Suspension Settings 2020 GT

[Bob K]

I never had a bike before that was adjustable , except rear shock spring rate . From the book settings of Soft , Standard , & Hard I have mine set currently on Standard . The bike handles great , but a little hard on the tail bone . For all around riding 4 & 2 lane hwy + some twisty black tops , no track day riding , would I loose much in handling going to the soft settings ? I ride with no side bags & only a light soft tail bag . I am 200 lb. with riding gear . 

[Skidood]

I'm about the same weight as you and have my 2019 set up on the softer side as I have herniated discs and enjoy a soft ride..  My spring preloads and all damping settings are set at about 35-40% of maximum "hardness" or damping.  (35-40% of the available adjustment range on the adjusters)   I think I need to increase spring preload just a wee little bit on the rear, otherwise I'm very happy with these settings and don't have any issues with handling.

Edited May 21, 2021 by Skidood

[thewrenchbender]

I’m 190ish dressed and used Dave Moss’s settings on my ‘20. Not gonna post them/links because I’m not a subscriber. Hint the rear spring needs to be almost buried on the “high” side.

Only thing I did different was dropped the front (raised the fork tubes) a little more than he did because I have to ride “straight up” due to physical limitations and the front ends up waaaay too light.

Tracer Goo GT is my first upside-down fork bike, previous bike adjustments consisted of rider sag and fine-tuning damping using my tire wear.

What I am learning is that stock suspensions like these are often too harsh and un-responsive, only solution is to spend $$$ to upgrade or run them “loose” so you don’t get beat to death riding on real roads/streets...and if you are a big boy (or girl) you are gonna have to do springs or you’ll never be happy/comfortable.  

Hope this helps.

Mark

[Ddog gt]

Know where you are starting from so you can return if you get loss. Experiment try different setting until you find what works for you and the way you ride. There are no wrong settings if they work for you. We are all different so each will have setting that work for them . Adjust test ride, adjust test ride, ect until you get what makes you happy.

[johnmark101]

When tuning the suspension to suit your riding, only make one change at a time, and in small increments.  Otherwise you can not be sure of which change gave you what result.  Be patient as sometimes it takes a good bit of riding and tuning to get where you want to be.

Preload is measured and once set correctly should not have to be changed unless you add a passenger or loaded luggage.  You can get a decent baseline on your rebound by pushing down on each end and observing the rate at which the suspension returns.  Compression damping, at least for me, was the last thing to get sorted out as I had to do a good bit of riding over various types of roads to find the right setting for absorption vs firmness for stability in cornering.

Good aftermarket suspension can be expensive but is a game changer and a good investment if you plan on keeping the bike for a good while.  

[Bob K]

Well I have looked at a lot of you tube & decided to try settings from a English GT owner that has quite a few miles on his 2019 Tracer . My first thought was to set everything up very soft , but changed my mind because of safety & tire wear problems . This is what I settled on . Fork tubes , 4 rings showing , both adjusting screws 6 turns out from hard .

Back shock spring , 15 click tight , adjusting screw 5 click out from hard . Don't know when I can ride , raining here & rain all next week . 😢

 

[duckie]

Just throwing this out there.

 First.....Race Tech makes a pretty good tech manual to help understand motorcycle suspension. And if ya really want to make your brain hurt, there is Aprilias Motorcycle Design and Technology.

Awhile back, I stopped thinking in terms of soft and hard and went to thinking in terms of controlling the speed the wheel moves up and down........which is actually what you are doing when making suspension settings.

Setting preload does two things.......one .....raises or lowers the bike moving weight, the Center of Gravity, fore and aft....two ....sets the force needed to start the spring moving. More pre load, more force is needed to start the spring to move.

Once the spring starts moving, it will move at its one spring rate.......if its linear. For a progressive spring, preload also set the starting spring rate. So, as the springs moves, its spring rate also changes as well as the force needed to start the spring moving. There is nothing wrong with progressive springs, they just work different. I still got stock progressive springs and really dont think Ill gain much by changing them to linear.

If preload is added to the front, more preload might be needed on the rear in order to keep the CG in the same place and same thing applies adding preload to the shock. 

Dampening.....there are two circuits, low speed and high speed. Most forks and shocks only have low speed adjustments. Low speed is adjusted by the clickers. High speed requires changing the shim stack or shim stack and valve body inside the forks or shock. 

Where the low speed dampening is set controls when the high speed dampening comes into use.  Using a lot of low speed dampening means the high speed circuit comes into use sooner than when using very little low speed dampening. 

Dampening controls the speed of wheel movement once it starts moving. 

The speed a wheel moves depend on the bump and speed of motorcycle. Wheel movement starts at 0, goes to a max speed, then slows down to 0 before the wheel moves in the other direction. 

So, if a the bike feels harsh, this might mean the wheel movement is too slow or too fast. 

For you go for handling, ride quality will suffer, if you go for ride quality, handling suffers. The trick is to find the sweet spot......which is very elusive cause it is so subjective.

Another thing about progressive springs, they require a little more static sag than linear springs. 

Static, thats the key word. Those settings just get ya in the ball back. How the bike feels while riding actually will determine the dynamic settings of the suspension. 

The nature of a motorcycle will let you really feel the road surface, no way around it. 

Twist those knobs.......

What got me to think in terms of speed of wheel movement was a simple change to my rear shock rebound setting that stopped massive nose dive on my track R1. The suspension set up guy slowed down my shock rebound. 

The nose dive was occurring at the end of straight going into the hardest braking turn on the track. What was happening was this..

Hard on the gas, rear is squatted, shock compressed.

Off gas, hard on the brakes, the nose was going down....the rear of the bike was coming up to fast because the shock rebound was to fast. Slowed the shock rebound down, the rear of the bike did not come up like before. The bike felt as if it was now flatter under braking.

This also shows how you use your bike will influence what the settings need to be.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 22, 2021 by duckie

[Skidood]

5 hours ago, Bob K said:

Well I have looked at a lot of you tube & decided to try settings from a English GT owner that has quite a few miles on his 2019 Tracer . My first thought was to set everything up very soft , but changed my mind because of safety & tire wear problems . This is what I settled on . Fork tubes , 4 rings showing , both adjusting screws 6 turns out from hard .

Back shock spring , 15 click tight , adjusting screw 5 click out from hard . Don't know when I can ride , raining here & rain all next week . 😢

 

I found the video (the guy is Scottish not English) and am going to try those setting too.   Thanks for sharing.

[betoney]

5 hours ago, duckie said:

Awhile back, I stopped thinking in terms of soft and hard and went to thinking in terms of controlling the speed the wheel moves up and down........which is actually what you are doing when making suspension settings.

Thank You!!  I wish more suspension guides made it this simple. 

The spring is a huge mass of energy and the hydraulic damping controls how fast the spring moves in each direction.

[Bob K]

Stopped raining this afternoon , I got in a 150 mile ride . I am happy with my suspension adjustments . I ran it over some hwy construction at 70 mph where there are speed bumps where they cut expansion joints out & filled with asphalt , they left the patch high since the whole slab will be ground down for paving . I would get a jolt but no bounce seams like the tires are staying on the pavement . I hit some corners hard for my ability , no problem no diving seams planted . Done some hard breaking & the bike stayed level . When I get my Corbon seat I will be all good . 😀

[Skidood]

On 5/23/2021 at 6:49 PM, Bob K said:

Stopped raining this afternoon , I got in a 150 mile ride . I am happy with my suspension adjustments . I ran it over some hwy construction at 70 mph where there are speed bumps where they cut expansion joints out & filled with asphalt , they left the patch high since the whole slab will be ground down for paving . I would get a jolt but no bounce seams like the tires are staying on the pavement . I hit some corners hard for my ability , no problem no diving seams planted . Done some hard breaking & the bike stayed level . When I get my Corbon seat I will be all good . 😀

I set up the same settings as per the 2nd video from the Scottish guy and while all is good, I do think I may dial back the front compression damping just a little bit.  (instead of 6 clicks back from full, may be 8-9)   The front may dive a bit more when hitting the front brake but I want things a wee bit smoother over the bumps on the front.