dialing the suspension back

[vrus]

I brought my Speed Triple to the gap and Ken Wheeler setup my suspension for me down there for Deals Gap. I've had it like that ever since. Unfortunately it's now taking a toll on my body on Ontario roads and I'd like to dial it back a bit. I guess two characteristics of the suspension right now is that I can feel a lot of the road imperfections through the handle bars and I have to almost stand when I see small bumps because it will be a harsh ride. I'm also literally flying off the seat on higher bumps at speed!

I have the original and tweaked settings documented but I don't want to go to the original settings because the front was extremely sketchy, almost floating through high speed turns and the bike liked to run wide every time on hard accell (higher than normal). The front sag was also not setup correctly (31mm on the front).

I am now at 35mm sag front and back. I'd like a more plush ride while trying to keep the front wheel planted as much as possible. I've been reading suspension setups here and there but I'd like some advice based on experience.

 

[Sunspark]

I think the ballpark is that you don't want it to go in more than 1/3rd for any given weight when you sit, but experts can weight in here. I am not one. The tire pressure matters too.

On my completely different bike, if I'm 2-up the rear tire is at 33 instead of 29 psi (as per manufacturer) and rear suspension is set for 5 (the stiffest, my choice). Stock is 3 and I find at 4 with 2-up it sags too much so setting 5 is better, but with 1 rider only, 3 is harder than it needs to be so I set it at 2 and it seems comfortable.

 

[frekeyguy]

go to brianp

 

[Brian P]

Choppy ride quality is almost always because of having a lot of compression damping. Take 3 or 4 clicks of compression out of both ends and see how it feels. Second-most common cause of a choppy ride is that the suspension is bottoming-out or topping-out. If the sag is set correctly, this should not happen except ...

If you take out compression and not rebound, you may experience a phenomenon called packing-down on sections of repeated bumps. If it absorbs the first hit okay but it seems to lose grip and-or not absorb the subsequent hits very well, try taking some rebound damping out.

If you want to see whether a particular adjustment in a particular direction makes a difference ... document where it is now, then make a big adjustment. If you can feel the effect of a big adjustment then you know what to look for when fine-tuning with smaller adjustments.

I suspect that what you really need is less high-speed damping, but that requires changing the shim stack and it is unlikely that this is what was changed at Wheelers.