Front suspension elements
74
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 operation as
well as the suspension characteristic. It is al-
lowed to have one or more blank spaces out
of the five spaces available for elastomers 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 sus-
pension 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 full suspension tricycle under
different conditions and changing loads as well
as on good and bad surfaces, a setup with a
progressive characteristic for the whole travel
is recommended to get a comfortable suspen-
sion under all conditions of use. The elastom-
ers 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 nr. 1
and nr. 2 which show the standard setups.
They feature moderate progression and in-
creased 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-
