Garage fork tuning?

[brains]

Hope all are having a great festive season

I'm using some of my time to play and try to get rid of the harsh feeling over small rocks/roots ect.

While pushing up and down on the forks while in the garage, I adjusted the comp clickers to both extreme settings and found no difference. Should I feel the difference while in the garage or do I have to ride it?

 

[gasgasman]

Yes, you have to ride it.
Fork travel velocity plays an important factor in the settings.

 

[brains]

Thanks

Another question that I have had in the back of my head for ages -

Some bikes, when weight is pushed down on the foot peg without any brakes on both front and rear sag/move at the same time. Others only the rear moves.
Is there a way of simulating/checking if your bike is in balance by pushing down on it?

 

[widebear]

What your asking is pretty vague. When you have a good understanding of suspension fundementals you can make a very un- scientific assement of suspension balance based on the process you describe. When I do it, lets say at a dealer showroom or bike show, I do it with the front brake on, gives me some feedback on spring rates and rebound speed , but like I said it's really baseless without knowing ALL of the factors involved.

 

[stay_upright]

I think my KTM manual says somewhere push on the footpeg and the bike should remain level I guess this will only tell you about spring rates and not high or low damping (maybe a little bit about low speed damping?)

What bike/forks have you got? Do a bit of reading on what the shims and clickers in your fork do. The clickers are low speed adjustments only.

note the following info is my opinion and experience - some people may disagree??

- hitting a small bump fast, a large bump fast or a large bump at a moderate speed all involve the high speed damping of the forks. Basically to allow the fork to move very quickly the shims by-pass the orifice that the clickers create and allow a much larger amount of oil to be moved, the shims are designed to be progressive (why you have a shim 'stack') so even though the forks can move quickly they still do not rip through all of their travel too quickly.

Changing this shim stack changes your high speed damping. If you want to glide over small (not tiny) and medium bumps you need to change this.

What I did with my '99 Marzocchi Zoke forks and my '05 Marzocchi shivers on the GG was change the compression stack to make it softer.

I intended to make it so soft I could eat any high speed bumps and big tree roots at slow/moderate speeds but this should be at the expense of bottoming out harshly on large fast bumps. When I did the work I found the forks were super plush to the point where I was riding an enduro and before a big tree root I could see a large dip from people's back wheel because everyone's front wheel hit the (very big) tree root with no hope of getting over it and their back wheel span. Anyway I just hit it and the front wheel just popped over! brilliant. Also at high speed small rocks/stones do not bother the front anymore it is planted. What I didn't find (once the oil level was correctly set) was I only bottom the forks once a (hard) ride or race and I'm only just bottoming it out so that tells me my forks are about correctly set.

So - have a look at your high speed damping and don't be afraid to fettle.

Reading the reviews on here I was surprised to read the '05fork tuning came in for some stick because it was too harsh so looks like I cured that!

Interestingly I rode an '02 or '03 450 FSE and the forks on that were far too soft to ride round an enduro track as it was bottoming out all over the place - dangerous (for me) I would say however a '02 or '03 ec300 was fine around the same track - both on stock settings as far as I know.

 

[iancp5]

Thanks

Another question that I have had in the back of my head for ages -

Some bikes, when weight is pushed down on the foot peg without any brakes on both front and rear sag/move at the same time. Others only the rear moves.
Is there a way of simulating/checking if your bike is in balance by pushing down on it?

Hearsay:-
I have heard that theoretically pushing down through the CofG with your body perfectly positioned both ends should move more or less together. But stiction usually messes that up and the fact that bodys tend to wobble around a lot.

 

[Petersson]

Just bought a -01 300ec and rode it twice. First time without any changes, got a ohlins fork and it was a different feeling, on the good side! Checking the sag and klicks I made the facrory settings in the garage today.

Former owner had it like 20mm preload and comp full out on the rear...?
The rear spring is marked "596 11/54 139". I suppose 54 is the spring rate, is this ok for me, 80-82 kg with gear?

Static/race sag 45/110. I´m in enduro, "medium experience".

Thanks