Has anyone had any success with setting up the suspension on a Monster 1200? I would take it to a suspension specialist if I knew of any even remotely local but the bike is mid way between Malaga and Granada so local guys in the UK aren’t going to be convenient. I went out for a ride today and compared to my Multistrada it felt awful. I’ve spent sometime adjusting the Multi suspension and the difference between the two bikes is considerable. Today the handling on the Monster felt nervous by comparison and so did I. I’d pumped up the tyres at 550m/1800ft above sea level. So that’s only about 1psi difference to sea level. I checked them again in a garage when we got down to sea level and let some air out as they felt too hard although I don’t trust garage gauges. We’d ridden real slow down the mega twisty shiny road so the tyres were still cool. Later in the day when they’d heated up I still wasn’t happy so I let some air out and things definitely improved. Strangely enough the front was much cooler than the rear though. Today’s ride made me realise just how much better the set up is on the Multi. I discovered the compression setting on the Monster rear was two clicks off the maximum, which surprised me and I wondered if they adjusted it when I had it serviced at Ducati Malaga a month or so back. Last I remember was I backed it off to make it more supple. I clicked it up to the max, rode it, backed it off a few clicks and quite honestly the difference wasn’t that much, I need to be more radical. I’m wondering about the fork settings and how to gauge them. For example on the Multistrada you wind in the pre load at a rate of 1 turn per 15kg of rider weight. Is it similar for the Monster? I doubt it because they are Ohlins on the Monster and they’re not on the Multi. I’ve got to get my head round this, it’s like the bike is hinged in the middle and I’m constantly correcting in the bends. Not happy.
Look the Owner’s handbook up on the Ducati web site to see what the standard setting is, this, https://assets.ctfassets.net/oifkva...e2d/OM_-_Monster_1200_-_1200s_-_EN_-_MY20.pdf is for an S and go from there. Andy
Sam, I had an 1100S with Ohlins that I set up for me. The first thing is to set everything back to the factory settings and work from there. Once there, set the sag (get your brother or whoever your with to help you). Don't bother about static sag and rider sag and all those terms for now, just make sure the bike settles to 1/3rd of its toal movement when you're sat on the bike in all your gear. For the 1200S the front total suspension travel is 130mm front and 149mm rear, so you need for the bike to sit and settle with a suspension compression of 43mm front and 50mm rear. Work on one end at a time and if you start at the front and then do the rear, go back and recheck the front. If you don't get the desired sag with the standard factory preload settings then increase preload to reduce the amount of sag and decrease preload to increase the amount of sag. eg, you sit on the bike and the bike's suspension compresses by 60mm at the front (unlikely, just an example), then you need to increase the preload on the spring such that the amount of sag is reduced to your target 43mm. It's also a very good idea to bounce the bike up and down vigorously on its suspension front and rear before you take each measurement to overcome any stiction. Ideally, you'll have recently replaced the fork oil at the front and it isn't 10 years old. Even more ideally, the rear will have had a recent overhaul and been regassed as well. However, we don't live in an ideal world so just work with what you have. Once the sag is set its time to take to the road and play around with rebound and compression damping which are very subjective. Start with the rear, iirc, that Ohlins shock, if it's like the one on the 1100S only has rebound damping there's no compression damping so it's perhaps easiest to start with that one. The front has both rebound and compression. I found that if the damping adjustment (either one for the sake of this example) had say 30 clicks of travel and the default setting was 12 clicks out from fully home then I would ride over a stretch of road with it at the default. Turn it fully out and ride the same stretch, then turn it fully in and ride the same stretch, that gave me my extremes and I could then decide which I preferred, if any away from default, and slowly tune it to that a bit at a time.
I forgot to add, front sag is measured along the travel of the forks, rear is measured from the rear axle to a point directly above it on the frame. The base reading and first measurement is with ALL weight taken off the suspension by lifting the front or rear, the next measurement is with you sat on the bike, difference between the two is the sag you're after. @andyb did a good post https://www.ducatiforum.co.uk/threads/what-is-suspension-sag.77820/
Thanks Paul, that’s a good starting point and another one I owe you. Where did you get your figures from for the suspension travel? In my manual and from what I’ve Googled it says the rear travel is 152mm not 149mm. It’s a mere 3mm difference so only 1mm difference for the static sag but I was just curious. You could be right though as in the manual it only gives a figure for a Sachs rear monoshock but it’s actually Ohlins. It says; Stroke 64mm Rear wheel travel 152mm On the 1200s the Ohlins have compression and rebound adjustment. It is Ohlins on the front at 130mm stroke as you stated. I’ll have to get the present Mrs H or Jorg the laughing German to help me. Thanks for the advice.
Specs came from here https://ducati-specs.com/models/ducati-monster-1200.html 152mm rear wheel travel for the Sachs on the non-S and 149mm for the Ohlins. They obviously put a better Ohlins shock on the rear of the 1200S compared to the 1100S
