Anyone know much about mountain bike suspension?

I have a Boardman MTB Team with Rockshox up front. Having ridden MTB's for years I was never a fan of shocks of any kind and swore I would never buy a bike with them, but I got this on the bike to work scheme and it was the best spec bike overall in my budget, virtually none of them were available without. Anyway, I tried the bike and wasn't a fan of the shocks so locked them out as much as they would go and left them like that. I've just been out to give it a once over ahead of a trip to Dalby at the weekend and the shocks are really soft, I checked and they'd lost about half the air pressure they were supposed to have. I've pumped them back up to what they were supposed to be but the bottom -ve air has what appears to emulsified oil leaking out of it.

Have I knacked something by being a fat chupper and riding it pretty hard for a couple of years with locked out shocks or is this how it's supposed to be? It still doesn't feel right, a bit floppy!!

Cheers

Forks need servicing just like an engine, every 50 or so hours in the saddle You will probably have a leaking o ring you can buy a service kit quite easy to do

Cheers, I've probably got off lightly, I've a good couple of hundred hours on it at least. I'll live with it for the weekend and service it after then.

Cheers

I reckon locking them out'll be a quick way of killing the forks. They lose air slowly anyway, so you may be able to get a shock pump and top off the air pressure (unless they're coils).

I'm about to buy some new forks for mine not cheap boo hoo

ATB

Simon

the shocks I have seen that have a -ve spring have it at the bottom - stupid question but the forks are upside down when you release the pressure and pump them up? if not, then oil dribbles down under gravity and will be forced out of the valve.

also the +ve spring is usually pumped first - heard stories that if done the other way rond, the seal betyween the 2 chambers can be damaged - so check the handbook.

Have a shop service it for you. Shouldn't be too expensive. If you ever go down a hill, you will want softer than you might want going up. Everything is a compromise with a XC bike. Downhill bikes, on the other hand, are very very soft, and take a bit of getting used to, but once you go soft, you'll never go back: you just flow over things once you learn to ride them properly.

Strip, clean, fill with plastic padding, reassemble fast.