Supermoto Setup

Stiffen it up.

I don't know what's happening with your tracks in Europe, but here in the US, they are building them with assinine Supercross style dirt sections. Because of that, in addition to the fact that guys are going faster on the tarmac here, most have been leaving suspension at full travel. In 2003 and 2004, we saw a lot of folks wanting more clearance in the corners, some guys on KTMs were even grinding into the lower frame tubes 8O

My recommendation is to stiffen it up as much as you can stand for your off-road use. I can't give you clicker settings, but I will tell you that a trip to a good suspension shop will be worth five times what you pay for it.

Cheers,

Brett Saunders

Sam..
There are various ways you can sort the suspension, a fork oil change would be one,but to be perfectly honest for what you want there isn't a perfect set up...something will always be compromised.
Getting suspension right can be very time consuming and can take several trackdays to get it right.
Uk tracks are starting to go the supercross route in order to give the spectators a spectacle, but I'm guessing you were at crail (or ROWRAH )which isnt really like that and a firmer set up would be better. By far the best way to do it is to speak to someone like Andy White at KAIS suspension, tell him exactly what you want, your weight, and he will do the setting up leaving enough adjustment available to swap to dirt settings.
Initially, its expensive..£200 - £300 but in the long run its worth every penny.
Another option is to buy another set of forks and shock, keep one for dirt and one for motarding, these can be found on ebay quite often (especially in Germany for some reason) relatively cheap

Are your springs correct for your weight ?
Set your laden sag for around 90 mm
Set your compression and rebound at both ends for about 8 off try this as a starting point and work up.....If they are MX style and you are over 200 lbs with leathers then you will find you'll be around 2 clicks off
as a general rule of thumb start at 22/24 for tire pressure
If your tires heat up fast and start goin to goo (your sliding both tires)then add 1 psi each end up till approx. 4....

yes there are alot of variables these are just bench marks.....
my springs are too light so I'm 1 off both ends and run mid 20's PSI for sc1 slicks hot days, I drop my triple clamps down my forks till I get a healthy wobble past 65 mph then I leave em there, anymore than that then you get tank slappers....this seems to be a general starting point that I have learned from asking questions ,looking at other bikes in the pits and of coarse trial and error.....although I have crashed more times than I would like :idea: remember these are just general remarks about stating points for set up....I'm learning too...... :wink:

Oh yea...what Gix said :thumb: over here we run lowered bikes about an inch now...not so low anymore...revalving and set up will cost us $ 750.00 in Yank bucks.... buy another bike so you have two then you are stylun

Semtexsam said:

Hi,am the owner of a 2002 470 that has been giving the Tard treatment.My first trackday was last Sun and what a day it was.

One of the problems was the suspension,i have done some off-road with the bike and it has been great so for my next tracday i was wondering if i could make some adjustments,dont want to lower anything at the moment because i want to continue doing some off0road.

Please help,looking forward to better handling.

Click to expand...

I think you need to be slightly more specific here Semtexsam :wink:

What exactly was the problem with the suspension?

You mention this was only one of the problems. What were the others? They could be related.....

What do you mean by wanting better handling?

Have you already gone through the usual steps of initial suspension tuning on the suspension you have? If so, what have you done?

Have you serviced your suspension at all?

Give us some more info please.

Simon