[Q] Should I buy these progressive springs? - Page 4

 


Did you ever stop to think that it's a terse *troll*, typical of Neil
Murray's way of starting an argument?

Your motorcycle may or may not have been built with straight wound
rear springs, and I'm not going to look up that information.

I will leave that to Murray to give him something to cackle about...

However, when progressive wound springs first became popular on off
road motorcycles in the late 60's/early 70's (1), the explanation was
that a track racer
*knew* where the worst bump was on his race course and he could simply
install a straight wound spring that was stiff enough to prevent the
chassis from bottoming out when the rear wheel hit that particular
bump.

The peddlers of progressive springs said that a progressive spring was
"better" for desert racing, where the rider didn't know where the bad
bumps were, but the
new spring should be able to handle the bad bump by having coils that
were stiff enough at the high rate end of the spring to deal with
them.

This didn't mean that the rear end wouldn't still *kick your butt*
over the biggest bumps, and also *transfer force to the front
springs,* which would also need to be changed to a higher rate spring,
to avoid steering problems on excess spring compression...

The proponents of progressive spring went on to explain that the
softer end of the spring could be wound to give a better ride over the
smaller bumps that make your butt burn after a day in the saddle.

So, for off-road motorcycles that originally came equipped with a ~77
pound per inch rate straight wound spring would *theroretically*
benefit from a 60/90 rate spring.

However, a shock aborber can't *do anything* to damp spring motion if
the spring rate is so low that the spring hardly rebounds enough to
move the shock absorber piston through the damping fluid.

In that case, the chassis "floats" on the excessively soft part of the
spring and the rider senses that steering is imprecise.


The engineers at Hinkley probably design their motorcycles ergonomics
and spring them for a rider that's about 5' 10" and weighs 180~200
pounds. If they think a bike didn't *need* progressive springs, they
didn't fit the machine with them.

(1) If you'd been reading American motorcycle magazines in the late
1960's, you would have seen great interest in off road riding and far
less in street riding or touring...

 


All your useless off-road jaunts down memory lane aside, you didn't
address the reason that there is a market for aftermarket progressive
suspension springs for low-end street bikes built in the last 10-15
years.

 

On Jul 11, 6:32 pm, "tomor...@erols.com"

Ho hum. It's 100 degrees outside and only ground squirrels and
buzzards go out in this heat...

If some of my "jaunts down memory lane" seem dated, it's because the
cycle magazines were publishing lots of excellent technical articles
during the 60's and 70's and I remember the education I got then.

Gordon Jennings was actually a degreed engineer who could talk
intelligently about mechanical topics.

However, the current crop of suckophants at the magazines are self-
promoting politicians instead of engineers and the magazines often
resemble a cross between a comic book and a catalog...

The suckophants know that they can't say anything derogatory about the
gadgets they test because the freebies will dry up if they do...


There will always be riders who think that they can "fix" problems
that they didn't
know they had by bolting on some new gizmo...

When the new gizmo doesn't work, they are puzzled, and whoever advised
the naive newbie that they absolutely "had to have" this or that
accessory cannot help them make it work because they are playing the
"you can buy performance by spending money" game.

 



Aftermarket and progressively wound springs have been around for
decades. They are not 'some new gizmo'. I had Ultimate Source fork
springs in my airhead BMW a long, long time ago.

You know nothing


--
BMW K1100LT  Ducati 750SS  Honda CB400F  Triumph Street Triple
Suzuki TS250ER GN250  Damn, back to six bikes!
Try Googling before asking a damn silly question.
chateau dot murray at idnet dot com

 




Excellent.

Better pack up your mags and put them back under your bed. Until next time
someone asks a question you don't know the answer to. Mmmm, best leave them
within easy reach then.


You really know fuck all about review equipment, do you?

Still not answered the question I see.

Nothing changes.

--
Beav