KwakNut
Senior Member
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SuzukiSavage.com Rocks!
Posts: 332
Sheffield, England, mostly.
Gender:
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I've not looked up figures for cruisers and customs, but for sprots bikes and dirt bikes, sag makes a massive difference to how the bike feels.
First, you adjust the rear pre-load so that there is, say, 1/2 or 3/4 inch 'sag' at the back end when the bike is empty. You just measure the difference between the fender height when the bike is sat under its own weight, and when you lift it to take the shock to full extension - that's static sag.
Then, you sit on the bike, and find the sag with rider weight. It should be something like 2 or 3 inches on most bikes.
By adjusting the suspension pre-load, the idea is to set the spring to have both sag measurements within limits. Problems arise with very heavy or very light riders. If you don’t wind it up enough for the heavy rider, it’s probably going to bottom out on bumps, so you have to wind up the spring to compensate for his weight. But, because you set the ridden sag high enough for a heavy rider, you end up with the bike on full extension when static, which means there's potential for the bike to bounce to full shock extension on the road and have the wheel skip off the tarmac on bumps.
When you get that, you need a stiffer spring for the rider’s weight.
I've cut down the rear springs on my Savage by about 3/4 inch which makes it sit very cute at the back end, and it rarely bottoms out, but I couldn't ride it 2-up. It rdes nicely enough but ground clearance is affected but I only use the bike round town and don't mind taking it easy round bends (- I use my ZX12R for that!)
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