Can excessive fork dive affect braking - Tiger 885

[nick crisp]

[quote author=sadlonelygit link=topic=17525.msg201968#msg201968 date=1435831496]
can excessive fork dive affect braking...............no
you have brake discs of a given size and a maximum amount of hydraulic pressure generated by the master cylinder.
what it will affect is the steering (change of trail/rake) and at max compression the ability to absorb a bump shock.
measure the amount of travel used with a cable tie around the fork, if you are using all the travel then either preload the spring or fit a firmer one until you have @15mm travel left after max compression.
but tbh they're a pig on stilts anyway :rollin

Makes sense fella.....just couldn't get it straight in  my head. Tend to do all my main braking before a corner and maybe adjust mid corner with rear brake, weight transfer or throttle so mullers those Fazer Thous in the twisties. [/quote]

You still get your braking done before committing, even with less dive, but with a well-controlled front set up, you can brake later, harder, and flip it in with everything working to it's optimum still. If you brake and get a lot of dive, and then if you have a low rate of rebound damping, the forks will spring out again when the main braking force is removed, so unsettling the bike, too much movement just as you want to turn in.  ???

Will check the amount of travel I use.

So let me have another stab at this  :rolleyes. Once at full compression, the suspension has no further ability to adjust to keep the tyre on the road, and this is where the tyre risks becoming excessively loaded for the available grip? And I think I get the rake/trail change thing too - compression effectively steepening the steering angle, much like dropping the yokes down the forks, to give quicker turn in. But it still needs more travel available to deal with any bumps etc. So it's a compromise between the two - you need some compression, but it needs to be controlled (damping, spring rate), both in total amount of travel, and rate of travel.

This suspension thing is confusing, but getting the idea that it's about the ability to adjust for different situations, so you can't generalise about one thing or the other. And you can't treat compression damping or too weak springs as an individual thing, but have to look at the whole operation of the various functions of the unit together. This is why I don't mess around with settings myself  :lol