Hi,



I have just about finished fitting 46mm yz forks to my Tenere. just waiting for 320mm disk to be delivered.
I have left the forks as standard, comp and rebound set mid point atm and have 65mm rider sag, of the 300mm available, i have ridden it down a geenlane with general lumps and bumps, riding nice and steady, used a further 135mm of the travel.

My question is: How does that sound, do you think I need a stiffer spring? I have the bike to ride mainly off road, greenlanes in Devon, trips to Wales etc.

Many thanks

65mm will be ok for road & dirt use..

For off road you are sprung to hard...
300 of travel you should have 100mm rider sag..
rider sag 33% or 1/3 of travel.. static sag 35mm bike under it's own weight,no rider...
The bike has to have travel in both directions not sit at the top of it's travel..
back the compression damping off it may help
New springs will most lightly be required if
you want a more offroad set up...

i have Showa USD forks in my XTR..
had them revalved as the MX set up gets
to hard to quickly for large jumps etc..
MX tracks are quite smooth.. no ruts/rocks/tree roots
that require a supple , controled travel thats more linar
in the compression springing / damping though out the travel...

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Thanks Petenz for the quick reply,
I am a bit afraid of the forks bottoming out if i go for a softer spring. I will ride it faster than i did and be on rougher trails. I will try compression adjustment.
thanks

Ironic thing is, you are using 200mm of travel, which is the same as the stock forks!

As Pete says, you really need to work on 1/3 sag (100mm) and understand that motocross springing and fork design means the last third (partly due to air gap size) gets progressively hard quite quickly. Lower rate springs may be the way to go, but trying less compression damping may be an easy place to start.

Don't forget also that the relative lack of travel at the rear (still 200mm) will somewhat limit/restrict what the front will do at the extremes. There's always going to be a bit of an imbalance having 300mm travel at the front and 200mm at the back. I always assumed that in an ideal world 240/250mm at the front would be about the maximum when matched to the stock rear travel.

What I would suggest is that you go for a ride over as rougher terrain/conditions as you're likely to meet in everyday use. If you just went for a gentle bimble in your first shakedown, then you aren't going to see all the travel used. Fix your cable ties on the fork tubes and give the bike a damn good hiding - your spring rate might not be as far off as you think!

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