Hello I have just joined this forum, so my apologies if this has already been asked, I couldn't find it anywhere.

I have a 2011 Hard rock which I used for about a year as up until a few weeks ago, I haven't touched it. In the past few weeks I have been using it for road riding. Now before I get told this is a dumb thing to do, I just want to say I wont be buying a new bike anytime soon.

I have tried to make the suspension as "hard" as I can but I seem to just be able to spin the "preload" to many times. When I turn the preload up I think it does make it slightly stiffer (I have tested) but there seems to be a noise like the sound of a spring, this is why I stopped, will the preload eventually stop turning and reach its max or should I stop Turing it because it has reached its max?

I have done the obvious such as make the tires as hard as I can (60 psi), get slicker tires... which leads me to my next question. I am fairly sure but not 100% that the inside rim width is 25mm, through some graphs I have found the minimum tire width I can get is 1.7 - 1.75. Is this true, I have found some 1.65 slicks that i really like, is it dangerous to run these?

Thanks for your time.

You can run those tires or get Nashbar Slick City tires which are 1.25". They are dirt cheap and roll great, I use them on my old Rockhopper.