 Hey guys, in this episode of Offroad Engineered, I'm exploring a concept that a lot of people talk about, but few explain in detail. And this probably raises some questions if you're new to the sport. We're going to show you how to set your rider sag. How to set sag. We're going to be setting sag. So what the heck is sag and how much can it affect your bike's handling, if not set up right? Whenever you break in a new bike, or a bike that was ridden by someone with a completely different stature than yours, one of the first few things you must do is set the sag of the bike. But what is sag after all? Sag is simply how much of the suspension's travel gets compressed from fully extended to when the rider gets on the bike. And why do you set it up? The sag allows the suspension to have a percentage of its travel to compress and absorb the bumps on the terrain and another percentage of its travel to extend to compensate for the dips and holes of the terrain. Although we are used to see suspensions fully extended even when they are not installed on the bike, their job is to use their entire stroke to compress and extend in order to make our ride safer and more comfortable. Sag is crucial to have the most stable handling possible. Too little or too much sag can have big consequences both on the performance of the rider and on the geometry and handling of the bike. Now you know what sag is. But do you know how much it can affect your bike's handling? Sag should be adjusted on both front and rear suspensions but to be easier to explain, I'll use the rear shock as an example. And before I go into details, you have to keep two things in mind. The sag only depends on the adjustment of the spring system, not the damping. And how much a bike sags depends on four different things. The bike's weight, the rider's weight, the spring rate and the spring's preload. The ideal sag should be between 95mm and 105mm of the total travel available on a suspension. For technical riding and more cornering stability, such as the Enduro or Hard Enduro, 95mm is deemed ideal. And for straighter and faster riding, such as rally riding, 105mm is more suited. But you can set it anywhere between this range according to what you do. And you might ask, where do these values come from? Well, after a lot of testing from the suspension industry and manufacturers, a range of values were considered as optimal adjustments, generating consensus among the whole industry. So don't trust me, trust them. But this is where things can get really tricky. Imagine you don't have the sag adjusted to your weight. And the bike simply sags too much. You get some tools and you add some preload, stiffen up the shock so it doesn't sag too much. Now, you might think you have the bike set up properly, right? Well, you might be wrong. The thing is, the only reference value you have of the behavior of the spring of your bike is when you are completely static on the bike. But what about when you are riding? You might have a spring too soft and in this case you'll have to give a ton of preload in order for the sag to be in the right range. But while it might give you some high speed stability and good traction through the extension stroke of the shock, you'll end up with a shock that will bottom out too quickly and your risk being spit out of the bike when you least expect it, since the spring rate is too low. On the other side, you might have a spring too harsh. In that case, you'll give too little preload for the sag to be right. But while it might give you some cornering stability, the shock will be almost useless in its extension stroke. With little preload, there will be no high speed stability or traction there. If you don't have experience adjusting the sag of your bike, you'll probably end up with a completely dysfunctional shock that will seriously affect the stability, traction and handling of the bike. And naturally, if you're not a complete newbie to the sport, you'll blame the bike. Won't you? I know you do. And this can easily happen if the spring rate of your shock spring is not the right one considering your weight. So choosing the right spring according to your weight and applying just the right preload to set the sag is crucial to squeeze the most out of your suspensions. If you learned something today, don't forget to like the video and subscribe to the channel. If you have any other questions, leave a comment below. Cheers!