Triumphrat

Bodger · 08-02-2005

I have been having a bit of trouble with the forks on the tbird. They are tbs forks and when i set the sag, the ride is very hard, too hard. The bike is great at speed breaking into corners but i feel every bump in the road when i am pottering about.
I know the spring rate is about half the rate i need for my 200lbs because i have done the race tech thing.
the question is what spring is the right one?
After reading Mick's posts and the problems he had i am a bit confused.
1. If the tbs spring is triple rated and you load it up to set up the sag, then are you just dialing out the plushness? Surly if its progressive then it should have been set up to cope with heavy breaking.
2. The coils at the top of the spring are that close together surly the just act as pre load?
3. How do race tech measure a progressive spring to get a value of .55mm/kg
4. Why do race tech list the same spring for the tbs and the tbird? When i compared them, the tbird spring was quite a bit longer, or have i got the wrong spring in my tbs forks?

Lots of questions and i haven't started to consider the questions about damping!

By the way the damping adjustments don't make a lot of difference to the harsh ride.

Bodger · 08-09-2005

Don't worry , i have sorted it!
Rider/ race sag is cow danglies when it comes to progressive spring IMHO. If you want to lessen dive put more oil in. If you want to firm up the forks and have more feel of the road then put thicker oil in. Either way, piling on pre load just gives you a harsh ride all round and cancels out some of the progressiveness and therefor plushness of the ride.
I have put the pre load to the stiff setting in the Haynes manual #5 and raised the oil level to 135 from the top.
Works fine for me @200lbs.

upNorth · 08-09-2005

Wow, a self-answering thread!

My suspension, at present, is non-adjustable but I will keep your tips in mind when fiddling the suspension on the planned new bike. Thanks!