I took my '19 FX to ride some trails near Mammoth/Owen's River off 395 last week on a camping trip with new dirt tires MT21's front and rear.
It was a blast.
Since the bike is brand new, suspension stock preload,rebound damping and compression damping for the forks and shock was set pretty hard.
The rear was wiggling quite a bit on the trails, and after doing some research the general consensus was to set front and back as soft as you like.
After setting the SAG and also messing with the settings ride after ride (we used a Yamaha 2000 generator to charge it up) the final configuration I set for trail (pumice terrain, here and there) was:
Shock: Pre-load set to as soft was possible, Compression Damping 3 clicks from Softest, Rebound Damping 3 clicks from Softest.
Forks: Pre-Load set to one complete circle of the dial Soft, Compression 3 clicks from Softest, rebound 3 clicks from Softest.
I noticed the back end stopped wiggling as much, and for small whoops and bumps got alot better. At the softest settings I did notice that the front end didn't track as precise as to when it was on stock settings but overall the bike was lower. The key word is really not soft but make it Plush.
For Desert like terrain, it would be the opposite and the settings would be reversed if you cover alot of sandy, sand like terrain, you probably don't want it with soft settings so it floats over the sand better... In general I felt the FX behaved differently over sand as compared to a Yamaha Enduro... the rear wiggled a bit more, maybe due to the constant torque of the electric motor on the rear wheel..
For Modes, I felt Eco mode was the most ideal, for range and performance. I tried different custom mode settings but I always went back to using Eco and sometimes Sport.
We really never went over 40mph and averaged about 33-40miles per hour on the trails.
