Triple Clamps, trail and rake ???

brian

you're all over the shop fella! you don't change the degrees of rake but the measurement on the floor in MM and this is called the trail.

the head angle we believe was straightened up vertically by 1.5 degrees from '03 to '04 and husabutt has a great picture of it in his gallery. i believe that it was 27.5 degrees but is now 26. this has the effect of shortening the trail by about 1 maybe 2mm. this makes the bike more lively-but is a marginal change.

the trail has and is still 22mm on all bergs. add more to it-say-24mm and this shortens the trail and makes the bike even more lively. some drop the forks through and shorten it about 1mm that way but it has a greater effect by lowering the centre of gravity and because dirt bikes are so tall this is never really much of a bad thing.

i put in 14mm offset KTM clamps which increased the trail by 8mm and made the bike super stable but it also shortened the wheelbase and added to dropping the forks through an enormous 15mm: has lowered the C of G and had the benifit of having the front wheel under the bike in mid-corner as opposed to 1" further around the track.

i literally got a double gain with no loss.

i would think that 14mm on a SM would be brilliant on an '03 and prior for sure as the bikes are the same bar the 17" wheels.

i would think that the clamps on an '04-'05 would be even better with just tests on the fork drop to follow.

regarding the wheelbase length; i suggest you remember that balance or front to back bias can be more important. if all the weight is on the front then the rear breaks traction and it swings around. if the weight is on the rear then the front drifts away in the corners. a short wheelbase is simply twitchy, on the edge but right for racing.

you'll rip out the mudguard twixt swingarm and tyre so stick with the OEM item here. it's worth the extra cash to have a correctly fitting guard that runs MM from the rear tyre. remember that the rear tyre grows by between 10-20mm in a race so you need a space!

so i shortened the wheelbase by pushing the rear wheel forward at the same time as the front wheel came back with the KTM TCs. this means my front to rear bias is still just about the same. so this really helped. i noticed the difference around 4mph corners and switchbacking around trees. there's that 15mm fork drop for you.

another huge difference was the seat. a tall seat throws you forward at the corners but also naturally puts you over the rear wheel when you accelerate. because of the design of the tank (narrow at the top and fat at the bottom) you can now get your leg in close to the bike. you have to have raised the bars by 1.5" then there is loadsa space to get the leg right up under the bars.

ultimately though all this is 'borrocks' because the middle of the bike is hinged on a pin with .25mm of play and until people on the site take this seriously then it's all just bench racing. real racers get this sorted.

regards

Taffy

In addition, SM bikes should naturally have less offset clamps than offroad, due to the loss of trail that occurs with the shorter wheels.

Less offset clamps will in addition to being more stable, also drop in to a corner easier.