Woods riding sag???

[SidewinderX]

I set my sag last night on my crf450 to a comfortable seat position and ended up with 115mm.

Do I need a different spring to bring my sag down so I can touch the ground comfortable, or will 115mm be OK for woods riding?

[BigIvyI]

what do you weigh?

115mm is more sag than most people would use. But it's personal, the standard 100mm or so doesn't work for everybody.

?

[SidewinderX]

I am @ 210lbs, 6.0 ' tall.

I thought that I would try it out this weekend but if someone knew that it would not work then it would save me the trouble.

Also I am using the stock spring.

[brown77]

On the 04 450 with that much sag the front end will push ,unless mabey you have off set clamps 22mm ?

you need more weight on the front wheel to get the bike to handle correctly

[skipn8r]

As stated above, there is no one "right" number, but there does seem to be a common range of 90 - 110 mm for most riders on full-size bikes (RC excluded, it seems). What you'll find is that if you have a lot of turns that you are trying to maximize your speed through, less sag can be better as it reduces the trail which enhances turning. Conversely, if you have a lot of straight line, high-speed riding, more sag is better as it makes the bike more stable and less susceptible to head-shake on high-speed straights. It's probably best to ride your favorite riding areas with a few different sag settings and find what works best ?.

[brown77]

Conversely, if you have a lot of straight line, high-speed riding, more sag is better as it makes the bike more stable and less susceptible to head-shake on high-speed straights.

good advice ,I want to add that you can have 90-100mm of sag to place weight on the front and to combat headshake run your forks all the way to the top of the clamps ,that way you can have your cake and eat it too ?

just see what feels good to you and go with that setting but I would try a few different settings ,its easy to change settings when you get back to the truck bring your tools and spend a few hours riding and testing different setups .find a loop with all the terain you would ride on ,say desert (woops)and wood (ruts,ect)what ever you want it to work better on and use that as a testing ground

hope this helps ?

[skipn8r]

True. You may even find (as I have) that you prefer a different sag number for each of your different riding areas. I usually like 5 - 10 mm more race sag in high-speed deep sand than on tight MX-type courses.

One note about fork height. As you push the forks down in the clamps, you end up increasing the trail and reducing the weight on the front tire. Just like race sag, you need to try a few settings on your riding areas and see what works best for you.

[shockdoc]

Actually headshake on the gas and headshake off the gas are 2 different problems, you can run into a headshake problem coming up to speed or on fast straightaways if you have to much sag in the rear or if your forks are to far down in the clamps. If there is not enough weight on the frt. end you will get this headshake.

Now if you headshake is while breaking and coming down from speed then more sag in the rear or dropping the forks will help this headshake. Taking weight off the frt.

doc

[skipn8r]

Thanks for the info, doc. I personally have only experienced headshake at steady high speed along a fairly washboard road and with around 3.75" race sag. I'd probably describe it better as very "twitchy". When I set the race sag to 4.0 inches (forks constant), it disappeared under the same circumstances.