Who Has Springs....

.......for an '08 TE610?

I'm looking for .52 fork springs and a 6.8 or 7.0 rear spring. Where are you guys getting your springs from???

Thanks.

Interesting, I'll give him another try. I had contacted him a couple of months ago, but he was trying to steer me to softer rates, so I just assumed he didn't know what he was doing. Maybe he just misunderstood me or I didn't convey the information correctly. Thanks for the info.

Springs are available from http://lt-racing.com/ or www.halls-cycles.com/ or many others. The springs you are looking for are an ideal rate for someone about 400 lbs so I assume you are that heavy! If not, the springs will be much too stiff as mentioned above.

From what I have been able to ascertain, the stock rates are .48 and 6.4 (the rear spring has a sticker with 6.4 on it). I am 51 years old, weigh a wee bit over 250 geared up and was an A racer back in the day. Admittedly, I'm kind of guessing on the rates, but have little experience with this particular bike. Currently I can't get the "race" sag set properly and the forks sag about 4.5 inches with me just sitting on the bike. If you have a good way of estimating spring rates I would love your suggestion. Also, I plan on installing a set of DirtBagz.

Based on your information, my estimates are 0.504 for the front and 6.0 for the rear. Of course the best way to get the numbers is to get your current "race sag" numbers and extropolate the new spring rates based on this. Curious as to the rear race sag numbers you got to warrent a 6.8 to 7 spring. 6.8 to 7 seems real stiff to me!

I am basing my estimates on what is currently on the bike, or what appears to be currently on the bike. The rear spring has a sticker with 6.4 on it. Some threads on some other sites have stated that these bikes had 6.4's on them stock. This seemed pretty stiff to me too. But when I attempt to set my race sag I have the rear spring cranked down to the point of impending coil binding and I still can only manage about 5.5 inches of race sag, and then I have no static sag. So, needless to say I am a bit confused.

Racetech has a pretty decent spring calculation chart, but they have no listing for an '08 TE610. The closest bike they have is an '10 TE630, which it appears is pretty close in weight and suspension components/geometry. Their site estimates I need a .52 front and a 6.1 rear. But there is where I get confused again as I am being told (and the sticker says) it already has a 6.4 on the rear.

Maybe the sticker is just some sort of routing/inventory sticker and has nothing to do with spring rate? People are just confusing it to mean 6.4? It certainly has me confused.

Can anyone here definitively state what the stock spring rates are on these bikes?

Stock springs for the 08 are 0.50 and 6.4. The number on the spring indicates # kg/mm so your spring is stock.
When I set up my TE630 ( I weigh 180lb) the race sag numbers indicated the rear spring was much too stiff. I went from the stock 6.4 to 5.4 kg/mm and the sag numbers were much better.
I am also at a loss as why your sag numbers are so high!

Your front stock spring rates are different that what my research has shown. The "people" supposedly in the know that I spoke with said the stock fork springs are .48 for the TE and .50 for the SM. But it looks as though the rear most likely is a 6.4. If I can nail that down, at least it gives me a starting point. Thanks.

How much preload do you have on the spring?

1.5" from spring to shock collar.

You should put the bike up on a stand. Back off the collar until the spring is free. Bring collar down until it touches the spring put a paint mark on the threads above the collar. Now add 10 to 15mm of preload to the spring. If you can not get sag numbers correct between the 10 to 15mm a new spring is needed. This seems like the part of setting sag everyone forgets.

This is exactly the procedure I follow and race sag wasn't even close. So I took it down to just before the point of coil bind and still don't have the correct sag numbers. I'm just trying to figure out as close as possible what spring rate I need to get the sag numbers close.

I used a little different procedure:
Turned spring collar until I got a race sag or unladen-loaded distance of 100mm (ideal is 90-100mm)
Checked static sag or bike on stand-sitting and it was 52mm (ideal is 25-35mm)
This was with the stock 6.4 kg/mm so clearly it was too stiff. Bought a 5.4 spring based on Racetech calculator and repeated setup.
Race sag 102mm
Static sag 35mm
Good to go!

For those of you that do some adventure type riding how do you decide the compromise between loaded and unloaded weight when setting up your suspension?

Majority of my bike use and most critical use of suspension is unloaded weight. But when I'm packed for a trip and have 70-90 lbs on the back I don't want to be bottoming the suspension on every pot hole and speed bump.

_

You can take note of settings either by mark or measurement and crank more preload on to compensate for the extra weight. I don't usually touch mine. I find that I ride a lot less agressively when carrying extra weight so bottoming is about the same.