Suspension school · Damping Adjustments

How to Count Clicks Correctly

Two conventions, subtle detents, and the dials that are not clicks at all

Every setting in this calculator, and nearly every setting a manufacturer publishes, is written as clicks out from fully closed. The number is meaningless unless everyone counts from the same end, in the same direction, so it is worth getting the ritual exactly right.

The Standard Method

• Turn the adjuster clockwise (viewed from above the dial) until it comes to a gentle stop. That is fully closed: maximum damping, firmest setting.
• Treat that stop as zero. This calculator counts fully closed as 0.
• Turn anticlockwise, counting each distinct click. Each click opens an oil bleed slightly, giving less damping.
• Stop at the recommended number. That setting is so many clicks out from closed.

Be gentle at the stop. Low-speed adjusters are usually a tapered needle seating into an oil port, and winding it home like a stuck jar lid damages the needle and its seat. Finger pressure to a soft stop is all it takes.

Know your total. Rebound dials commonly offer somewhere between 10 and 20 clicks depending on the damper; the Fox GRIP X2 runs 8 clicks on its high-speed circuits and 16 on its low-speed circuits, and Marzocchi's Z1 and Z2 rebound tables span 13 clicks out down to 1 click out as rider weight rises. Because totals vary this much, 'set it in the middle' means different things on different forks, which is exactly why counting from closed became the convention.

The RockShox Charger 3 Exception

RockShox broke with convention on the Charger 3 and 3.1 dampers. Their compression dials are centre-indexed: the marked 0 sits in the middle of the range, and you count + clicks for firmer or - clicks for softer either side of it. If a settings guide for one of these forks says +2 HSC, it means two clicks firmer than the centre detent, not two from closed. Rebound on the same forks still counts the traditional way, out from fully closed.

This is the only mainstream exception, and it catches people constantly, usually when settings are shared between friends on different forks. When someone quotes numbers at you, ask which convention they are using before you copy anything.

Losing Count, and Dials You Can Barely Feel

• Some detents are extremely subtle, especially through gloves or with cold hands. Use bare fingers, find somewhere quiet, and go slowly.
• Count in a steady rhythm and out loud. It sounds daft and it works.
• If you lose count, do not guess and do not try to count backwards. Return to fully closed and start again. It costs ten seconds.
• Record final settings in a phone note straight away: fork pressure, shock pressure, every dial. Future you, standing at a trailhead after lending the bike to a mate, will be grateful.

Positions Are Not Clicks

Some adjusters are not click dials at all and should never be recorded as click counts. Lockout and climb levers are two or three discrete positions (open, middle, firm). Sweep adjusters, like the compression control on Marzocchi's GRIP-equipped forks, move through a continuous arc from open to firm with no detents; record those by position, such as fully open or about a third of the way through the sweep.

A related trap: on some shocks a low-speed compression dial sits alongside a climb lever, and the dial's clicks only apply while the lever is in its open position. Put the lever in open before counting or adjusting anything, and remember that flipping the lever for a climb does not change your recorded open-mode setting.

Zero or One?

One last source of confusion: a few guides count the fully closed position itself as click 1 rather than 0, which shifts every number by one. This calculator, like most manufacturer tables, treats fully closed as 0, with the first movement of the dial being click 1. If a recommendation ever seems one click adrift from another source, this is usually why, and it is not worth losing sleep over: one click sits inside the range you will be bracketing anyway.