rear suspension adjustment

[farmerandy78]

hello I am going out this weekend on my 650 DL still quite new to this game I have looked through the manual re rear suspension adjustment there are 5 settings with factory setting on 2 - can anyone give me any tips on what setting the suspension should be on for a pillion and luggage - any tips be gratefully received thanks v much

[Paz324]

There's no point adjusting the suspension until you've ridden the bike with your luggage and pillion as there's no way to tell what changes to make before hand its a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" kind of situation, best thing you can do is just ride it as is and make very small adjustments over the course of the weekend if you feel the need to do anything at all.

Maybe take the bike for a quick test ride round the block first with your luggage and pillion before you set out ? you may find its fine as it is.

[farmerandy78]

thank you so much - really helpful.

Thanks, Andrew

[Fat Rat]

Andrew,

The adjuster is for the Preload, here is an explanation of how that works. 

Preload is used to adjust the shock or spring to the correct range of operation within the suspension's travel. More preload will raise the bike up on its suspension, keeping you near the top of its travel. With less preload, the bike sits lower and closer to the bottom of its suspension travel.

[King Orry]

As a matter of interest-
 I usually twiddle with the pre-load adjuster every now and again, a couple of turns one way, then back again.. just to keep it working.
I had the adjuster seize on my old FZ750, and ever since like to use all adjusters on an ad-hoc basis to hopefully ensure they’ll work when/if I do need em.

[Paz324]

I would say preload adjustment only exists to prolong the life of springs as they permanently compress over time, too much preload will make your bike ride on the top of the suspensions travel which completely removes necessary sag, for example the entire rear end of the bike will fall into pot holes rather than allowing the wheel to drop into pot holes using the travel of the suspension.

Also when you mess with preload you should always set the rebound from scratch otherwise you can end up with a very bouncy pogo stick type of feeling because too much preload can overpower the dampening that prevents the suspension from extending too quickly after compression.

[hotbulb]

I reckon the "factory"settings are a good starting point....... at least that's what I did. Set preload and damping adjustments to the factory settings and then, bearing in mind it's presumably for a lightweight Oriental rider, upped the preload each end by a couple of notches as I'm not lightweight

[Griff2]

With most of my bikes I ride solo using about 75% of the rear shock spring preload. Riding two up with luggage I ramp the spring preload up to the max and increase the rebound damping adjustment marginally to keep control of the extra spring preload adjustment. 

[mrp192]

On my Glee I wound the rear preload up to full then back two full turns when taking my wife as a pillion. This stopped a vague feeling I had from the front end the first time I took her out when I left it as standard.
With both panniers and topbox loaded for touring Scotland solo I turned it up not quite as far, about three and one half turns from max, and that left the feeling from the front as normal but was pushing on bends before I adjusted it.