Suspension help, weve been here before im sure?

[AndyBrad]

Ok folks im after a bit of advice. I love my bike but sometimes i find myself not working with the bike. When im pushing on and having speedy day on a smooth road its great. However on a recent trip across the dales over very bumpy ground i find myself getting punted out of the seat at anything above 50mph and this is not only slowing me down but its knackering. Now i want to fiddle with the suspension but heres the problem. If i soften things up it feels like the bikes going to run wide and needs to be pushed harder into the corner. If i stiffen things up it tips in and “holds” the road better but its quite tiring. Could anyone offer me some advice on how to get the best from it and whats doing what? I think the problem is that initial bump absorption (is that compression adjustment) but by softening it off it gets a little bouncy. I love the way its controlled with the stiffer settings meaning the bike settles really well and is controlled after a bump. But how can i make it better?

[punyXpress]

Take your weight on your legs rather than yer 'arris - that way you won't be punted out.

[yorkie_chris]

The thing "settling" is more a rebound thing than a comp thing. Comp is on top of shock.
Bike running wide with less comp is common.

One solution would be a nice rear shock with hi/lo adjustment.

[fizzwheel]

Andy, do you actually know what you are doing with the suspension though ? You seem like you do, but are you just repeating what you have read without really analysing the changes you've made.

would it be worth taking your bike somewhere local and getting them to set it up for you ? Might save you an awful lot of headache ?

[orose]

There is a guide in the October issue of fast bikes which might be of interest, as it goes through the 6 available adjusters and tells you what the bike might feel like with these adjusters set too soft or hard. Do you know what the factory would have set them all to?

[AndyBrad]

right gone back to stock road settings for today. Bloody weather though :(

preload appears to be around right as yc set this last time i had the bike in his "shop" now "firm" in the book is 3 clicks out all round. this was wicked on tack and good fun on the roads when pushing on. road is 6 clicks out all round.

its great for what i do when its firm but when over 60 miles is covered i start to want something thats less stiff. But when i get to the corners i want the stiffer bike. I guess its just getting that compromise right.

Ill take a look at the mag ollie cheers, although i did notice tesco didnt have it in last night :s Would like a fancy shock yc but ££ is very very short at the mo.

[johnnyrod]

If your forks are fairly stock i.e. soft then it'll make the back feel hard - maybe you won't achieve a good balance until the front is beefed up a bit?

[Paul the 6th]

sounds like you need to increase the stiffness of your springs andy:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/05/01/article-0-023AACF50000044D-849_468x306.jpg

6 of these should add enough ballast to stop you from getting kicked out of your seat (you never see me coming out of my seat - apart from that big dip kick in the pennine road near nont sarah's!)

Failing that, try some of these:
http://www.carlsjr.com/content/products/gb_menu/SuperNachosBeef_Specialties.jpg?1218058846

some of this:
http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Business/images-3/dominos-pizza-slice.jpg

or even:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_c68u4bjx_ng/TCM1Y18HLWI/AAAAAAAAANI/A5YcnMaM35g/s1600/KitKatChunky%5B1%5D.jpg

or you could just do the honorable thing and buy one of these:
http://www.spcomposite.com/html/pic/suzuki-gsxr-750-srad-96-99.jpg

[AndyBrad]

AHHHHH HAHAHAHAHA sorry i was laughing at that last pic. for a moment it looked like a nice bike then reasiled it was justbecause ive put some eye drops in ;)

yea for example that road is a good one. going down it and all is well with the world.... then boosh! in outta my seat! hit the seat and its like jesus christ thats just scared the crap outta me!

[Paul the 6th]

i think that bump has everyone out of their seat if they're travelling at above the national speed limit to be honest. On all of my bikes I've ever had (cbf600 included) that particular bump always has me atleast an inch off my seat. Can't think what the deal is with that bump, it's like a tree root has caused it but there ain't no tree's round them there moor parts?

You still need to have a go on teh SRAD of DOOOM :D

[AndyBrad]

to be honest paul, i would love to but it scares me for some reason. A bit like getting on my mates 13year old bandit thats had thr chain lubed once in the last 13 years. I look at it and think, ill get on it but i may not get off it....

[Paul the 6th]

I used to think that sort of stuff "Who the hell needs a 1000cc v-twin on the road?!" or "Who the hell needs a bike which will point at 170mph if you hold it open long enough?!" - then I realised I'm the one who's in control of it and not the other way round...

The next thing to learn is to maintain control of yourself :razz: honestly, that SRAD makes me look like a really skilled rider (LOL) - it's had 8 previous owners (one of them DavePreston and he never crashed it), one of them has done some serious black magic with the suspension at somepoint because it handles like a push bike. There's something a bit magical about it and even though I've been looking at supermoto's and adventure bikes with curiosity, I'm scared to get rid of the SRAD because I honestly feel I'll never have such an amazing bike again...

NOW JUST F***ING TAKE MINE AND RIDE IT! Bleurgh! bucakey!

[AndyBrad]

I used to think that sort of stuff "Who the hell needs a 1000cc v-twin on the road?!" or "Who the hell needs a bike which will point at 170mph if you hold it open long enough?!" - then I realised I'm the one who's in control of it and not the other way round...


aye im doing a bit of that rospa stuff at the mo to makesure thats the case. Interesting but its making me slower att he mo. your bike will just speed things up...


one of them DavePreston and he never crashed it


Jesus christ! ok then it must be good!



bucakey!

not on a tuesday....

[johnnyrod]

Back to the OP... I found the SV rear shock to be okay, but it's only got preload adjustmenet so you always have a compromise. I had to notch it up for the track or it'd wallow, but it'd shake your teeth out on the road. Set the preload too low and the springing is softer, but the damping is harder (as it is sitting lower), and hard rebound damping can wallow over bumps (it's har dto describe how it feels, but it isn't only hard springs/comp damping that make bumps harsh). All this plus the front is normally too soft (I weigh nothing) so when you hit a bump it seesaws too much instead of the back absorbing it, making the back feel harder than it is. I don't know how bumpy your roads are, but getting a good balance will help keep your ass in the seat as, even if it crashes over a big bump, you get the same thing at both ends. Or do you have multi adjustments? I can't really figure it out from the posts.

[yorkie_chris]

He's got speed four with preload reb and comp at both ends

[johnnyrod]

OK ta. I was also struggling with what you meant by "making it stiffer" as this could be all sorts of things. Usual approach is sag then rebound then comp. YC has set the preload (sag) so this doesn't need any more attention, so next you want to set the rebound right (hardest part to figure out, I reckon) then the compression damping. Set the comp damping to as low as you can live with (for now) and work on the rebound damping. Find a suitable bit of road and try it and make notes on your adjustments. I found one near me, a few medium-speed bends and some ripples etc. Too little rebound dodesn't feel good as it isnt' very stable, too much and you feel the ripples/bumps etc. to the point where they upset the bike. Too much means instead of the bump hammering you as you go up it (while the suspension is compressing), you get it on the back side of the bump, so too much rebound can make the bumps too bumpy. Try to find good settings and then move onto compression, which is much easier to figure out. If you're into track days then you can hire suspension guys for about £30 who'll help you by interpreting your babblings and making adjustments. It's an iterative process, can take a while though.