South West Bikers | Motorcycle Forum

Would adjusting the rear suspension hight affect the tyre wear (chicken strips) of the front tyre? I know the effects on the handing, ie up on the back will usually mean the bike will drop into the corner more. But would it affect where the front tyre will grip, thus changing the wear Patten?

Ta

increasing the rear ride height will put more weight on the front - which could allow for more tyre wear (& possibly a different contact location), if you use the improved handling.

By increasing the rear preload you will raise the ride height of the bike and affectively change the geometry of the bike giving you quicker steering. In theory the extra weight tranfer towards the front of the bike will result in the front tyre wearing out quicker (altho in practise this is likely to be negligable), however this should also mean that you increase the life of the rear tyre. Alternatively u could say that reducing preload will increase the life of your front tyre as you bias the weight towards the rear of the bike, however u should be cautious of making any suspension changes in order to improve tyre wear, remember whilst cornering most of your grip comes from the front tyre.

As for the wear pattern this should depend more on your style of riding, some riders (including myself) tend to carry a lot of corner speed going into bends which pushes the front tyre a lot harder and so when u look at my tyre u will see i have only very small wimp lines on the front tyre. However in reality you should use the point and shoot (slow in fast out) method of riding for anything other than 125 and 250 two strokes and therefore push the front tyre far less.

thanks for your posts guys. ;)

The reson i ask is that on the rear i have no chicken strips but on the front i have huge ones! I then noticed that the person who owned the bike before me, had the rear preload hard and hi. So i got thinking if lowing it will change the bike and geometry to better use the front.

From experience, last year I jacked up the back end by 30 mm (New plates) and dropped the front by 5mm(thru the yokes). There was no difference that I could see in tyre wear but it did make it turn in quicker with better stability whilst over. It's a bitch in a str8 line at high (over 140) speed but I'm not into drag racing so I dont care.

I always had chicken strips on the front of my 16in wheel blade but never any on the back.

thanks tom.

when riding on the road it is normal and advisable for a fast rider to have chicken strips on the front, and for any sportsbike rider its a crime to have chicken strip on the rear

andrew wrote:when riding on the road it is normal and advisable for a fast rider to have chicken strips on the front, and for any sportsbike rider its a crime to have chicken strip on the rear

I disagree mate. We all ride within our own comfort zones. Sometimes people will have chicken strips. Theres no medals for having scrubbed tyres. Its potentially dangerous to rib someone for having chicken strips and cause them to ride outside their comfort zone. I dont wanna be all righteous dude but it could be dodgy to taunt certain types of rider.

I was getting a tad worried about this the other day actually. I've always had big 1 inch chicken stripes on the front tyre on all my prev bikes but on my Kwak I dont have any at all! it's going right onto the edge..

I do have a ride height adjustment on my rear shock, so maybe worth lowering that a little?

Buy a duke it comes with a ride hight adjuster bar

oh and adjustable rake on the front

Age

tomr6 wrote:
I disagree mate. We all ride within our own comfort zones. Sometimes people will have chicken strips. Theres no medals for having scrubbed tyres. Its potentially dangerous to rib someone for having chicken strips and cause them to ride outside their comfort zone. I dont wanna be all righteous dude but it could be dodgy to taunt certain types of rider.

you're absolutely right off course tom i was only joking, it really doesn't matter as long as people are enjoying riding their bikes - i'd never want anyone to try and ride beyond their abilities

andrew wrote:By increasing the rear preload you will raise the ride height of the bike and affectively change the geometry of the bike giving you quicker steering. In theory the extra weight tranfer towards the front of the bike will result in the front tyre wearing out quicker (altho in practise this is likely to be negligable), however this should also mean that you increase the life of the rear tyre. Alternatively u could say that reducing preload will increase the life of your front tyre as you bias the weight towards the rear of the bike, however u should be cautious of making any suspension changes in order to improve tyre wear, remember whilst cornering most of your grip comes from the front tyre.

Trueish Age, but assuming the preload is correct for the rider, the only way to raise the rear ride height is to lengthen the shock , change the ride height bar like you have on the duck or change the linkages (which will also affect the effective spring rate)

(sorry mate, I can never resist nit picking!)

Funny problem this though. Might be due to tyre pressures. I don't think the ride height will affect the chicken strips.

thats ok Jimbo !

I aint got any chicken strips


Age

The issue arises with different tyre manufacturers, profiles, side-wall heights, rim width's and diameters ... and this is most likely the real cause here .... bikes like the R6, if I remember correctly, came with /65 series tyres - which gives a much flatter profile and therefore you are much more likely to reach the edge. The fairyblade came with a 16" wheel, which seemed to give a much fatter tyre comparative to a 17".....
There is also an issue with width variance from front to rear - if you run a 120 front and a 120 rear, of similar diameters, they should both have broadly similar width chicken strips ... the greater the difference between the tyres, the greater the potential mis-match in chicken strip widths due to the differing profiles

The 190/50 michelin rear I had on previously actually measuerd over 200mm wide, but had very shallow, splayed, sidewalls and was a very tall tyre with a much greater rolling circumference than the Avon which preceeded it. It also took some effort to get to the edge at the rear though still had 15 - 20mm of untouched rubber on the front. The 190/55 supercorsa's on at the moment are actually narrow for a 190, have a much flatter, taller, sidewall, and are easy to get to the edge at the rear, but also have 10 - 15mm left at the front.