Wheel movement

[duckie]

Just some more early morning ramblings of a old fart on his fourth cup of coffee.

After reading Race Tech Suspension Bible, I started thinking about dampeing in terms of controlling the speed the wheel moves, fast or slow, instead of hard and soft. 
 

Rolling along a nice flat surface, the wheel isnt moving up or down just forward. The wheel is at 0 upward velocity into the upper fork tube at this point in time.

Once a rise in the surface is encounter, the wheel starts moving up to a point where it stops and then reverses direction and starts moving down.

The velocity of the wheel goes from 0 to max velocity to 0 to max velocity to 0. Max velocity is at the midpoint of the total wheel movement used for the bump. If the wheel movement was two inches then the midoint is at one inch of wheel movement.

So……..soft means the wheel moves fast and hard means the wheel moves slow.

Preload…….does two things. Raises or lowers the ride height and sets how much force is needed to start moving the wheel…..along with compression dampening.

The dampening circuits controls the rate at which the force is put into and released out of the spring. 
 

The understanding the interplay between the dampening circuits and preload is where the magic happens.  The only way to get that understanding is taking the time and effort playing with the settings.

I would make a change and then do several rides on the different roads here to get a feel for that change. This took awhile, but was well worth it.