What's the problem here?

[dandywarhol]

Nobody's mentioned that preload sets the ride height and only when the fork has topped out with no sag does the preload start to have an effect on the spring

[Greg]

Errrrr.....

It's a lot easier to look at the pre-load adjuster more as a ride-height adjuster

[dandywarhol]

Ahhh....must've missed that one - sorry chap

[idl1975]

Ahhh....must've missed that one - sorry chap

Looking at the fork this morning, it seems to have about 5mm of sag. The forks are basically topped out, and it makes hardly any difference when you sit on the thing. I wound out two bars of preload to 6 showing, and the only difference is that the fork gets moving quicker (as you'd expect). It's better in that it pitches weight onto the front a tiny bit more progressively, but obviously there's something going on with the forks - someone's put on monster springs with a progressive winding to boot, or someone's been buggering about with the oil level/air gap. Zero difference in terms of travel.

Looks like I'll be pulling the forks on Saturday and extracting the springs. Assuming the rate is wrong, I'll get our local spring manufacturer to do me a set (been quoted £42 for the pair, which is pretty good I reckon).