bud

Member
Jun 29, 1999
433
0
I had a pretty bad time at a club race on the weekend. The bike handled atrociously. The conditions were very, very slippery muddy grass track, with not many berms forming. Basically I couldn't touch the throttle without the rear going sideways (pretty new soft terrain tires. The front however, hooked up well enough.

My suspension (springs and valving) is stock, but I have messed with (or messed up :)) the fork height - about 27mm above the top of the top triple clamp. And the the shock sag was excessive, as it seems to be with all the newer huskies I've seen. I put about 25mm more preload on the spring. I'm thinking that might be my problem. The front sits low and the rear sits high, which tends to force me forward on the seat... which is good, when there's traction.

I have got a 5.8kg/mm spring to try (stock is 5.4kg/mm). My question is, preload, how much should I use, keeping in mind that huskies do seem to sit low in the rear in stock condition. Any advice on the clicker settings for the shock would be helpful too.
 

the Eel

~SPONSOR~
Sep 23, 2000
1,747
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Hi Bud.

I have a '99 WR125 w/ the Sachs shock - hi speed comp, lo speed comp & rebound.

You may want to go just about full stiff on the low speed compression. The back will ride up more. I have my sag at about 95mm and it seems to work. Before I had it set like this the front end was riding too light - always up. Now it's pretty well balanced.

The main problem I have been trying to solve is excessive pogoing. Right now I have rebound at full soft, HSC at full soft, and LSC at full stiff. Seems OK so far ...
 

bud

Member
Jun 29, 1999
433
0
Well, the good news is that with the 5.8kg/mm spring and 15mm of preload, the bike now feels much more planted while cornering - I can carry quite a bit more speed thru a corner, especially a flat or off camber corner, before I start to lose traction. I haven't measured the race sag, but it feels balanced with the front. The rear end definitely feels low now - it looks like is has 1.5- 2" of sag under it's own weight. It looks and feels like too much, but I can't deny it handles a lot better that way.

Eel, that is pretty close to how my compression was set already, fullly soft high speed, about 3/4 of the way to full hard on low speed compression. I've now gone to 1 click from fully hard on the low speed, but haven't found any decent bumps to test it on yet :).
 

HiG4s

~SPONSOR~
Mar 7, 2001
1,311
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Ok, I've got mine set about 3/4hard on low speed, and mid-range on high speed. Why do you go so soft on low?

Jeremy are you out there? I'm confused. Isn't low speed for big hits, jumps and high speed for stutter bumps and whoops?
 
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