Michelin Road 5

[Simonypvs]

Morning all,

I have been sorting the bike out after using it for around 2500 miles in various conditions. I have (controversially) removed the lamba sensor and fitted a resistor so the bike is not throwing up fault codes and carefully sorted out the slack on the throttle cables which has improved the throttle response no end

I have stiffened up the suspension and taken some of the rebound out of the rear so it is more compliant at speed and I also found the front a little soft so I increased the pre load at the front which made the bike behave better at speed.

I plonked on a set of Road 5's and this had further improved the bike, not so much at the rear but the front feels much more planted.

I dont think anyone will be disappointed if they fit a set of Road 5's when replacing their tyres.

Best

Simon

[John]

Originally Posted by Simonypvs

I also found the front a little soft so I increased the pre load at the front which made the bike behave better at speed.

Might be just your terminology, but be aware changing the front pre-load only alters the height of the front of the bike, it doesn't make the front suspension softer/harder.   Raising the front may give you more straight line stability (think a chopper style motorcycle as an extreme example), but like anything there is a downside in being more difficult and slower to turn into a corner.

A properly measured pre-load (rider sag) reflecting the riders weigh (both front and back) will always give the best handling result.  Doing it this way also gives a rule of thumb whether the bike is sprung suitable for the riders weight.  We don't need to general think about springs in a car because the car itself is so heavy.  In the case of a motorcycle the rider makes up around 1/3 of the total weigh the springs have to support.  No amount of adjustment will make an over/under sprung bike perform well.

Sorry to digress, back to Road 5 tires.

[Simonypvs]

This could be my lack of technical knowledge.

I set the static sag at about 35mm which after investigating the subject on the Web seems to be the general consensus. This involved winding down the adjusters on the forks (I am new to this!)

[Mike]

To the best of my knowledge don't worry so much about static sag , concentrate on rider sag ( when you're sat on bike ) to be about 50mm . Adjusting          pre-load won't affect the damping   

[John]

Originally Posted by Mike

To the best of my knowledge don't worry so much about static sag , concentrate on rider sag ( when you're sat on bike ) to be about 50mm . Adjusting          pre-load won't affect the damping

One of the problems is there is seemingly no universal consistent definition of the terms.   Race Tech will use 'race' and 'static' sag to mean the same thing (bike and rider), and use the term 'free' sag meaning just bike.

That's why I like the terms 'rider sag', and 'free sag'.   About as self-explanatory as your every going to get among all the confusion.

[zeta]

I have 6000 km behind in my MR5s and they look like they could go another 6000 km.
The MC police is using MR5 and Kawasaki. They had three Kawas at the MC Show in Helsinki last weekend.