Suspension
52
HP
Velotechnik
The spring stiffness of the optional air shock
ROCKSHOX Monarch is set by adjusting the
air pressure.
The suspension is designed in a way that the
spring is compressed partly when you sit
down on your bicycle. This is called negative
suspension travel (or "sag") and it enables the
spring to expand on bumpy roads. (This is in
fact a definitely positive feature.) You should
choose a spring stiffness with which this nega-
tive suspension travel takes up around 30% of
the overall suspension travel. This value usual-
ly provides a very comfortable ride on your
suspended recumbent bicycle.
Adjusting to load
The luggage carrier of your recumbent bicycle
is mounted to the suspended part of the
frame. That way your luggage is also fully
suspended and it spares the material. Most
notably, even under heavy load the suspension
will compensate an uneven road much better
and quicker compared to a design where the
luggage carrier is mounted to the unsuspend-
ed parts, e.g. the rear swingarm.
Additional luggage changes the load on the
wheels and their suspension. The springs are
further compressed initially through the load
and there is less suspension travel for bumps
while riding. Your suspension will bottom out
more often.
The suspension of the front wheel is less
affected since luggage at the rear rack almost
only puts weight on the rear wheel. Only in
case of heavy luggage on the lowrider under
the seat there is an influence on the front
wheel.
In order to compensate the variations in the
load you can change the pre-load. For details
see the following chapter.
Theoretically adjusting the preload can com-
pensate for a load change of approx. 10 kg (23
lbs) at the rear wheel. In case of higher varia-
tions in the load you will have to exchange the
spring with a spring with different spring rate.
In practice you can often do without it: With
a suspension travel of 80 mm on the rear (and
60 mm on the front of full suspension bicycles
there is a lot of suspension travel for a touring
bicycle.
When you choose the spring rate to have the
full 80 mm at your disposal when your re-
cumbent is under maximum load, you will
have a somewhat smaller but still very com-
fortable suspension travel when you ride
without luggage.
The optional air shock R
OCK
S
HOX
Monarch
can be easily pumped up to compensate load
increases.
Choosing the spring stiffness of the suspen-
sion fork
Your suspension fork comes by default with a
standard spring that covers a wide range of
load and riding styles. If the spring stiffness
should not meet your requirements after
adjusting the preload or if the suspension
bottoms out too much, you can order a
spring with different spring stiffness through
your dealer and have it mounted there.
It is not important to exactly follow the rec-
ommended values for the negative travel,
rather follow your feeling how the bicycle
behaves during a ride, depending on the road
situation. While riding you should only seldom
feel the suspension bottoming out. However,
in case this never occurs the spring might be
to hard which means you don't use the total
suspension travel.
Suspension fork on Grasshopper fx and
Streetmachine Gte
The Streetmachine Gte or Grasshopper fx
come with telescopic suspension forks from
S
PINNER
. Please notice the manuals of the
respective suspension fork manufacturer that
are enclosed.