General topics
Front suspension is a key component for motorbike performance. It is a part of the whole, and it is fundamental to achieve performance, security and ride comfort.
In specialised motorbikes, for instance Motocross or Enduro, suspensions are designed to optimise performance through settings, mainly about following parameters:
- Spring pre-load
- Hydraulic speed setting (low and high speed, compression, extension)
- Oil viscosity
- Spring rates
In non specialised motorbikes, generally front suspension does not have above mentioned setting possibilities nor spring pre-load or hydraulic.
Front suspension has the limitations according its own target of use: to be comfortable, do not bottom-up, to have the most balanced behaviour allowed by the original design, running on the different surfaces the bike has been designed for, ….
When you ride off-road (trail, enduro …) and when you are running on paved road, motorbike can bottom eventually, both in normal riding (jumps or big bumps) as well as when you brake in heavy load conditions (to brake without suspension travel can be more than surprising for the driver…)
Because these kind of forks has usually no settings, user has limited possibilities to improve it; market offer different spring rates in order to have higher bottom limits, possibility to change oil viscosity.
This difference in behaviour is some times not perceptible for the user, and there are many cases in which he choose to go back to the original parts because his suspension has turned difficult to drive in terrains with loose stones together with soft bumps uphill, for instance.