I was wondering if anyone could give me any basic advice on how to set up my suspension. I have a 96 cbr600F3.

I know pretty much how to adjust preload, comp and rebound; and I know what they all do for the most part.

I don't know how they individually affect the handling of a bike. Like how to tell if my rear rebound is slightly too soft or my front compression is too hard.


My bike is still set to the last owners preferences. I know that because the factory setting for rear preload is 2, and it is currently at 3. Also the rear rebound screw shows signs of wear, so someone clearly tinkered with it at one point.


I think what I'm going to do is reset all the settings to factory and go from there, but where to begin? I know I have to set preload first for my weight, and comp and rebound is for fine tuning. But how do I set up front and rear preload? I mean how do I set it up correctly for me.




Any tips? I'm prolly going to revert it back to factory specs and get more familiar with my bike before trying to tweak the settings, but I'm still curious as to where I would start once I do start tweaking.

 

Here is one I have read and they go in to settings and in which way they need to be done.

Suspension Setup Guide - Sport Rider Magazine

 

Yeah I think I read that, but I was hoping for tips from someone with first hand knowledge of tweaking suspension.

And I have to edit my previous comment. The compression and rebound settings on my bike are all at factory settings, I just checked. The only thing different from factory is rear preload, its set at 3 instead of 2. Which shouldn't be a huge deal, I'm about 215-220lbs and preload from factory is probably meant to take 180-190lb guys. And one notch probably isn't going to make a hugely noticeable difference to a newbie like me anyway.

 

Start



and than check out this channel the guy knows a lot but your best be is take it to a shop and get them to do a basic setup for you, it cost me $25.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1I9Chx9o4Y&feature=context-chv

Its all for the track but the concepts are the same just a lot more forgiving, remember just because it works on the track does not mean it works on the street.

 

Very interesting videos.

The first one was very informative. I already knew how to set that in theory, but actually seeing it done was very helpful.


The second video, while interesting, raises more questions than it answers. The guy definitely seemed to know what he was doing, but was very curt in his responses to that guys questions.

However, those are the types of things I would like to know. How does changing the settings affect the specific handling attributes of the bike while riding it?