doing it is more like a checkvalve anyway. Stacks must not bend a lot, like light midvalves with big lifts, otherwise it is not sufficient in the first place.
So I can understand with MX racers that they do need midvalves. They work with the extra damping from the midvalves in order to land big jumps safely. Only basevalves wld be to harsh for dealing with these loads.

 

[marcusgunby]

If you feel you dont need a mid no-one should argue with that-have you actually built your fork without the mid and liked it?

 

[georgieboy]

Yes Marcus, the last time i changed from a light-mid valve stack to a checkplate. I rode a Enduro with midvalve and one enduro without and both times the track was full with roots sticking out from everywhere. Even slow riding is causing sharp hits then. After 4 hours riding tru these circumstances you really go for full plush in yr forks.
I feel when i go riding mx track I probably end up with a mid-valve stack again, but right now... i feel statisfied.

 

[marcusgunby]

Thats cool, i have rode a few mx forks with a checkplate and they were far from bad-much better than std, i would say 50% better, my best setup(for mx) i would say is 20% better again.Alot of tuners wont like to admit this but there are many ways of getting suspension to work well, i have rode a bike with a GV fitted to the shock-it was as good as any shock i have ridden.

 

[georgieboy]

Marcus, I really think you open minded about suspension setup.
Thx for that.
And i very much appreciate your opinons about everything. Oops make that "almost"everything otherwise people might think strangely about our relation.
ha ha ha
This forum has been a great help for me the last couplle of years.
See u around, we have only the north sea/canal in between our countries.

 

[Bandit9]

Georgie, what exactly did you do to the midvalve? Did you remove it all together or just disable it somehow? I right strictly woods on a MX bike and have had some people recommend trying this. Thanks.

 

[georgieboy]

I just made a checkvalve of it. The checkvalve can lift freely for about 5mm during the compression stroke of the fork. When rebound starts a small spring will push it back against the piston so rebound is not affected.
Building yr midvalve like this, means you have no damping during the comp stroke at the midvalve. All damping is done at the basevalve.

 

[marcusgunby]

Dont forget any mid valve with more than 2.5mm of lift is effectively a checkplate, so you dont have to buy anything to make one, use what you have.

 

[Bandit9]

Thank you