Looking for suspension options!

Beresh21

Beresh21

Member
Hey everyone,

I am curious if anyone happens to know a reputable shop where I can take my 2015 R6 to get dialed in? I am located 30 minutes south of Pittsburgh, PA and would totally travel to have my bike serviced by someone who knows what they're doing. The suspension is currently stock and I am wondering if its even worth it to purchase a re-valve kit?
 
I'm also in Pittsburgh, and couldn't find anybody local to do mine. I ended up going to Kenny @ MRP. He did new valves and springs, along with adjustments when I picked the bike up.

It's worth the drive there, unless you want to remove your shock and forks and ship them.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
 
Beresh21 said:
Hey everyone,

I am curious if anyone happens to know a reputable shop where I can take my 2015 R6 to get dialed in? I am located 30 minutes south of Pittsburgh, PA and would totally travel to have my bike serviced by someone who knows what they're doing. The suspension is currently stock and I am wondering if its even worth it to purchase a re-valve kit?
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Beresh, wondering where you're at. Probably very very very close to me.

Anyway, I've not really found anybody who is local. Typically most of us send ours out. Removing and shipping is very easy. And with the 2015 R6, setting the fork height and knowing the correct rear shock length is also not a mystery.

I personally use - and strongly recommend - Jon Tyus at CTR Performance. https://www.facebook.com/ctrsuspensions1/ Can't say enough good things about Jon.

Others use Thermosman, http://www.thermosman.com and over to the east in PA, Big Kaley is a choice. If you need some help, feel free to reach out. I might even have a packing box you could use.....
 
Since the season is right around the corner I feel like it would be in my best interest to tune the stock suspension so I'm getting the most out of it (if anything at all). I will ship everything out to be upgraded all together once the season winds down.

@wmhjr I am located right in Washington, PA near Trinity High School. Yourself?

Once again, thank you for all the input. I really appreciate it.
 
Beresh21, I'm not at all far. Peters Township, very near Trax Farms. Coincidentally, for a short time years ago I lived on Nokomis Drive, directly across from Trinity HS.

Even for stock suspension, having no idea what your weight/riding skill is you very well may still need different springs at a minimum. If it's just springs, you could try Barnes Brothers down in Canonsburg. That being said, while I love those guys and that shop, I wouldn't necessarily call that a suspension shop and you might have just as much invested there as you would in shipping your stuff out. If you're not talking about changing springs, then there really isn't any reason to send/take it anywhere. Then it's just setting preload, compression and damping (if possible) on the suspension you have, which can be done at the track by many of our supporting vendors depending on the particular weekend. Obviously, you can only tune what you have within the range that the springs and oil level give you to start with, so if you're 250lbs and have stock suspension including springs, there isn't much that can be done.
 
I’m new to this but I read a post by a CR that really made me realize how important suspension is on a track bike. Yeah it’s relative to how hard your going to push it how much it comes into play but it’s all about traction. We want the tires to work to the best of their ability and without proper suspension set up they won’t. Or maybe I just read it wrong. But I’m picking up and installing my suspension on Saturday that’s been set up for how much I weigh and how I ride. Hopefully those settings will need some adjusting during the season.
 
Ron, you didn't read it wrong.

The suspension on the bike has two purposes - and neither of them are to make the bike ride smoother on the track for your comfort or convenience.

First and foremost, the suspension is mainly focused on managing leverage, mass, etc to allow the tires to have consistent and maximum performance relative to the track surface. While you're negotiating braking, turns, imperfections in the track, etc - you want to minimize the sidewall deflection and distortion of the tires to allow for a smooth consistent contact patch between the tire and the track. The second thing (which is related) is to create the optimal geometry in terms of front fork rake, etc (by compression of the forks and therefore shortening them) to manage the compromise between agility and stability. Agility at turn-in, and stability on exit just to generalize. (an Edit here: When I say minimize the sidewall deflection and distortion, I really meant minimize changes once you've set the contact patch, and maintaining the RIGHT deflection. You DO want to deflect that sidewall to allow for a larger contact patch - you just want to smoothly create that larger patch and then maintain it until you're smoothly on the gas at or just after the apex to the exit - rather than crushing it, releasing it, and changing it again)

Just like how as you start on the track, you can drop seconds per lap as a result of better technique, but the faster you get it becomes harder and harder, and you're fighting for tenths of a second per lap - suspension is similar. Ignoring rear wheel traction in a straight line for a moment - as you start out suspension that's just in the right ballpark in terms of spring rate is usually more than enough, but as you begin to improve your technique and be more aggressive on trail braking (or braking in general), and exits, the more accurate that suspension should be and the more difference you'll see - particularly with tire wear.

Front and rear springs set the overall range that you can adjust the suspension. You can't exceed via valving, rebound, preload or compression what the spring itself can do. You can only fine tune in the range of that spring.

Let's make it simple. For probably most track riders - certainly everybody in N group and probably most people at least in I group to start with, OEM suspension on modern bikes with correct springs and adjustment is more than good enough. If you're 160lbs, OEM springs are good enough. The harder you ride, and the bigger you are, the more likely it is IMHO that you'll see any need for the fancy stuff - saying this even though myself and most of my friends all have the fancy stuff. But without the spring rate being in the right ballpark, what can happen is that you run out of suspension, and the sidewall of your tire becomes your suspension. A set of springs is pretty inexpensive - you'll probably save that price in rear tires alone.
 
I've used a bunch of places with success (Race-Tech, Traxxion, etc.) but all of my stuff now goes to Thermosman. He's one of a kind.
 
wmhjr said:
Beresh21, I'm not at all far. Peters Township, very near Trax Farms. Coincidentally, for a short time years ago I lived on Nokomis Drive, directly across from Trinity HS.

Even for stock suspension, having no idea what your weight/riding skill is you very well may still need different springs at a minimum. If it's just springs, you could try Barnes Brothers down in Canonsburg. That being said, while I love those guys and that shop, I wouldn't necessarily call that a suspension shop and you might have just as much invested there as you would in shipping your stuff out. If you're not talking about changing springs, then there really isn't any reason to send/take it anywhere. Then it's just setting preload, compression and damping (if possible) on the suspension you have, which can be done at the track by many of our supporting vendors depending on the particular weekend. Obviously, you can only tune what you have within the range that the springs and oil level give you to start with, so if you're 250lbs and have stock suspension including springs, there isn't much that can be done.
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They outsource their suspension services to DEK out of Bethel Park, if your just taking respringing, they’ll do fine then as Bill stated have mdm set the sag and clickers for you. At the track it’s a great investment.

West Finley PA here 20 minutes west of you.
 
tdelegram said:
They outsource their suspension services to DEK out of Bethel Park, if your just taking respringing, they’ll do fine then as Bill stated have mdm set the sag and clickers for you. At the track it’s a great investment.

West Finley PA here 20 minutes west of you.
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Tom, I didn't realize that. Let me just say that I've had less than optimal experience with DEK. I used them with a set of Racetech cartridges based on recommendations from Bohn and Racetech. I had very little time by the time I got them back so just bolted them on the bike as I was headed to Livengood in Atlanta enroute to Jennings. Livengood had to completely rip the forks apart and rebuild them. He personally spent hours fixing what DEK did, and kept the shop open for me until 11pm to get things done (which is another reason I'm a big Livengood fan). It's not that they were just "off" - they just didn't work - period. I'm a very big fan of Barnes Brothers - I am not a fan of DEK and won't be using them ever again.
 
wmhjr said:
Tom, I didn't realize that. Let me just say that I've had less than optimal experience with DEK. I used them with a set of Racetech cartridges based on recommendations from Bohn and Racetech. I had very little time by the time I got them back so just bolted them on the bike as I was headed to Livengood in Atlanta enroute to Jennings. Livengood had to completely rip the forks apart and rebuild them. He personally spent hours fixing what DEK did, and kept the shop open for me until 11pm to get things done (which is another reason I'm a big Livengood fan). It's not that they were just "off" - they just didn't work - period. I'm a very big fan of Barnes Brothers - I am not a fan of DEK and won't be using them ever again.
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For spring changes they should be fine for valving on the street I would agree, in the dirt they know their stuff.
 
Yeah Tom, I got the impression they know their way around the dirt. For springs they may be OK, but just for springs there are other options - including doing it yourself. But when a shop screws up as bad as they did and shoves stuff out the door either having no clue that it's completely broken, or just wanting to get rid of it, it's an indication of quality (or lack thereof) to me - so I just stay away completely. I honestly don't know which answer about those forks would be worse. That they had no clue that the forks just didn't compress and rebound AT ALL - or that they did but didn't care.
 
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