Stretch and Rake
Any bike can become a "long" chopper..., even an in-line four engine...yeah.
MRMC Thailand 2004
Once a while, it's good to stretch yerself...
Stretchin' since 1972 ...
posted by MRMC at 12:58 PM
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Any bike can become a "long" chopper..., even an in-line four engine...yeah. MRMC Thailand 2004 Once a while, it's good to stretch yerself... Stretchin' since 1972 ... 
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1 Comments:
Hi there,
thought I'd share some info on rake and trail for those "stretch: fanatics
Definition
Rake:
A motorcycle rake (frame neck angle) is the fork angle measured from an imaginary 90 degree line.
The rake of a bike has a direct influence on the trail.
Trail:
Trail is the distance between where the projected steering axis hits the ground and where a vertical line down from the center of the front axle hits the ground.
Rake has a big influence on how the bike handles at different speeds and under different riding conditions. Increasing rake will improve stability when riding in a straight line but an excessive rake can make bad handling in turns especially at low speed.
Too little or too much trail create handling problems:
Too litte trail
With negative or too little trail the bike will handle well at low speeds but will easily develop a dangerous wobble at high speed.
Normal Trail:
The trail should be between 2 and 6.5 inches so that the bike handles easily at both high and low speeds.
Too much Trail:
You will have trouble balancing the bike at low speeds and it will handle sluggishly at high speeds.
Using "raked" trees will increase the angle of the forks by 3 (or whatever) degrees.
This is NOT the same as adding rake because the steering axis doesn't change. The result is that trail is DECREASED as the contact patch of the tire moves closer to the steering axis. This is OK if you have too much trail and want to decrease it. BUT raked trees can result in negative trail.
Raked triple trees are really for use where the bike has a regular glide font end and a neck rake angle of 40 degrees or more. In these cases raked trees can reduce the trail to a shorter, more manageable, distance. However too much rake in the trees will result in too little trail.
Cheers
Spaceman
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