Anyone had any luck with suspension settings for bumpy roads? We have some quite bumpy and potholed roads up here and the forks in particular don't seem to be very forgiving, lots of "chatter" on bad roads its getting to the point where its starting to blur my vision :Watching: I've tried the "comfort" settings in the handbook and it doesn't seem to make much difference tbh, is there any answer to this or is it just the fact that the stiff sports biased suspension doesn't have enough range of adjustment to cope with bumpy, choppy roads ?
Yup! ...I twigged that one after the faff on adjusting the gear lever, the owners manual is a work of fiction!! I've been fiddling with it for a few weeks now, the biggest improvement I made to it was setting the sag front and rear. The rear in particular was miles too hard, manual says 20mm preload for track and 17mm comfort setting for road - mine was set from the factory at 23mm!! way too hard. I backed it off till I was getting about 30mm of sag with me sat on the bike and its a lot better now, as far as the fork spring preload goes, 1 full turn in from fully open gets me about 20mm of fork sag with me on it. Its a lot better now on the bumpy stuff, doesn't beat me up quite as badly, but I think I've just got to accept the fact that its a sportsbike first and foremost and won't swallow bumpy roads like a GS Still fekkin love it though, 3,300 miles on it now, just been out today and its the first time this year I've actually felt "warm" on the bike.......summers here boys!!
Take it to your local suspension dealers and have it set up for you, just had mine done and it's a different bike, they measure you up and get u on the bike to set it up to the roads/tracks you ride best 50 sheets I ve spent
Where you measuring this from as I thought mine was really wound up but then just figured that I was measuring from the wrong point. Wasn't sure if it was from the end of the spring or what...
Ehh got to be honest I don't know Kev done at Moorespeed racing used to be ktec's racing suspension guy and he did it all, I just sat on it when he said and bounced it up and down when he said sorry can't be much more help other than to say take it to a expert
Find a good outfit and get springs to suit your weight. Do a search youll find a dealer. Sag on the back end suited to you will make a huge difference. If stock sprimgs not suited to you replace with good aftermarket like kteck etc or ohlins.
Spent a bit of time getting used to the 899. The STD settings are pretty much spot on for track days as long as you are not breaking lap records. But a bit too harsh for the bumpy roads around here. The bike came from the factory with the shock preload setting as per track settings in the manual. Far too harsh for the road if you are average weight. And theres little or no static sag. I set the shock preload to the STD settings (17 mm from bottom of spring to the end of threaded section of the shock. This gave an acceptable static sag. With the forks and shock now set to STD for preload, I adjusted the damping settings to the comfort settings in the manual. This gives me a nice plush setting for bumpy roads and still handled well. For going a bit quicker when out with some of the fast boys, I add a bit of shock compression damping. (Only 1/8 to a 1/4 turn more). This works really well for me. I also run the front and rear tyres at 32psi. Hope this helps
I got the damping 'fixed' by MCT. They rebuilt the rear shock as there is a known limitation with them that makes the rear 'lock out' and the adjusters do very little! It was £200 and now with standard sport settings the rear of the bike is perfect, also if I adjust the compression I can actually feel the difference it makes. My bike has been so much better since! I'm actually thinking of stiffening up the rear a touch now that it's working properly
