Front suspension elements
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The tuning of your suspension bases on the
choice of the steel spring according to your
usual load. The soft spring moves the area of
operation to low rider and luggage weight, the
hard spring to high rider and luggage weight.
The suspension characteristic is not affected
by choosing another steel spring with different
spring rate. Varying the number of elastomers
and their relation to the number of spacers
inside the steel spring changes the area of op-
eration as well as the suspension characteris-
tic. It is allowed to have one or more blank
spaces out of the five spaces available for elas-
tomers or spacers. In this case the load during
the first part of the travel is only taken by the
steel spring and the elastomers only affect the
suspension after the travel of the blank spaces
is used up.
Attention!
Do not install more
than two spacers in one strut, otherwise
the full suspension travel can not be
reached. Spacers should always be installed
at the top of the stack inside the spring to
give room for the screw in the top cap.
The setup must be similar in both suspen-
sion struts of your tricycle.
Attention!
The suspension must
be set up in a way that avoids permanent
bottoming out (a clearly recognizable
bumping into the end stops). Permanent
bottoming out may reduce the compo-
nents' life time.
If you use your tricycle under different condi-
tions and changing loads as well as on good
and bad surfaces, a setup with a progressive
characteristic for the whole travel is recom-
mended to get a comfortable suspension un-
der all conditions of use. The elastomers
support the steel spring from the beginning.
By changing the relation between the number
of elastomers and number of spacers, you can
influence the suspension characteristic and the
maximum force the strut can bear before it
bottoms out. Examples in the diagram are the
curves no. 1 and no. 2 which show the stand-
ard setups. They feature moderate progres-
sion and increased maximum load compared
to a single steel spring. (Setup: spacer-spacer-
elastomer-elastomer-elastomer)
Will your tricycle always face the same load
and only high quality roads, for example, you
may tune your suspension characteristic to a
more linear behaviour in the first two thirds
of travel and a high progression in the remain-
ing third. The linear part provides very high
comfort. The progression at the end prevents
