|  | Topic : Lowering the bird |  |
| | | Thatch | | Thor |  |  | | Reg. Date | : | 24/06/2009 | | Posts | : | 3,655 | | Location | : | Savannah, GA, United States |
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| | Posted : 01 Apr 2010 - 18:12 Post title : Lowering the bird | | | There has been much discussion on lowering the bird. Seems most of us want to close the gap between the fender and rear tire but there are lots of folks that are concerned about clearance. In another thread on modding the topic came up and I created an illustration to figure out realistically what the impact of putting 1.5" lowering shocks would be on the bird. Since it was well into the other discussion before I posted the picture I thought I would repost the information here.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Everything here is to scale (10x). What I did was get the actual measurements, figured out a shock 1.5" shorter than stock rotated it into position which created a 1.3" drop at the top eye of the shock (only point we care about). I then rotated the main body of the bike using the front axle as the rotation point (as this is the point that will remain constant). I linked the current footpeg height to the frame during rotation to the lowered position and then took new measurements. Clear as mud?
So, the red indicates the original position, the blue is the lowered position. Because of the feet forward position the footpeg is close to the rotation point which means that while you get a 1.5" drop (1.3" actually) you end up with only a half inch drop in the peg height. Add to that that you have more than a half inch that you can grind off those hero pegs and you can easily retain sock clearance. (I plan on getting new pegs so it's no issue for me) Also note that I drew in the new fender height as well. It should make for a nice improvement. Oh, and seat height goes down to 26.3" in case you wanted to know (though that's obvious I suppose)
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| | | Birdy68 | | Thor | |  | | Reg. Date | : | 16/07/2009 | | Posts | : | 3,352 | | Location | : | Bad Zurzach, Aargau, Switzerland |
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| | Posted : 01 Apr 2010 - 19:28 Post title : Re: Lowering the bird (Re: Thatch) | | | 
PLUS.... If the progressive shocks are firmer, you wont sag in the corners! 
| Birdy68
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Leave the pork pies for now - get the sausage rolls while they're hot!
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more info at Fuelly.com
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| | | Thatch | | Thor | | | | Reg. Date | : | 24/06/2009 | | Posts | : | 3,655 | | Location | : | Savannah, GA, United States |
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| | Posted : 01 Apr 2010 - 19:34 Post title : Re: Lowering the bird (Re: Birdy68) | | | Exactly, but that's like real smart guy stuff, not draw pictures and pretend to be smart guy stuff. (like what I'm doing)
My hope is that the progressives will offer better control and dampening in a shorter travel space. If it holds my weight better than it won't sink down as much when I get on which could see a net increase in clearance. Impossible to know ahead of time (for me at least) but all things being equal and the shocks being 1.5" shorter we end up with a manageable half inch of decreased clearance. I can live with that.
| | Post edited by Thatch on 01 Apr 2010 - 21:56 |
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| | | zanetti2000 | | Set | |  | | Reg. Date | : | 12/05/2010 | | Posts | : | 64 | | Location | : | Plymouth, Vermont, United States |
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| | Posted : 12 May 2010 - 00:57 Post title : Re: Lowering the bird (Re: Birdy68) | | | Thanks for your work.
| "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm" - Winston Churchill
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| | | Buzzo | | Set | | | Reg. Date | : | 20/01/2010 | | Posts | : | 110 | | Location | : | Brisbane, Queensland, Australia |
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| | Posted : 12 May 2010 - 15:32 Post title : Re: Lowering the bird (Re: Birdy68) | | | Thanks Thatch.
I missed the original post and a picture is definitely worth a thousand words to me. As you know i'm one of the guys always worried about ground clearance and I don't scrape half as much as some of you guys. I think the bike looks a lot better lowered and I'm guessing the half inch lost at the pegs could be mostly made up by fittting better fork springs and setting them up properly. My bike sags 40 mm at the forks with just me sitting on it. I'd like to stick half inch longer shocks on the back for the clearance and because our roads are crap. But it'd look ridiculous. I hunted around to see if I could get 50 mm longer fork tubes. No idea how that would affect the handling and no luck anyway. So for me I'll probably go with standard length Hagons on the rear and get the front set up properly. I'll be interested how you like the end result.
Cheers Steve
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