How to set up your Pole

Watch the video below

1. Check the tire pressure

Tire pressure plays very important role how your bike handles. A harsh ride can be caused from over inflated tires and also you may lose traction. Your tire pressure should be set as low as possible without puncturing tires, damaging rims, burping tubeless or tires rolling sideways. Huck Norris is a great product that can help you to get tire pressure lower without damaging tires or rims.

2.Firm Pole is better than soft Pole

Your bike should be responsive. If your Pole is set too soft, you will have performance issues like bike is using too much travel and you are loosing speed or the worst case scenario is excess nose dive in breaking or hucking. When you increase spring rate you need to remember to add more rebound damping. If there is not enough rebound damping the bike feels like a jumping stick and if there is too much rebound damping the bike feels dead underneath. In between these scenarios is a setup that is responsive, stable and playful.

3. Set your seat according your riding style

Your riding style determines where your seat should be set. If you are riding uphills your seat should be as front as possible and if you are running on flat sections you can push the saddle a bit backwards to get better balance for pedaling. If you want more upright posture for ergonomic reasons, just push the seat in front. If you ride only riding lift assisted rides your saddle should be nose up because your bike’s front end is pointing more or less downhill. If you are riding flat, your saddle should be parallel to ground. If you are riding up and down the mountains your saddle should be nose down. The reason the saddle position is nose down is that in uphills you can save a lot of energy when your bum is not sliding off the saddle.

4. Check Your handlebar height and position

When your seat is positioned correctly handlebar height determines how much your body weight is distributed to the front wheel. If you feel that your front end is too light and you feel twithcy when ascending, just move one 5mm at a time from under the stem to top of the stem. This is a good indicator that gives you the right handlebar height to the descending as well. The more upright you can stand without losing traction on front wheel the better it is.

Make sure that your handlebar’s backsweep is pointing right direction. The most common mistake is to turn the handlebars so that the backsweep becomes upsweep. The handlebars should turn towards your body

5. Other tricks and tips

If regarding all the above you encounter loss of traction in front, try to add one or two clicks of low speed compression. The reason behind this is that your fork is giving out too early in the corner. On long bike you can not load the front end that strongly so it’s easier to add more compression damping.

If you are riding very steep sections it helps if you lower the seat 20-30mm from the ideal position. Because we have a steep seat tube angle the saddle sometimes comes in the way when you are turning really tight switchbacks. This trick works also in singletrack trail riding where you very seldom want to extend your telescopic seat post all the way up. Let’s call this as a trail setup.

Check your brake lever position. They should be more level than pointing downwards. This helps your arms to relax and takes off your weight from front when braking in descends.