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Learn About Suspension Service

When you purchased your bike, the suspension fork and rear shock were new, with perfect seals separating vacuum-sealed oils and high-pressure gas so that your suspension could work as it was intended. Like any highly-engineered piece of equipment with moving parts and fluids and gasses that can come into contact with each other, these suspension parts need regular service in order to work optimally.

What Are Recommended Service Intervals?

Regularly servicing your suspension parts is vital for the continuing safe and correct functioning of your equipment. 

  • 20 hours of use: Suspension oil starts to break down, performance begins to degrade
  • 40 hours of use: Internal parts begin to wear and there is a noticeable loss of damping and sensitivity
  • 125 hours of use: Recommended service interval for forks and shocks

What Happens As Your Suspension Wears?

The oil in your fork/shock that helps to absorb the impacts that you encounter, degrades with time and usage and needs to be changed much like the oil in your car. The oil and grease that lubricates the sliding parts becomes contaminated and can wear internal seals, o-rings, and bushings. Extreme symptoms like worn external parts, oil leaks, extreme friction in sliding parts and a complete loss of damping are often due to a lack of regular service.


The Allspeed Difference

While most bike shops can do a portion of recommended service on your suspension parts in-house, frequently these parts need to be removed from your bike and sent back to the factory for full tear-down and rebuild. This can mean you are without your bike for weeks when your part is shipped out, serviced, shipped back and reinstalled. 

Allspeed is uniquely equipped to complete most higher-level suspension tear-down and rebuild services on most Fox, RockShox and Manitou suspension parts in-house, regularly scheduled in our regular service queue, with less interruption to your riding. How are we able to offer these services? We have the specialized tools and we have the training, and we have the confidence and experience of completing hundreds of shock and fork rebuilds already!

Rear Shock Service

Our technicians disassemble the air can, then tear down the damper, draining and replacing oil, as well as all internal seals. The internal floating piston is re-set, new oil added to the system, and the nitrogen is recharged, and everything rebuilt with new seals. Have a look at the process! 


 

As we disassemble the shock, if we see bubbles then we know that the the seal between high-pressure gas and suspension fluid has been compromised. 


After regular use, the oil in your rear shock becomes discolored.


The internal floating damper separates pressurized gas from the oil inside the shock. Seals are replaced.


The valving assembly control compression and rebound - oil comes one way and then the other depending on your selected settings.


Fresh suspension fluid is installed in a closed system, without any air.


The internal floating damper chamber is re-filled with pressurized gas. After rebuild, we test the shock and re-install on the bicycle frame. 

Front Fork Service

Our technicians first remove the lower castings, then take the airspring out and grease or repair the seals. Next they remove the damper, bleed it, clean inside, add new oils to the system, re-install the parts before installing new foam ring and wiper seals. Finally we re-install the lowers on the uppers. Have a look at the process!


The airspring is one leg of the fork.


The damper is the other leg.


The rebound dampers needs fresh suspension oil. 



Our technicians carefully bleed the damper to purge any air from the system.


Service performed on the fork lowers includes replacement of foam rings and wiper seals.


Suspension oil in the lowers keeps the stanchions correctly lubed.