Shock adjustment??

[kmakona]

Whats the shock adjustment reasoning? Do you want it hard for cornering? Do you want it soft for cornering? Do you want it hard for road riding? Do you want it soft for road riding? What are the effects of changing the setting? What do you set your shocks at and for what reason?

[coz]

put your stock rs shocks on five, 18-20 lbs. air in fronts. thats as good as it gets. big improvement in overall handling. try it, you'll like it :thumbup:

[steve635]

Coz 5 is exactly right....I could not believe the difference these simple adjustments made in the handling. To your original question, the lower your setting the softer the ride but you give up some cornering, the higher the setting the harder the ride but the cornering is improved (I don't think there is any disadvantage to running the slightly higher tire pressure). For me at around 210#, the difference in the ride between the 3rd and 5th setting was minimal, but the difference in handling was dramatic.

[bo9roadking]

I set my shocks to 5 on the RT and set the tire pressure to 20 in the front. It corners much better and feels more planted/stable.

When the shocks were set at 3, my spyder felt like it was wandering or floating in the corner and it felt uneasy. The higher setting makes the spyder feal more rigid when going down the road, so gusts of wind don't influence you as much and it seems to track a straighter line.

The downside is that the suspension is stiffer, so riding over bumps is a little less soft and more of a jolt. It isn't something bad from my perspective though. It isn't so bad that it will knock your teeth fillings out or anything. It just isn't a bouncy cadillac ride.

[BLUEKNIGHT911]

1 TO 5 ARE THE PRE LOAD SETTINGS....WHAT THE PREVIOUS POSTERS SAID ARE CORRECT....+ IF THE FRONT ARE SET AT 5 YOU ARE LESS LIKELY TO HAVE INSIDE TIRE WEAR BECAUSE THIS SETTING ACTS AS A CAMBER COMPENSATION.....SORRY FOR THE CAPS.....Mike...:thumbup:

[hotglue]

Put FB's RT shocks on her RS today... set them on 2....Will play with them to find the right setting.

[BigAbyss]

This information was very helpful.i am a fat guy and I needed to adjust mine and it feels better. However, I want to adjust the rear as well.where should I jack the spyder up at so that it doesn't affect the rear spring?

[ARtraveler]

I run mine on 5 also and like the way the :spyder2: handles.

[kmakona]

So the adjustments are for compensation of weight? Or as I asked at the beginning, what is the reasoning for adjusting? Everyone I have spoken with says they have the shocks adjusted to 5. This is smaller people and very large people.

[daveinva]

So the adjustments are for compensation of weight? Or as I asked at the beginning, what is the reasoning for adjusting? Everyone I have spoken with says they have the shocks adjusted to 5. This is smaller people and very large people.

It improves handling regardless of the weight on the suspension.

The difference is, if you have more weight on the suspension, it stops becoming a luxury and more of a necessity. Too much weight + too soft a suspension = even worse handling.

Frankly, with the stock shocks, I never saw any benefit at all to riding at 3 or even 4... 5 was the minimum happy number, regardless of how much weight was on the bike.

(Surely there's someone out there who's ridden the Spyder set *below* 3... I'm dementedly curious what the ride would feel like set a "1"... )

[zrc]

My first 3k miles on my pre-owned, I found out later when I took the stocks off for RTs - 3 on the left, 1 on the right, talk about a HUGE difference going to RTs just set on 3.

I need to crank them up just because I drive like a madman.

[ARtraveler]

Softer settings than 5 seem to result in complaints of soft or squirrely handling. I raised my by one setting at a time until the handling felt good. I have left the setting alone now since about a month after purchasing the :spyder2:.

[coz]

put your stock rs shocks on five, 18-20 lbs. air in fronts. thats as good as it gets. big improvement in overall handling. try it, you'll like it :thumbup:
big improvement in overall handling:thumbup:. WOW, i've never quoted myself before. i must be really,,,,,,,,,,, good :roflblack::roflblack::roflblack:

[CycleChamp]

As I am still new to the my RT I'll venture to ask a question that may have been answered long ago on Spyderlovers. I know you should adjust the front shocks with the wheels off the ground, but I am wondering how most of you raise the front off the ground. Looking underneath the RT, I really don't see anywhere I would feel comfortable placing a jack. What kind of jack do most of you use. This Post probably belongs in the Tech Forum, but I stumbled on your discussions here while browsing.