Rake, and Trail? what does that mean?

 

Rake is how far out the forks are from the body of the bike, as in a degree of angle..."Man, those forks are raked, or it's raked.." No idea about trail but I'd think it has to do with the swing arm or rear tire...or, I could be as clueless as you....

 

trail is the difference between your steering axis @ ground level and bottom dead center of your front wheel


i'll draw a picture, lol

*edit*
nah, nvm, thats too hard, lol

 

I'm not sure if I can explain trail any better than what's already here. Trail .. too much is bad. That's all you really need to know here. You should have to worry about it unless you're planning on make a chopper out of your CBR. Too much trail at high speeds and you bike wants to stay straight and at low speeds the front will try to flop to one side and be unstable.

 

From what i gather trail is most comparable to caster if it where a car.

 

Rake is the angle between the headset tube and a vertical line. Increasing the rake will move the front tire farther from the bike. Rake is measured in degrees, and is a frame specification. To visualize trail, draw an imaginary line along the path of the headset tube to the ground. Measure from this point to the center of the tire patch. This is trail, and is measured in inches.

The amount of rake is significant in determining a motorcycle's handling characteristics. In general, more rake provides greater straight line stability, less rake makes the bike more responsive. Larger values of trail also create more straight line stability. This is why the forks on a sportbike are more vertical than those of a cruiser.

from www.totalmotorcycle.com/




And my mom told me that there are no stupid questions and no one messes with mom....

 

What is trail braking then? I thought it was just using the rear to brake like you would on a trail bike.

Mike

 

You're right, trail braking is using your rear brake. Trail is something else, here is a good article on trail braking.

http://www.sportrider.com/ride/RSS/1...trail_braking/

also mike