Search Results for: Teach me suspension
Teach Me Suspension (Part 11): Upgrading Stock Components
There may well come a time when you begin to reach the limit of your suspension’s potential. There was probably a few “yeah right” thoughts when I said that, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that your pace is too hot for your suspension (though this could well be the case if you’re going well) but […]
Continue readingTeach Me Suspension (Part 10): Finding Your Setup
We’re quite far along in this suspension series now, but I have to say up to this point things have been pretty simple. “SIMPLE???” I hear you say? What I mean is that each aspect of the suspension and geometry of a motorcycle has been tackled separately and we have learned about what they physically […]
Continue readingTeach Me Suspension (Part 9): Rear End Squat
If there’s one thing that seems to be repeated year on year with the development of production motorcycles, it’s that they increasingly get more and more powerful. Ultimately, these increases put more strain on the rear suspension through the application of power, which transfers weight to the rear. This means that squat and anti-squat are becoming […]
Continue readingTeach Me Suspension (Part 8): How to Make Compression Damping Adjustments
While making changes to, and the testing of, rebound adjustment can be done in the warmth of your garage, doing this for compression damping is a little more difficult. You can try similar techniques (some do), but for a novice the changes you’re likely to make and how this make the bike feel are too […]
Continue readingTeach Me Suspension (Part 7): How to Make Rebound Damping Adjustments
The last couple of parts should have given you a good understanding of what the dampers do in your motorcycle’s suspension. Keeping the conversation on damping, now we are going to move onto how we make the correct changes for ourselves. In this part we’re just going to tackle changes to rebound damping. Rebound changes […]
Continue readingTeach Me Suspension (Part 6): Compression and Rebound Damping
In the last part we began the conversation on damping and what job it plays within the suspension. As a quick recap, damping is what changes (and tames) the manner in which the spring compresses and extends. In this part we are going to continue on the damping theme, but we’re going to expand a […]
Continue readingTeach Me Suspension (Part 5): Basic Suspension Damping
When having a conversation about motorcycle suspension, it is as the conversation moves to damping that the idea of suspension tuning being a dark art tends to creep in. The main reason for this is because when an adjuster is turned, little happens, and the only way to determine what has happened is to get out […]
Continue readingTeach Me Suspension (Part 4): Setting Sag
In the last part we discovered that we can use preload to change the characteristics of our suspension as well as change how much of the suspension’s range is used. The goal behind this is to ensure that we are using as much of the range as possible, but not too much so that we […]
Continue readingTeach Me Suspension (Part 3): Everything Preload
In this part we are specifically going to be talking about preload, what it does, and why we would adjust it. After we have covered all of that, in part 4 we will be going more into using preload to set rider sag. But first, a quick recap… A Quick Recap on Springs If you […]
Continue readingTeach Me Suspension (Part 2): Simple Geometry Changes
As I said in the first part of this series, the words ‘geometry changes’ often strike fear into the hearts of many riders thinking about making changes to their setups. In part 2 we are going to be talking about the most basic types of geometry changes that we can employ in order to change […]
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