Gold Valves in & bike still nervous

[RichardTL]

My Gold valves and Race Tech Springs (0.94) are in at last.

Dropped the front forks by 10mm. Front sag set to 25mm but on first outing I hit a bump under hard acceleration at about 200kph. Head shook a bit with damper-pants FULL. But it drops into corners now.

Set front sag to 20mm and its calmed down a bit.

My bike has always been a bit nervous; by moving forward on the front seat I can get the bike to weave, at speed, if you give the bars a slight tug.

I will now have a look at the rear to match the front in terms of sag etc.

Next mod a new rear tyre. I'm keen on a 180 BUT I like turning on the power and use the whole front tyre (I've noted most bikes with a 190 back still have a chicken strip), so I've still to decide which size to go for.

Maybe the 180 would also calm down the weaving?

[mstingray]

20mm of sag? that's too low and you're preloading the springs too much. you should be about 30-35% of total spring travel for proper sag #'s for the front. typical sag #'s should be in the 34-38 mm range (depending on bike).

adj. your damping, not preload. exp. will be the judge of if you have too much rebound or compression.

you may want to raise the bike back up a few mm as well. that may also be part of the reason why you're getting a nervous front. if you're steering damper is already on the max setting, definitely something seriously wrong.

you may also want to loosen up on the bars. chances are you're holding on too tight. should be as loose as possible. anchor yourself w/ your knees on the tank, not on the bars. you should be able to corner and remove your hands from the bars. not that you would but that's how loose you should be. be able to flap your arms like a chicken while cornering or pretend you're holding baby chicks and not squeezing them to death. whatever mindset works for you but loosen up on the bars.

set sag to PROPER values 1st. if still exp. same prob. raise the front a little. if still the same probs.

[Steve TLS]

Richard you probably could go less preload with the heavier springs, although I have my 1g sag set at about 20mm front and rear. Any less and I'd bottom out the forks too often and I'm not worried about forking out more money for a stiffer set of springs as with the original ones I can get it set where I'm happy with it no worries.

Maybe the upgrading of the front has really higlighted a problem with your rear, but it is showing up on the front as nervousness?

Wait until you get a new rear tyre on it too before you try and get it working perfectly with the old one.

Here is a link to a suspension adjustment chart , print out a heap of copies, take notes and refer back to them when needed :Thumbup http://home.iprimus.com.au/stevebm/f..._sus_chart.xls

[nathanTLX]

First off, definitely work on the rear some. There are a bunch of things in play here. For one, dropping the forks can make the bike even more twitchy and potentially lead to an increase in tank slappers. Now, having said that, the TLS responds pretty well to dropping the forks a bit. At least everyone I've heard who has tried it has thought well of the results. Might try closer to 5 mm to start out and move up to 10mm as you get things dialed in. Also, I've always tried to shoot more for 25-35mm sag up front.

If your rear isn't set up properly, a well set up front can actually be more of a problem than a solution. That is if you're riding low in back, having a nice, stiff, properly preloaded front can make the front ride too high in relation to the back. An ass low, nose high attitude can contribute to tank slappers as well. If you try to set the rear and find that it still rides with a little more rear sag than you'd like by looking at the numbers, consider letting the front go a touch softer too. It's more important that the front and the rear work together than for one or the other to be set "perfect" by the numbers.

As for the tire, Performance Bikes had a great article in which they concluded that the narrower the tire, the less the TLS was prone to tank slapping. They said if it were safe to put a 170 on a six inch rim, they'd do it. But, since a 180 is as narrrow as you'd want to go on our rims, they suggested a 180 would aid in reduction of tank slappers. Take that for what it's worth, but I've been quite happy with the 180 change on my bike.

Gotta run to a conference call HTH

[GT80]

Originally posted by mstingray
you may also want to loosen up on the bars. chances are you're holding on too tight. should be as loose as possible. anchor yourself w/ your knees on the tank, not on the bars. you should be able to corner and remove your hands from the bars. not that you would but that's how loose you should be. be able to flap your arms like a chicken while cornering or pretend you're holding baby chicks and not squeezing them to death. whatever mindset works for you but loosen up on the bars.

Before you do anything else, make sure you take care of this. It costs nothing and can make a world of difference.