About Mountain Bike Bump Stops

The one aspect of a mountain bike shock that is often overlooked is the bump stop. In a lot of cases, some manufacturers use an O-ring in place of a traditional bump stop. The main reason to have a bump stop is that along with shock damping, they help to control and absorb the ending stroke of the shock.

In addition, they prevent the shock from having a harsh bottom out. The tapered design will help ease into the ending stroke of the shock, so the rider doesn’t feel like they are “hitting a wall.”

Having multiple rate bump stops will help suspension tuners, like Fluid Focus, fine tune their customers’ suspension. Additionally, frame manufacturers then have options on the kinematics of the frame design, as well as the stroke of the shock when ordering their desired shocks from the suspension manufacturer.

Furthermore, the shock manufacturers will have potential alternative options to offer frame manufacturers.

Traditionally, bump stops have been used on coil shocks. One advantage to using these bump stops in air shocks, is that since they are taking up volume within the shock’s air can, Fluid Focus has been able to reduce and/or remove some of the volume spacers that riders have been relying on for so long. Also, in shocks with smaller strokes (40-55mm), these bump stops will give heavier riders more support through the shocks’ entire range.

Supported Mountain Bike Shocks

Currently, Fluid Focus offers four different styles of bump stops (cavities 1-4), spanning a wide range of several common mountain bike shock OEMs and brands. Each size and design comes in two common durometers (35 and 45) to support various rider weights. Custom designs, sizes, and durometers are available upon request.

Our growing list of supported mountain bike shock systems includes:

Fluid Focus has Developed a Base Valve Piston for 2021+ Fox Float X2 and DHX2 shocks.

*Compatible with Factory and Performance level shocks*

The idea behind the base valve piston is to increase the piston ports to allow a greater amount of oil flow through the high speed circuit. On the Factory shocks there is a very stiff high speed compression spring inside the adjuster. Combined with our tuning and piston, the HSC spring can more easily compress which will alleviate harshness and add compliance over rough terrain. The base valve piston keeps the same range of adjustment where as changing out the HSC spring to a softer rate will decrease compression range.

Fluid Focus Rockshox Charger 3 Compression Adjuster Piston and valving

Compatable with all Charger 3 dampers

The new Fluid Focus Charger 3 piston is designed to remove the harshness out of the stock damper while adding support and compliance through the entire range of the travel. Our piston is linear, and unlike the stock digressive piston, it will build damping during high-speed hits giving the rider more control without relying on volume spacers. The piston is designed to be used with our new tuning platform for the charger 3 damper. We have reworked the mid valve compression and rebound shim stacks to help put these circuits in a better range. This in turn helps with the overall complaint feel of the damper reducing rider fatigue. We have multiple tuning options for different rider weights and abilities.

Fluid Focus Marzocchi Bomber CR

Piston Kit

Our Bomber Cr Piston Kit transforms a basic shock into a performance piece. We utilize an entirely new piston with larger ports that flow more oil. The stock wave washer in the adjuster that is prone to breaking is replaced with an o-ring. This minimizes damage to your shock while retaining consistency. To further control how oil moves throughout the shock, we install a jet into the piston/setting bolt. This shock now has zero cavitation while maintaining low hysterisis. We offer multiple compression and rebound tunes depending on rider weights and frame types. When paired with one of our bump stops you can’t beat this shock!