Been meaning to get the suspension set up done for ages, bike is 2013 big piston forks model Took it to alpha suspension at Leeds . On the day with all my gear on I weighed 15stone 8lbs The suspension as far as I know was left as it came out of the shop. John Sanderson asked how it felt? I said not been the most experienced of riders the one thing I notice is me getting thrown out of the seat over bumpy road. Anyway john got to work measuring everything and writing it all down with just the bike then me on the bike etc. job done for £35 I have then compared mine to how sinewaves was set @ kais which I've posted below. I thought mine would have been somewhere near the same. However some is very far away which I don't get. Thoughts anyone ?
Here are my settings after adjustment. No word of what the pre load was before or after, just the sag The rear preload is on 7 now, just had a look
Settings depend on if you ask for fast road/track or just road which will be softer than fast road/ track Are you also the same weigh with gear as sinewave?
I just said normal road riding as I'm no world beater tbh , think sinewave may be half a stone heavier depending how many cream cakes he's ate that day don't know if he's wrote the settings down arse about tit . Ie from out position instead of in position. Will have to re check from fully clockwise. Tomorrow
I'm a stone heavier with riding gear. I wrote the settings down in the same manner as they are written in the manual. Alpha seem to like using quarter turns in their notes. Tiz still a 'Black Art' suspension settings and is always open to personal interpretation.
Most places will turn everything to maximum and then wind back to the setting that is required What type of riding did you say sinewave? If you said fast road that will be a lot of difference for starters let alone the weight difference
I mean I think alpha have wrote the settings from fully out (anti clock ) instead of from fully clockwise winding out . That would probably make it near sine waves I reckon. Did feel more confident cornering afterwards and noticed I was getting more travel on the front forks as I have a matching orange cable tie on them
That looks about the same travel as I've got , dunno if that's about right . Shoulda used a black cable tie on that one sine wave
Dunno about writing the settings down Stevie, as John only lives a mile and a half from me it's not a major hassle to pop up and get him to fettle if necessary, the important thing is that your bike feels better and more rideable after he's done the black magic bit. I don't understand enough about the physics of suspension to have a foggy about how he does it, but I appreciate the skill of someone who can twiddle here and there and make such a difference. He's stuck his prices up by a fiver though from last year!
the settings are very similar if you look. both are from fully closed (clockwise).just multiply jay's by 4,as yours are set at 1/4 intervals,and jays as full turns. not looked at all of tem,but they are quite close.
Posted up about this recently, thanks to Sinewaves generosity of posting his settings up, applied to my 2014, I am lighter full kit up by about 2 stone, but they work really well, I am seeing similar fork travel as the pics posted up, but for fast road riding its a very good setup, may still try a little more on the front preload, the bike is much better at absorbing fork travel when going over undulations, and the back tyre is pushing harder into the ground with a bigger contact patch when getting on the power. Gives real confidence in wet and dry conditions over a wide range of surface conditions.
The settings don't look that different except for Sinewave's compression setting which is very close to being fully soft? I'm a lot lighter so I ended up putting a softer spring on the front and my setting which were done by Phil Crowe Racing were Comp 4 from hard and Reb 4.5 from hard Pre load 5 from soft. Rear was left as stock but with next to no preload. The bike still does crash over some bumps but I think I need a softer rear shock spring. Any adjustments made on compression on these BPFs does have an effect on rebound and visa versa so it does make it difficult to just adjust one without the other. I believe the new generation BPFs have rebound in one fork leg and compression in the other - go to make it easier to setup. Still once you have your base settings it's easy enough to try a little fine tuning.
Front fork travel looks fairly similar to mine if not a bit more. Mine isnt BPF but im using Ktech 25mm SSK kit and the front end feels awesome. (race only ofcourse)
7 preload rear isn't too much for the road especially ?? What kind of free sag do you have ? Mine set at 4 ( std ) i have 12 , on 5 i ve 8mm. The std spring is progressive from 11 to 12kg.
Loads better now Lammy , thought it was ok before but now it gives me more confidence cornering. Well worth £35
