What is Motorcycle Suspension? How does Motorcycle Handling Impact Suspension Squat?
"A motorcycle suspension configuration comprises primarily two front telescopic tubes and a twin or single shock absorber swing arm mounted at the rear."
A motorcycle suspension configuration comprises primarily two front telescopic tubes and a twin or single shock absorber swing arm mounted at the rear. Nowadays, owing to its improved performance and sporty looking characteristics, a mono-shock or single shock absorber on the rear is favored in most motorcycles. The motorcycle suspension system mainly has two goals: to control stability and maintain balance during braking and, secondly, to provide support during bumps and uneven surfaces to the rider and pillion.
1. Front Suspension:
Conventional Telescopic Forks:
The most prevalent type of front suspension is telescopic forks. The setup is very basic and takes the form of long hydraulic tubes fitted internally with a coil. In a T-clamp, the top of these forks is attached to the motorcycle's frame whereas the other end is fitted to the axle of the front wheel. In the event of road flaws, the lower part of fork bodies slip up and down the fork tubes and thus absorb the vibrations. In order to ensure the texture of operation, the interior is filled with oil and is sealed inside with an oil seal.
Upside Down Forks (USD):
Inverted or upside-down forks are nothing like inverted-set traditional telescopic forks. In these, although the tubes are at the bottom, the slider bodies are at the top section. These are mostly used in high-end motorcycles now for a few days, as they lower the overall unsprung weight of the motorcycle alongside growing torsional rigidity, resulting in better handling.
Important Terminologies:
Preload Adjustment:
This relates to the system used for changing the original suspension angle for the weight of the motorcycle and the rider acting on it.
Fork Damping:
Because of the impact of reducing, minimizing, or stopping the oscillations, it is an influence between forks.
Brake Dive:
The additional pressure on the front wheel forces the front end of the bike to go lower as the brakes are applied, resulting in fork contraction. This drop-in fork length is known as the Brake Plunge.
2. Rear Suspension:
Previously, the rear suspension was not used in motorcycles and only front forks ensured the consistency of the ride. However, manufactures have been implementing rear suspension with the advent of technologies and are still in use today. The key elements of the rear suspension system are the swingarm and coil springs.
Swingarm:
A motorcycle swingarm can be considered to be a quadrilateral section of a motorcycle in which the shorter side is attached to the chassis of the motorcycle and the rear wheel axle around which the wheel spins is bolted on the other side. The swingarm is only available on one side on certain bikes and is considered a single-sided swingarm. Although it brings the convenience of separating the rear wheel without much effort, it raises the rear suspension's unsprung weight. That's why there is no traditional use of a single-sided swingarm. Two kinds of suspension are essentially used for a swingarm:
Twin shock absorbers:
It refers to two shock absorbers at the backside of a motorcycle, as the name implies. Firstly used in the 1970s and 80s off-road bikes, these offered an advantage of improved rear wheel movement because of which they were highly adopted.
Mono Shock Absorbers:
As time progressed, for several reasons, manufacturers decided to introduce mono-shock absorbers in their motorcycles. It was discovered after studies that mono shocks provided a lot better performance than traditional twin shock absorbers. A single shock absorber is attached to the motorcycle's frame from the swingarm in this configuration. It is not directly attached to the swingarm, but instead uses a connection that helps to provide the rear with an increasing degree of damping. In comparison, mono shocks more easily extract torque from the swingarm, have improved handling and reliability, and are simpler to modify than twin shock absorbers when only one unit is used.
How does Motorcycle Handling Impact Suspension Squat?
If a motorcycle were to squat down in the rear while you started to drive from a corner, you would attempt to steer into the turn and the bike would drift to the outside, taking the weight off the front, which would not steer as well as before. At the conclusion of the session, when you got into the pits, you can ask the crew chief for a solution.
In a correctly built motorcycle, the force that opposes squat comes specifically from the drive chain, which is not parallel to the central plane of the swingarm but at an angle to it. And an anti-squat force defines the tangent of that angle. When you learn that there is an adjustable swingarm pivot height for a certain sports bike, the feature is targeted at this problem.
You change the angle between the chain when it is close and the swingarm itself by changing the height of the pivot and therefore the drop angle of the swingarm, thus altering this anti-squat effect. You will propel out of the corner without squatting and pressing until the force is able to fully balance the weight change induced by acceleration.
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