Other than using the factory standard settings for preload, compression and rebound F/R as per the manual, or a custom set up measuring sag per rider weight, etc, does anyone have a table of recommended settings by rider weight?
Ohlins Suspension Settings
Ed K
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here we are all aware of the politics. They have to have national equity in terms of races in the team. Anyway back to the SS.
Had a great ride out today with DOCSA Ducati owners club South Africa. Really pleased with my suspension settings, the road was bumpy but I didn't even flinch now the compression is softer. Guys that have ridden with me before mentioned I look much more comfortable at corner entry... So a big thumbs up to my settings.
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I have spent the last 2 days trieling my Touring setup and these are my thoughts. Smooth and floaty on straight good roads once the road gets rough she gets a little jumpy but the bumps are soft.when taking bends the bike feels heavier and a little dosile the front end seems to delay and keep a little compressed, but still very smooth. overall impression would be ( I don't think I would use this setting in its current form, it would need some tweaking. I have now set my suspension up for sport Touring and expect this setting to suite me better, I will give this a 2 day trial and then move onto the Sport/Race setting which I'm most interested in.
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Interestingly you have made your rear quite soft. My rear is 10 clicks softer from hardest. My front is 22 clicks from hardest - all in respect of compression, I have left the rebound at factory settings.
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Yeah I have set up 3 profiles which I will play with and adjust touring was meant to be soft ( which it is ) it is more of an excersize in getting to know how the bike reacts in the different profiles. My aim is to be able to have a few settings that I can dial in depending on the Conditions. It's just as important for me to recognise what doesn't work as what does.
Please trust my comments are intended to help .....
Your matrix of settings has what seems a major logic 'flaw' (can't think of a more appropriate word).
Rear Rebound: According to your table, the more 'sporty' the ride the softer (meaning faster rebound speed) you are setting rear rebound. This is counter to conventional wisdom that it should be the opposite way. You want more clicks in 'touring mode' which gives a faster rebound speed to enable the suspension to follow the poor road surfaces encountered. On a relatively smooth race track you run less 'clicks' to give a slower rebound speed (not too slow) to give a firmer more controlled feeling in corners.
My suggestion: The factory settings in the same order as your table are 12, 14, 16, 6. Make the starting point for 'touring' the factory settings +4. That would give 16, 18, 20, 10. That should give a quite soft ride over poor roads. If it doesn't give them all a couple more 'clicks'. Now in this order ......
1. tightening up (on click at a time) the rear rebound on bad roads till the ride starts to get rough. Back it off to the last acceptable setting.
2. repeat step 1 for the front rebound
3. now bring up the rear compression till the ride gets rough on bad roads, back off till acceptable
4. repeat step 3 for front compression.
Don't try and do all adjustments in quick order. Do one at a time in the above order, and ride for a while at each step to test your new setting. Ride with this setting for a while, getting this feeling locked into your brain. Micro adjust as necessary but give each change a decent test. If you constantly adjust back and forth you'll just get totally confused. There's you 'touring mode' set.
For 'sport-touring' just tighten up front and rear rebound 1 or 2 clicks to slow rebound speed. That's all that should be necessary.
For track, further adjust 'sport-touring' by increasing compression (screw in) 1 or 2 clicks. Maybe an additional 1 click of rear rebound (but be aware excessively slow rebound is probably one of the biggest mistakes people learning to adjust suspension make).
Good Luck...
P.S. On a high performance shock, 1 click of adjustment should be a VERY noticeable amount. On the 22 scale of adjustment on my Wilber rear shock 1 click on either rebound, high speed compression, or low speed compression is the difference between night/day. BUT ..... it will only be like that if the other adjustments are set correctly. If other settings are all over the shop, then you can twist clickers till the 'cows come home' not observing any difference (because something else is actually causing the ride issue).
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Ok Day 1 out of my 2 day trial on setting 2 (Already digested setting 1 which will be scraped) And wow Now I have a baseline and something to work. It feels almost perfect for My ride to and from work. (I say almost perfect because I will now play with clicks 1 at a time and feel the positive and negative effects) So my named sport touring setting will definitely become a setting :grin2:
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Hey I find that very insulting here in oz we don't read at all we look with our eyes and our brain tells us the correct thing.. reading is just for those with out brains hahaha
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Remember guys all settings will be depending on your weight , are we all mentioning our weights with settings to give others an idea
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Ah I see what I did there I have been using 12 14 14 6 today and its awesome for my day to day ride Its that bloody clockwise anticlockwise reference in the manual that has thrown me. anyway I'm making headway in the right directionPlease trust my comments are intended to help .....
Your matrix of settings has what seems a major logic 'flaw' (can't think of a more appropriate word).
![Image]()
Rear Rebound: According to your table, the more 'sporty' the ride the softer (meaning faster rebound speed) you are setting rear rebound. This is counter to conventional wisdom that it should be the opposite way. You want more clicks in 'touring mode' which gives a faster rebound speed to enable the suspension to follow the poor road surfaces encountered. On a relatively smooth race track you run less 'clicks' to give a slower rebound speed (not too slow) to give a firmer more controlled feeling in corners.
My suggestion: The factory settings in the same order as your table are 12, 14, 16, 6. Make the starting point for 'touring' the factory settings +4. That would give 16, 18, 20, 10. That should give a quite soft ride over poor roads. If it doesn't give them all a couple more 'clicks'. Now in this order ......
1. tightening up (on click at a time) the rear rebound on bad roads till the ride starts to get rough. Back it off to the last acceptable setting.
2. repeat step 1 for the front rebound
3. now bring up the rear compression till the ride gets rough on bad roads, back off till acceptable
4. repeat step 3 for front compression.
Don't try and do all adjustments in quick order. Do one at a time in the above order, and ride for a while at each step to test your new setting. Ride with this setting for a while, getting this feeling locked into your brain. Micro adjust as necessary but give each change a decent test. If you constantly adjust back and forth you'll just get totally confused. There's you 'touring mode' set.
For 'sport-touring' just tighten up front and rear rebound 1 or 2 clicks to slow rebound speed. That's all that should be necessary.
For track, further adjust 'sport-touring' by increasing compression (screw in) 1 or 2 clicks. Maybe an additional 1 click of rear rebound (but be aware excessively slow rebound is probably one of the biggest mistakes people learning to adjust suspension make).
Good Luck...
P.S. On a high performance shock, 1 click of adjustment should be a VERY noticeable amount. On the 22 scale of adjustment on my Wilber rear shock 1 click on either rebound, high speed compression, or low speed compression is the difference between night/day. BUT ..... it will only be like that if the other adjustments are set correctly. If other settings are all over the shop, then you can twist clickers till the 'cows come home' not observing any difference (because something else is actually causing the ride issue).
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@John So lets break this down As per Diagram (in my book Fig 154)this shows that knob 3 (Rebound) turns upward towards S Soft,(meaning faster rebound speed) and Down towards H hard,(meaning slower rebound speed) Starting from 0 clicks all the Way up, each click down towards H is hardening the rebound making it slower. Yes ?Please trust my comments are intended to help .....
Your matrix of settings has what seems a major logic 'flaw' (can't think of a more appropriate word).
![Image]()
Rear Rebound: According to your table, the more 'sporty' the ride the softer (meaning faster rebound speed) you are setting rear rebound. This is counter to conventional wisdom that it should be the opposite way. You want more clicks in 'touring mode' which gives a faster rebound speed to enable the suspension to follow the poor road surfaces encountered. On a relatively smooth race track you run less 'clicks' to give a slower rebound speed (not too slow) to give a firmer more controlled feeling in corners.
My suggestion: The factory settings in the same order as your table are 12, 14, 16, 6. Make the starting point for 'touring' the factory settings +4. That would give 16, 18, 20, 10. That should give a quite soft ride over poor roads. If it doesn't give them all a couple more 'clicks'. Now in this order ......
1. tightening up (on click at a time) the rear rebound on bad roads till the ride starts to get rough. Back it off to the last acceptable setting.
2. repeat step 1 for the front rebound
3. now bring up the rear compression till the ride gets rough on bad roads, back off till acceptable
4. repeat step 3 for front compression.
Don't try and do all adjustments in quick order. Do one at a time in the above order, and ride for a while at each step to test your new setting. Ride with this setting for a while, getting this feeling locked into your brain. Micro adjust as necessary but give each change a decent test. If you constantly adjust back and forth you'll just get totally confused. There's you 'touring mode' set.
For 'sport-touring' just tighten up front and rear rebound 1 or 2 clicks to slow rebound speed. That's all that should be necessary.
For track, further adjust 'sport-touring' by increasing compression (screw in) 1 or 2 clicks. Maybe an additional 1 click of rear rebound (but be aware excessively slow rebound is probably one of the biggest mistakes people learning to adjust suspension make).
Good Luck...
P.S. On a high performance shock, 1 click of adjustment should be a VERY noticeable amount. On the 22 scale of adjustment on my Wilber rear shock 1 click on either rebound, high speed compression, or low speed compression is the difference between night/day. BUT ..... it will only be like that if the other adjustments are set correctly. If other settings are all over the shop, then you can twist clickers till the 'cows come home' not observing any difference (because something else is actually causing the ride issue).
Therefore as the clicks are going from 12 - 14 - 18 is this not in the correct direction ? towards a sport setting i.e hardening/ slowing the rebound in tern increasing the feel of the road surface. Yes ? If I am not mistaken we both agreed and understand the principles. therefore either you or I are getting mixed up with the direction of clicks or the starting point (i.e is your starting point all the way to the Bottom towards H as mine is all the way up towards S)
What do you think
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WTF !!!!!!! now I'm not sure of the starting point (0 clicks) on the rear rebound . Can I have anyone's Thoughts is o clicks all the way back down towards H or all the way Up towards S I have been using 0 as all the way up towards S and my clicks start down. please help.It's still Fig 163 on the downloaded owners manual from the Ducati Australia site. Anyhow, look at the diagram. The rebound adjuster is on the 'bottom' of the shock in the normally expected location (I've just realized why they have written what they have). However because they have mounted the shock with the 'bottom' of the shock slightly higher than the 'top' the written description of which way to turn it is pedantically correct but sure to confuse most people. So forget the instructions.
The rebound adjuster sits on the 'bottom' of the shock, think of it as the bottom as if the shock was positioned vertically. It is a right hand thread, you screw it into the 'bottom' of the shock (in a clockwise direction) to establish the zero position. That's all you have to remember.
OK, with that confusion hopefully cleared up...... "Starting from 0 clicks all the Way up, each click down towards H is hardening the rebound making it slower. Yes ?" No. Zero clicks should means you've screwed the adjuster (rebound or compression the same) all the way in. In this position damping will be at its strongest, and in the case of rebound this will mean the slowest speed possible with the current internal valving. Each click you unscrew the adjuster will increase rebound speed (a softer ride).
Perhaps if I explain how the adjusters work it might help. There is a shim stack which controls most of the damping. It is just a pile of thin washers of various thickness that flex as the oil gets forced through them. This pile of shims can be adjusted, but requires the dismantling of the suspension. So to allow some limited easy external adjustment a bypass circuit is included. This is nothing other than a glorified hole into which screws a tapered needle (the inside end of the adjuster). Screwing the adjuster all the way in completely blocks off the bypass circuit. So all the oil has to flow through the shim stack, making it the 'strongest' damping possible. Unscrewing the adjuster progressively opens up the bypass hole allowing more and more oil to 'bypass' the shim stack and so gives less dampening. Pretty basic actually.
In my long post explained, the rebound adjuster is a right-hand thread. Screw it into the shock till it lightly bottoms, that is your zero position.
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Thanks mate i have it clear now :smile2:
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I've read this all with interest. John's approach is the conventional method, and I would start by setting the spring preload first, then the damping in the order he suggests.
But I can see where the confusion starts with the rear shock though with use of terms, 'In' & 'Out' when the diagram in fig163 shows H & S as "Up" & "Down", but only for knob 3...so which is "In"? Up or Down? Also 'Clockwise' 'Counter clockwise' may be confusing terms if you visualize the knob as a clock face and imagine yourself looking at the knob head on, which of course you can't actually do with it on the bike.
So, it would have been simpler to say, "While facing the rear shock from the left side of the motorcycle turn knob 1 UP to stiffen compression, and Down to soften compression, while turning knob 3 Down to stiffen rebound, and Up to soften rebound"
The principle is the same on either end of the bike "In"(or Closed) is Hard (ride) or Slow (damping), but the direction varies on the rear shock. Hard (i.e. 'In' or 'Closed') is always the starting point for counting 'clicks'. So attention simply needs to be paid as to which way the adjuster moves to Hard.
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Don't think about, just...
"While facing the rear shock from the left side of the motorcycle turn knob 1 UP to stiffen compression, and Down to soften compression, while turning knob 3 Down to stiffen rebound, and Up to soften rebound"
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Or just walk around other side and it's then up to to stiffen.. sometimes manuals confuse the fcuk out of people . Manual should of just read in to stiffen then no confusion..
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Sag
However, we've missed the most critical suspension adjustment in this discussion: Sag. The result of spring rate combined with Spring Preload setting.
Actually, due to mangled fingers, for me to move the rear adjusters I have to be on the left (i.e. port) side with the seat removed, and it helps to loosen the 'mudflap' to gain better movement on the compression adjuster. Then it's quite simple: Up or Down. :wink2:
However, we've missed the most critical suspension adjustment in this discussion: Sag. The result of spring rate combined with Spring Preload setting.
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I haven’t watched the videos yet, so I may be repeating this. However, I don’t recall any mention of Spring Preload yet in this thread, and in my experience that should be the starting point.
Chasing the damping w/o first setting the static sag is not going to solve handling issues and ride quality. It’s like ‘tuning’ around an electrical problem. So I decided to take a few minutes to see where my bike was set.
I discovered that my front spring preload adjusters were set fully relaxed (counter clockwise) by either the factory or the dealer. Now, you might expect this to give a plush ride, but in fact the front end has been extremely harsh, almost rigid, with factory damping settings. Hmm, this points to possibly a loose rear end setting too, as it seems unlikely that Ducati slipped a set of heavy springs into my bike.
So, I’m waiting for my lovely assistant to help with sag measurements. If anyone has done this how about sharing your findings.
Chasing the damping w/o first setting the static sag is not going to solve handling issues and ride quality. It’s like ‘tuning’ around an electrical problem. So I decided to take a few minutes to see where my bike was set.
I discovered that my front spring preload adjusters were set fully relaxed (counter clockwise) by either the factory or the dealer. Now, you might expect this to give a plush ride, but in fact the front end has been extremely harsh, almost rigid, with factory damping settings. Hmm, this points to possibly a loose rear end setting too, as it seems unlikely that Ducati slipped a set of heavy springs into my bike.
So, I’m waiting for my lovely assistant to help with sag measurements. If anyone has done this how about sharing your findings.
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