Lowering the Yokes Gen 1

[Decoke Dave]

Any knowledgeable people out there know how much fork leg I can have showing through the top yoke on my Thou?  I have fitted dog bones to lower the rear and yes I am somewhat squat, short arsed, in stature!

[PieEater]

I think about 12mm - 15mm, much more and you'll risk the yoke hitting the mudguard before the forks bottom out.

[Gnasher]

Lift the fork tubes the same amount as you've lowered the rear from standard i.e. if you've lowered the rear by 25mm, do the same to the forks. It must be from standard settings to keep the rake/castor measurements correct. Just remember you'll lose ground clearance.

[PieEater]

If you want to find the maximum you can lower the yokes then I'd put a cable tie round one of the stanchions and try to get the forks to bottom out either by bouncing the front end up and down, or doing a few emergency brakes, or a combination of the both. Once you've found the point where the forks bottom out, theoretically you'd be able to lower the yokes to the top of the cable tie, but I'd personally leave some room for margin of error.

[Gnasher]

If you want to find the maximum you can lower the yokes then I'd put a cable tie round one of the stanchions and try to get the forks to bottom out either by bouncing the front end up and down, or doing a few emergency brakes, or a combination of the both. Once you've found the point where the forks bottom out, theoretically you'd be able to lower the yokes to the top of the cable tie, but I'd personally leave some room for margin of error.

Suspension travel length ie bottoming out. Has nothing to do with ride height, rake/castor which have a direct affect on steering and how the bike handles.

[Gaz66]

Any knowledgeable people out there know how much fork leg I can have showing through the top yoke on my Thou?  I have fitted dog bones to lower the rear and yes I am somewhat squat, short arsed, in stature!

Hi Dave.

Yamaha designed it so fork tops are to be flush with yoke for stability I suspect.
Dropping fork tubes thru yokes defo affects how my bike feels, can't say it's helped with ride height in any noticeable way, I'm still on tip toe when seated even after shaving the seat foam a tad on the edges, I'm obviously used to it now, but if I had to give an opinion on how it feels to me, it makes front end feel a tad nervous at low speed, makes the bike feels lighter as if on a 600, dropped my forks thru 10mm yrs ago when I upgrade to an R6 shock, left it at that & never tested any other height settings, bike sort of drops into a corner with no effort, feels a bit like bars are being pulled into the bend kinda, a bit unnatural to be fair, which feels all wrong especially after riding my VFR800 that has a neutral corner entry & goes round corners like it's on rails, to be fair bikes's still fairly stable at speed, don't remember how stable it was with the shitty OEM pogo stick shock & flush fork tops.
If I only ride the Fazer it doesn't bother me, but it doesn't handle any where near as good as my VFR800.

I'm running PR5's which I don't like at all, tyres choice also affect how a bike feels, get no road feedback at all, front end always feels skittish entering bends, had more front tyre slides than I care to remember, back on Pirellis when these shitty PR5's are done, by far the worst tyre I've wasted money on, dunno why folk bleat on about how good they are, rear wears fast, got no faith in em at, basically a shit tyre, I'll never buy Michelins again, fookin hate em.

Try it, see if it works for you, don't neglect the arse end, or you'll end up in the hedge bottom.

[PieEater]

If you want to find the maximum you can lower the yokes then I'd put a cable tie round one of the stanchions and try to get the forks to bottom out either by bouncing the front end up and down, or doing a few emergency brakes, or a combination of the both. Once you've found the point where the forks bottom out, theoretically you'd be able to lower the yokes to the top of the cable tie, but I'd personally leave some room for margin of error.

Suspension travel length ie bottoming out. Has nothing to do with ride height, rake/castor which have a direct affect on steering and how the bike handles.

Hey Gnasher,
Thanks for the reply — you make a fair point that ride height and fork travel are different things, and that changes to rake, trail, and suspension geometry have a more direct impact on handling.

Just to clarify though — my suggestion to use a cable tie wasn’t about trying to maintain stock geometry or copy Yamaha’s original setup. It’s simply a practical way to check how much fork leg is available before you risk running into clearance issues, like the mudguard hitting the lower triple under full compression. It’s more of a safety check than a geometry guide.

That said, I’ve definitely had positive results from adjusting ride height myself. I’ve tried both raising the rear and dropping the yokes slightly, and found it really sharpened up the handling and made the bike feel more responsive — so I’m all for experimenting and finding what works best for the individual rider.

If someone’s planning changes like this, I just think it’s worth confirming how much usable fork travel they’ve got, so they can make adjustments with confidence and avoid any surprises.

Appreciate the discussion — always good to have different viewpoints on this kind of thing.

[robbo]

Another minor consideration might be to consider a cut down side stand to restore a positive lean when in use. Also using the centrestand might require a fair bit of effort to allow it to lock in place.
Mine is the exact opposite with a 50mm jack up?