• 4 Stroke Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Italy - About 1989 to 2014
    TE = 4st Enduro & TC = 4st Cross

  • Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

Feels wrong!!

Sven

Husqvarna
C Class
Hi. Only been dirt riding 18 months. '05 te250. I weigh 200 US pounds kitted up and am 5"10.

I'm looking for some help setting the clickers, sag etc. I did adjust the rear sag so the rear is slightly lower due to lack of confidence when I started riding. In the back of my mind I can't help feel I have affected the geometry. The front feels like it wants to wash out all the time. It's worth noting that the forks have been slid up to the last line thus the front is at it's lowest(although I have heard that you can go further until the clamp is at the point where the fork champhers in?). I would like to keep the front and rear as low as poss without affecting rake etc. I have not messed with anything else.

So can anyone start me off?
 
If you have the cash do yourself a favor and treat yourself to a LT-Racing suspension revalve. Amazing difference in control and handling. I thought the stock suspension on my 08 TXC450 was good. Then sent it to Les and WOW, bike was like a whole new ride, sucked up the bumps and handled WAY better. These newer bikes are super sensitive to adjustments / setup. It took me many bikes and many nasty ride to discover money spent on suspension is well worth it. Do it ASAP.
 
Sven-
sounds like you decreased sag and raised your fork legs- all with the thought that this will inspire confidence because your bike will be lower and you can use your legs more.

Your sag settings originally were probably closer to "correct" before you lowered the bike. SO YES, you have seriously messed with the geometry. For instance- your rear is lowered. think of a chopper with 6 foot forks: now try to turn that chopper around a tree and give gas- the front wheel washes out. That does not inspire confidence.

For NOW- I would go back to stock settings- clickers and normal sag parameters. I would put the fork legs to the stock height. Ride it and feel confident that your bike is predictable. Putting a foot down is a false sence of confidence. Cause the only time it helps is when you are going slow. Concentrate on balence and staying on the pegs. If you are standing you can't put a foot down. I am no expert of anything- but I am short and have learned that messing with the geometry only takes away from the bikes ability to do amazing things. Thus your ability to do amazing things.

Everyone uses different settings to us the geometry and suspension to their advantage in the type of riding they do most and their ability and speed definately effect this.

Just ride- then explore and study how all these settings and adjustments effect you and your ride. It will take awhile to determine what you can interprete needs adjusting. Right now you clearly can tell something is wrong with the adjustments you made- thats a start. Go back to the stock settings- they are a baseline for everyone.:thumbsup:
 
Sven;135042 said:
I would like to keep the front and rear as low as poss without affecting rake etc. I have not messed with anything else.

So can anyone start me off?

I am saying the above is impossible- without buying every adjustable product out there including tripple clamps- internally shortend suspension- excentric axels, etc.... and still you will have given up clearence and travel. It is hard enough to find the sweet spot of settings and adjustments without- adding another requirement that limits the ability to achieve the same.

You can have a little extra sag- or lower the suspension internally a little- but nothing drastic. Better to shave the seat. that said my bike has stock spec suspension and stock seat- I have made some adjustments- but nothing to lower the bike. I am 5'05"
 
I slid my forks tubes up in the clamps and added a little extra sag on the rear to get closer to the ground for a while ... No wash-out problems for me there ... And for bumping around slowly on trails, you should be OK because you are not really using too much of the suspension really till you get up some speed...

I'm far from a expert but I did set my bike via these groups semi~well and use it all over the place ... Are your forks really hard? They should dive down to some degree in corners and this will help turning and help with not washing out ...U might wanna let some air out of the tire also if you are running > 20lbs up there ... Some tires don't bite as well as others also ...

After continuing to ride in the tight stuff and my feet were still too short, I have just adapted my riding style ... 1) I ride better due to more seat time. 2) I pick and choose where I will put my feet down at ... better line selection and just try to ride smarter and seat time helps here .... 3) Clutch play is very important in not loosing UR momentum in tight spots ...
 
You need to set the sag correctly and leave the forks in the factory position and worry less about the bike seeming too tall. The less you put your feet down the better you will ride. Stand up as much as possible and stay neutral on the bike. These bikes turn excellent in stock form. When going into a corner try moving up on the seat and keeping your feet on the pegs if you can and you will find you can rail corners. Have fun and get as much seat time as possible. Soon enough you won't be worried about the bike being too tall.
 
Yep, standing and maintaining momentum helps greatly ... This is 'the' way to go but it takes time ...

If you are riding in places where U gotta do some dabbing, slide to the lowest point in the seat which is up around the gas tank ...then purposely try to compress the suspension with UR weight ... U can pick up a couple inches at least here ... Sometimes U gotta slide off the seat to get a foot down ... Then look at the trail ahead and pick the place where a rock \ root \ high ground or some thing can be used to place UR foot on IF you have to put your foot down ... Use the clutch as much as needed to help you go slow and still maintain UR momentum in the tight places ...

I've had big problems here on some of the trails and I've just forced my self to ride better by changing my riding style as needed n some places ... And if I gotta walk my bike through a section, I walk it through a section t protect the bike and my self ...

It takes lots of seat time to get good at this and @18 months, this is just UR second year ... watch videos and read and ride ... couple yrs, this will all be water under the bridge ...
 
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