The others
Gets the C-spanner out to tweak the Tracer’s ride
Softening Tracer’s suspension and new tyres for the KTM
I LOVE THE Yamaha Tracer 700; it’s well-made, honest and versatile. My only real criticism is its ride quality; it’s firm at best and painful at worst. It feels like the spring rate or the high-speed compression damping are too firm; small raised seams on motorway tarmac punch up into the butt and can catch you out. This is due to its crude suspension set-up, where compression and rebound damping can’t be separated to tweak the ride.
However, the rebound damping alone can be adjusted, so I decided to have a little play to see what I could achieve.
First things first; I needed to set the correct spring preload front and rear — it’s not worth even thinking about damping until this is right. The correct setting so the suspension works properly is that the bike should sag (compress the suspension) by 1/3 of its total travel with the rider sat on it, in normal riding gear. Less than that and the preload is too high and vice versa.
The manual states full travel is 130mm and 142mm front and rear, so the correct sag should be 43mm and 47mm respectively. I began at the front and with the bike on the centrestand, I fitted a tie-wrap around the fork leg, got the bike off the stand and sat on it. I then measured the sag, which was only 38mm, so I reduced the preload via the threaded adjuster on top of the fork and re-ran the test until the sag was the required 43mm.
The rear is slightly different. With the bike again on the centrestand, I measured the distance between the wheel spindle and the pannier rack. I took the bike off the stand and sat on it and had a helper (my son) take the same measurement. This came out at 39mm — again less than the 47mm ideal figure, indicating the preload was too high. I turned the stepped ring one notch and the sag now measured 45mm — close enough.
With the preload at the right settings, the suspension can work in the correct operating range and the force needed to get the spring moving is lower, meaning the ride quality feels softer to the rider. I also decided to loosen the damping off one click at the front and an equivalent amount at the rear – 1/4 of a turn.
For the road-test, I was sceptical whether I would feel such small changes. But I was wrong. Immediately it was clear that the Tracer had lost some of its sharpness — there was a woolly, detached feeling to its handling that hadn’t been there before. It felt like the tyre pressures were low but they weren't — I
checked them before leaving the workshop.
However, once on the open road, the ride quality was much nicer. It soaked up bumps and imperfections in the road much better, without trying to buck me off or cause pain. Both high and low-speed suspension inputs were handled much more effectively and the apparent loosening of the suspension didn’t seem to have an effect on the bike’s overall stability at speed, which I was a bit concerned about initially.
I’ve left the Tracer with these settings as, coming into winter, I’m not going to be riding the same way I was in the summer and I’d rather have more compliance in the suspension to allow the tyres to work better on cold, damp roads.
But I might go back up a little if the weather forecast looks nice…