they act as shock dampers. if you ride an unsuspended bike over rough terrain or even small bumps or rocks or any uneven surface, you will notice that the whole bike bounces a bit because the rock or whatever pushes the bike up. When you hit the same bumps or objects with a suspended bike the front fork gets shorter by sliding up therefore avoiding much bouncing by the rest of the bike, and the back wheel moves up too, but the positioning of rear suspension varies greatly by brand and bike. it is very simple really just look at your suspension as you ride over bumps.
Shock absorbers or dampners are resistive to motion. The spring will allow your suspension to flex up and down. The shock absorber is a hydraulic valve that has 2 motions compression and rebound. The compression motion happens when the shock is being compressed or the tire is moving into the body. The rebound happens as the shock is expanding or the tire is moving away from the body.
The shock stabilizes the suspension travel and different types of shocks with different settings can change how quickly the suspension reacts to spring motions.
Unfortunately, that depends completely on the shocks. They're all different.
Most urethane based shocks will allow you to pull a "dust plug" from the top of the fork leg. Down inside the fork leg, there should be an Allen bolt head that holds in the urethane stack. If this applies to your particular forkset, try tightening those first. If tightening this doesn't remove any unwanted play, then you may have to pull out the stack and get new urethane bushing from the manufacturer.
Marzocchi bomber forks are used as a dirt jump shock but i ride DH on my dirt jump bike with those shock and can manage.
Yes you should, and yes it does matter. If you don't keep them clean you'll shorten the life of the seals, which can let dirt into the shocks, which can damage them.
Depends on whether it's a threaded or a threadless fork. Check out the repair instructions on www. parktool.com
That really depends on what you want the bike for. For downhill / all-mountain, a full suspension bike is preferable. For cross country a hardtail can still be competitive, particularly for shorter trails. Oil/air shocks have great adjustability, but short mainteance spans. Oil/spring are more rugged, but tuning them require replacing the spring. Elastomer shocks have pretty much died out.
There are plenty of different things on a MTB that might need to be tightened. I'll post a link to a list.
Mountain Bike Rally happened in 1994.
A road bike is faster on the road than a mountain bike. That's all
Mountain bike magazines focus on mountain bike tracks, tips and information regarding bikes in general as well as helpful tips about bike parts and repair.
First issue is to set the approriate amount of sag, either by adjusting the air pressure in the shocks or by setting the spring tension. You don't want to bottom out on landing, but you want the bike to sink a bit when you sit on it. Next is to set the rebound rate(if your shocks allow that), and that's much down to which tourse you're riding and your personal preferences.
Mountain Bike Rally was created in 1994-11.
Mountain bike shoes are not required to be able to ride a mountain bike. You can wear any good athletic shoe. Wearing an actual mountain bike shoe is helpful however to keep your feet from slipping from the peddles on rugged terrian but it not required in any way.
One of the most popular mountain bike magazine is "Mountain Bike." Other favorites that discuss all types of biking are "Dirt Rag Magazine," and "Bike Magazine."