Best place to send rockshox suspension for service? Does cycle smith do rear shocks? Or just forks? Better to do it yourself? Cost? So many questions.
You can order the fluid and seal kit online for pretty cheap and do it yourself, or get one of the shops to do it, not sure if they send out for a lower leg service or do in house. I do all my own, its not hard.
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If you only need to do the air can seals, it is a fairly easy DIY project. Lots of info on youtube to guide you thru it. If your shock needs more than just air seals, it can be done at home, but it is more involved.
Seals and oil is pretty simple. Just need a few basic tools, but if you’re not confident in it, or don’t have the tools then I’d suggest sending it to a shop.
It can certainly be done yourself or by a few local shops for sure. S4 Suspension has a terrific service for a complete shock/fork overhaul that sets it up as custom as it’s ever going to be.
I used to get my rear Fox shocks stuck down regularly. Cyclesmith was able to get them unstuck in house, and do basic seal replacement. They told me they had to be careful taking the air shock apart because it could blow it into the ceiling. For a full overhaul they would send the shock out. Last full overhaul of a rear shock was about $250.
The basic aircan service is pretty easy. I’ve done a couple of stuck down shocks. They do make quit a pop! There are some simple steps you can do to make it very safe though, Fox used to have the service/rebuild info for all their products going back to the early 2000’s on their site but they no longer offer that information sadly but I believe Rockshox still do.
I’m looking to do a more in depth teardown. I do all my bike work at home but suspension that’s $600-$1000 Pikes and monarch piggybacks I want to do it right. The shocks have never been sent in (2015 model year). I want to do it right the first time. Just get the full tear down done so I don’t need to do it for a year or two. The fork I can do regular oil bath and seal swap but shocks are complex and bleeding and nitrogen charges are not possible at home lol.
No one local can do that level of suspension service. You can have a local shop send your suspension back to Live To Play to have it rebuilt. I’ve had lots of suspension serviced by Live To Play with no issues. Or you can deal with it all yourself and send everything S4 in Quebec like @riderx mentioned. They are great to deal with and along with doing full rebuilds can tune your shocks to your weight/ riding style. Live to Play does not do custom tuning as far as I know, just straight up rebuilds.
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Thanks!! This is really useful info everyone!! I will look into the company’s you mentioned.
Mine will be shipped to S4 on Monday. Looking forward to the rebuild and custimization.
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You can setup service online via s4. But if you want to send it back to the distributor you will have to go through an LBS as distributors like Live to Play do not deal with customers directly. S4 does everything from mountain bikes to dirt bikes to rally car suspension.
S4’s customer service was great the last time I had to deal with them. They had parts for a Manitou fork that none of the other distributors had. Thumbs up for S4.
What’s the average turnaround time when you send something off to S4?
2-4 weeks last time I sent something off. Might be a little less this time of year.
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I had my Rockshox Pike fork and Monarch shock fully serviced at The Bike Peddler in Dartmouth last winter. They did it in-house and had them back to me within two days. Best suspension service I have ever had by far (in 10-15 years) and didn’t have to pay shipping costs to have the suspension sent somewhere. I have always had bad luck sending suspension away to the “experts”. My suspension has worked great ever since. I will be sticking with them for suspension work. It is worth giving them a call.
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what did they do?
Did they do a full rebuild? Better than s4?
They did a full rebuild on the fork and shock. I don’t remember if I’ve ever had my suspension sent to S4, but The Bike Peddler work was flawless as far as i can tell. I had Cycles Lambert do my fork once and they were completely incompetent so miles better than them for sure. Definitely a relief to finally have someone local that can do the job professionally.
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Do you know if they bleed and rebuild the dampers? I’m deciding on where to send my suspension away to, would be better to do locally. Sorry for all the questions on it.
I used to hate sending stuff to lambert, when Norco got rock shox I ended up sending those there as well as marzochi even though it was farther.
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