Tuning a 2007 RS Reba Team

I have been running Fox forks on my bikes for the past several years. At first the performance difference to what was otherwise available was huge. Each year though, it seemed as if the performance 'bang' was really as great as the increase in cost. After riding the Fox 36 Talas, I was really disapointed in it's ability to perform trail riding and the difficulty to tune.

The difficuly was that other fork companies were really dropping the ball as far as performance went. Rock Shox forks for the last years before being purchased by SRAM were some of the worst peices of junk known to man. Most would suffer from the most extreme hydrolock on fast hits. garbage.

But things seemed to change with models designed after the SRAM takeover. It seemed they actually have pride in what they do now. A Semi-pro racer friend of mine, Olivier Bock, had been using a RS Reba for Pro Cross Country racing, and after getting on a Fox fork, said that the Fox didn't work as well. Around the same time, I borrowed a bike with a RS Pike on it. I was amazingly plush. I was in awe.

In setting up a new hardtail singlespeed, I needed a fork in the 4" travel range that was dirt cheap and worked awsome. I scored a 2007 Reba Team on Ebay for $370 delivered. Half the price of a Fox.

The Fork

2007 RockShox Reba Team w/ Poploc Adj. Remote. Mounted on a 17" 2006 Zion 660EBB Singlespeed frame.

Initial Riding Impressions

The fork works very well initially, but rides slightly low and not as plush as desired for fast singletrack riding. It needs less compression damping and more travel. Rebound works fine.

The Poplock Adj. is killer. I really never figured that I would end up using it that much, just trying it as a lark. The thing is, it works. Run the fork at the desired compression, and pop it to threshold. The threshold adjustment works much better than the compression adjustment, but we will see if we can fix that.

The fork is plenty stiff enough for hardcore single track riding. I have hucked it off a few 4 foot drops into small rocks with little problem. Quite the stiff fork for a light cross country model.

Increasing the Travel

As supplied. This fork is configured for 100mm of travel. By removing a spacer, I can increase that to 115mm. Just enough for honest trail riding.

Riding the bike after raising the fork to 115mm is much more in balance. Fast travel is not really as hecktic as before. A little more would be nice, but then the front end would probably flop a lot more. It's good now.

Changing the Damping

Rock Shox, 15W Extra Heavy shock fluid was the same thing as Torco 20W. The ISO viscosity of this oil is 42.8. This may no longer be true, since SRAM is probably looking to streamline their entire range for vendor efficencies. So I need to use something lighter than that. Experience tells me that I need to use something much lighter when working on RockShox forks.

I will first try Red Line (Medium, Red), ISO 30.40. This wil be a good starting point. Red Line Suspension Fluid is like magic. It smooths forks out really nice.

After a nice little rain ride, the fork really works nicer. The oil may not be perfect yet, but it is better. A little more tuning time will get it in line.

Bottoming Resistance

The fork has a lot of resistance to bottoming, which I'm really not into. I like to use all of my travel on most rides and use the compression adjustment to suit the terrain. Next time I have the fork apart, I will look into relaxing this resistance a little bit.