INSIDE TECH L
Bumps: why we feel them, why we don’t Part 2
ast month we discussed the very first component of ride comfort on today’s motorcycles, the amount of suspension travel our bikes have. We touched on the different categories of bikes, from street to dual purpose adventure bikes right up to full off-road or motocross bikes and why they need more or less travel. We came to the conclusion that more travel is better for comfort, but what are the negatives of too much suspension (or wheel) travel? To quickly recap for those that missed it, the bumps are smaller on the street, if we don’t count potholes, so eight inches of travel or more just drives the seat height up and can make the bike vague and flexy. A bike that is too high limits the number of people that will purchase it and too much travel, combined with the grip a warm tire has on pavement, can result in unwanted and unnecessary pitching front to back and wobble left to right. We then closed the column saying we would touch on optimizing the suspension your bike has now. So, rather than go and buy a bike with more travel, let’s see how good we can make the
54 Inside Motorcycles
By John Sharrard
bike you have now! The very first thing we can all do that doesn’t cost a cent is to check the rider sag on your current bike. Basically, all you need are two friends, a paper, pencil and a tape measure. To begin, the bike should be loaded as you most often ride it. If you have a back pannier with tools, or your riding partner, they need to be included. Often when we do sags here at the shop, the main rider and passenger may both come and we will do sags for the rider by him or herself, and then the passenger hops on and we measure again, and then we will discuss a spring or preload solution to cover both scenarios. Or, if the passenger only hops on five percent of the time, we may just coach a small preload correction for this combination if the numbers dictate that we should. To be most accurate, the sags should be done with your helmet, boots, gloves and all your other gear on as well. To prep the bike, we look up vertically from the centre of the rear axle and find somewhere convenient on the body above to measure to. On a race bike, it may be a corner of the number
