Suspension adjustment recommendations for offroad

[Nimbus]

Hey all,

I weigh 145 or so (without gear) and have my bike set up a bit firmer than stock (damping, rebound, preload). It worked great when pushed hard in the mountains this summer, but feels very stiff for the dirt roads I've begun to ride more consistently. What is the general thinking behind suspension adjustment for riding rough roads? Softer all around?

 

[wfopete]

Don't really know what you mean by ruff roads but as a whole the S10 suspension is pretty unresponsive in stock form. In other words, it's junk in off road conditions including ruff roads. At your weight prolly outta start at full soft rebound and compression settings and work your way up stiffer from that point until you like it.

If you really want to get the suspension to work right replace the shock and send the forks off for a revalve.

 

[carbide]

Adding to the good info WFOPete stated......Your suspension is designed to change and change easily and often (if need be) There is no one setting that works for everyone, even if everyone weighed 145 lbs!
Do this.....Find yourself a dirt road you like to ride somewhere, have the tools with you to make suspension adjustments. Ride the same section over and over, make adjustments each time. Set it with full soft compression and full rebound, just to see what that feels like. Then go the other direction, full hard compression, no rebound. Your not gonna hurt anything and you may learn a bit about suspension settngs.
Eventually go back to factory settings and make small adjustments either way. I think the key is to do all this while riding the SAME section of road, dirt road, track...whatever. It will take some time but IMO thats the only way to do it!

Good Luck!

 

[Nimbus]

Sounds like a plan to me! Thanks.

 

[Rasher]

Ride the same section over and over................... Your not gonna hurt anything and you may learn a bit about suspension settngs.

Eventually go back to factory settings and make small adjustments either way. I think the key is to do all this while riding the SAME section of road, dirt road, track...whatever. It will take some time but IMO thats the only way to do it!

Definately, I have got away with tweaking on road rides where you have fairly consistent surfaces, especially for two-up as she would get bored with running up and down one bit of tarmac, but what I always do is take notes, I have a form I use with columns to put each adjustment into and notes underneath. What I find is after getting a bike it takes a few rides to come up with some decent settings, I can then move back and forth between my settings and re-evaluate / see how they work on other roads.

Normally I come up with something that works well one-up, and maybe requires a click or two to stiffen if I know I am only on smooth stuff, or a click or two softer if I am going to be on a lot of bumpier sections.

I then find setting that is good 90% of the time for two-up, and again ust soften if we are gonna be doing a lot of rougher roads / sat on motorway - again this is normally no more than a click or so.

On the road I get the sag set nicely first then back off the rear rebound until it wallows a bit, then go up a click - i.e. as soft as possible without wallowing. With higher end shock like my Wilburs I normally fine tune with the compression damping for feel and find this way I rarely have to adjust rebound, even adding a pillion normally requires just a few turns of pre-load and a couple of clicks of extra compression.


I would guess taking out some pre-load will help for off-road, on the road more rear pre-load really helps the steering, but it does give a stiffer feel, and you probably don't need the extra steering response on the dirt.

The key thing is to take notes for as long as required to get to the point where you have your own list of settings, I will post up my form a bit later

 

[Nimbus]

Thanks for the help folks. We did some fairly serious off-road on Saturday and the suspension was great. The stock tires, not so much.

 

[JaimeV]

I think the OEM suspensions are ok for a soft off road. I put them as hard as I can (front and rear). I am 70kgs.
For hard off road they need to be replaced. The ground clearance is short and the suspension is too soft, so it’s easy to hit the skid plate and damage the bike.
I have a longer and fully adaptable rear suspension and harder front springs and the bike improves a lot. ::008::

 

[True Grip]

Jaimev what weight spring do you have in your forks? I'm not a fan of the progressive spring. It seems to me that the first three inches is way to soft. I zip tied my fork and before i got out of my driveway (.5 mile chirt road) i used all of it. I thought of getting a stiffer linear spring and installing when i change my fork fluid. Sonic springs made here in the states are good springs and reasonably priced. I suppose Mama Yamaha is trying to make the plushes ride possible.

 

[Rasher]

It seems to me that the first three inches is way to soft.

When I had mone sorted professionally they told me the soft part of the spring was all gone by the time you sit on the bike leaving the hard (too hard for tarmac anway) part. For my 99% road / 1% dirt track riding the recommended a .95 linear spring, with a lot more damping (oil up to 10wt) this is fantastic on the road giving way more feel and feedback and riding bumps a lot better (especially on the brakes) but would probably be too soft for proper off-road use.

 

[HoebSTer]

i too was told, for the small amount of travel we have on motorcycles the progressive wound spring doesn't do much for us.

 

[JaimeV]

Jaimev what weight spring do you have in your forks? I'm not a fan of the progressive spring. It seems to me that the first three inches is way to soft. I zip tied my fork and before i got out of my driveway (.5 mile chirt road) i used all of it. I thought of getting a stiffer linear spring and installing when i change my fork fluid. Sonic springs made here in the states are good springs and reasonably priced. I suppose Mama Yamaha is trying to make the plushes ride possible.

Ups... don't know. I'll ask to the manufacturer and tell you.