Throttle Stop Motorcycle Podcast: Exploring the Art of Suspension Tuning with Rob Cosment

Join us in this riveting episode of the Throttle Stop Motorcycle Podcast, proudly sponsored by Pandora's European Motorsports. This week, we're thrilled to host Rob Kozler, a renowned local suspension tuner from Moto Lab Dirt Bikes based in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee. Alongside our regular host Matt Welch, we dive deep into the world of motorcycle suspension tuning, exploring the nuanced artistry that transforms a good ride into a great one.

Rob shares his passion for suspension tuning, illustrating how a personalized approach can significantly enhance a rider's experience, whether they're tackling a challenging trail or coasting through an enduro race. He emphasizes the importance of direct customer interaction, moving away from generic, cookie-cutter solutions. Through engaging anecdotes and expert insights, Rob recounts his journey from being a motocross enthusiast captivated by the sport's dynamics to becoming a skilled suspension tuner respected in the industry.

Listeners will learn about the intricacies of setting up a motorcycle's suspension, including the critical role of chassis balance and the impact of rider posture. Rob also discusses the evolving world of electric motorcycles and how advancements in electronic suspension might shape the future of motorcycling.

Whether you're a seasoned racer or an avid trail rider, this episode offers valuable insights into optimizing your motorcycle for better performance and comfort. Tune in to discover how Rob Kozler and Moto Lab Dirt Bikes are setting new standards in suspension tuning, making every ride smoother and more enjoyable.

https://www.pandorasmotorsports.com/

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 Welcome to the Throttle Stop Motorcycle Podcast, sponsored by Pandora's European Motorsports. We are down just in today just because we didn't have enough seats, but today we've got Rob Cozler in with us and of course Matt Welch as usual. Good morning. Good morning.

 It's not always morning when they watch this. I don't know why they say good morning. Well it's morning for us. Afternoon, depending on when you watch it.

 Good day. Thanks for having us.

 Hey, I see you guys. Thanks for hosting. Appreciate all the pleasure to see you guys and stuck to be here today.

 Thanks for coming in and sitting out with us for a little bit. Oh yeah, most definitely. Yeah.

 Rob is with Moto Lab Dirt Bikes and he is a local suspension tuner here at a Soddy Daisy, Tennessee.



 I like to say Soddy Daisy because if you're not from the local area that sounds like a really funny name. For sure. Are you Soddy or are you Daisy?

 I'm technically Soddy, I suppose.

 There's a big difference. You can't tell someone from Soddy that they're living in Daisy because they get mad about that. For those who don't know, they were once two separate situations. Eventually we're incorporated together and there's apparently a feud about it. Not everybody was excited about that. No.



 So if you don't mind, introduce yourself. Who are you? What do you do? Sure.

 Yep. Rob Kallser, of course.



 And suspension tuning is really what we're all focused about. It's a small operation where you can reach a person in contact who is actually going to be working on your suspension.



 One of our main focuses is availability to connect with customers in a world that's often big box store and you're kind of left as a number. Or there's so many other filters and you can never connect with a person who is going to be looking at your information and transmitting that into settings that work for you.



 Yeah. And so you're not dealing with just a formula, a chart that tells you what to put in there. You're actually talking to the customer directly. Exactly. And you did some tuning for Matt as well.

 Yeah, I mean, I was going to say, I've experienced this firsthand and you always do a great job. And what I like about it is you'll take a mediocre rider and make them better me with good suspension, right? And I can call you up and I'm no different than anybody else. I can call you up and be like, "Hey, it's doing this. It's doing that." Whatever. What do you think? And it's not the cookie cutter, throw a set of valves in, you know, call it good. You're actually tuning. You're not just putting kits from XYZ brand in and calling it good. You're tuning suspension.

 Absolutely.

 Yeah. Sometimes good enough is good enough.



 I've talked to Rob before and whatever I bought my bike and he told me, "Hey, there's really nothing that you need to do at this point. Let's wait till we do the first service on the forks before we do anything major."



 And then I rode that bike for six hours and never did that. Yeah. It's a baseline. Yeah. You get a baselider and you have a suspension that's working well. You can kind of tune it with clickers. And I experienced this a few weekends ago, whenever I rode Matt's bike, which I haven't returned, by the way.



 And you're able to hook me up with clicker settings to kind of get it set for me as close as I could with Justin Prela and everything, because obviously we weighed very differently. And probably ride differently too, but yeah, so that was helpful.



 I was going to ask, how did you get into suspension? How did that get started?



 Yeah, I guess we'll kind of make the short of the long of it. I mean, it's just kind of a lifelong passion thing. I started as a very young man. I will never forget looking at kind of some books way back in the 80s. And my parents bought for me. And motocross setting, deep loon, dirt. And of course, it's just a cloud of smoke behind the bikes. And I remember turning the pages of those, just a very young man, three, four years old, and just being absolutely an Arab. Just kind of fell in love with that plane. And then, you know, my parents had bought me the young tri-zinger. 60 to three year olders. I remember those back in the day. And then, shortly followed by the PW 50.



 And, you know, that just lit the fire. And I fast forward. You're older than you look. I know.



 I appreciate that. Thank you. It was really cool, man. So in the mid 90s or so, three mutual friends kind of lived on the opposite sides of town.



 My buddy, Kyle Milne, at the time, he was racing GMCCs pretty regularly.



 And he was on Honda's back then.



 I can't remember. It was $250 or $450. It doesn't matter. But the point being is that, you know, the suspension was the limit. And at that point, you really didn't have a lot of options. Of course, there's some people who were doing suspension tuning and much was considered, you know, like a black card and a black box, so to speak. You know,



 just a lot of people didn't really have a ton of knowledge on it. Of course, he had race tech was on the scene, the really only person offering like aftermarket options and such.



 But yeah, that was so really, okay, let's just dive in this. And it's nothing that we can't figure out. And so that was what kind of sparked the interest. Fast forward, move into, you know, I've always been a mechanical person my entire life. You know, worked on cars for living and just decided to follow my passion. So that brought me out to Phoenix, Arizona. So it's a motorcycle mechanics institute and got some form of instruction there. And the cool thing about that was, is if you were willing to finish an extra credit project, that they would let you dive into anything. So yeah, some super cool instructors.



 So of course, you know, me having a little bit more of a heavier passion for the suspension. They allowed me to dive in and, you know, basically get some more hands on stuff that other people weren't really necessarily interested in.



 And then at the time I worked at a machine shop with two super cool mechanical engineers who both rode, were absolutely rippers too on bikes. So, you know, those guys were on to it.



 And then I was able to get hooked up with Alan over to Stilwell Performance. And I worked with those guys and worked for factory beta there for a while, wrenching with Max Gerstin and Cody Webb and stuff like that.

 That's kind of where I know that you came from. And that's kind of the first beginning I've ever heard. So it's nice to hear what happened before that and how you got there.

 Yeah, yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was a really good time. Got to watch a lot of the guys in the early days of Endurocross.



 Did some absolute sketchy practice areas and just telephone poles haphazardly laid out. It was pretty intense.

 Yeah, I mean, Endurocross is something that I've always really liked and thought I might enjoy doing. Now there's a lot of stuff out there that looks absolutely insane. I'm not jumping the doubles like they will. They're jumping doubles in its logs. Like you come short on that. I don't care how good your suspension is. You're going to get hurt.

 Oh, lots of scorpions. The feet were folding up over the head. Yeah, it was pretty intense.

 Yeah, so I mean, I'm not willing to do all that, but just doing the obstacle courses and things like that. That's like old school motorcross, what it used to be. And now you got all those supercross jumps and all that. So I'm doing all that. Yeah. What about you, Chattanooga?

 Yes, I was going to before touch on that feeling. I was just going to finish up on a couple of points there. There's a history and stuff like that. So by the way, I was actually meeting people through, you know, being out in Phoenix, of course, you know, met Max and his dad and all those guys. Working with a bunch of people at Stillwell. A couple of the athletes there. A lot of trials riders, you know, Louis Worsley and I'm trying to think of the other two brothers there. Big trials guys raced into her cross for a while. Mine's slipping. Oh, River Brothers. Yeah. Yeah, the Rivers, which I think that one of the brothers is actually local here now.

 Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Josh.



 Yeah. Just north of us up in Noodlewater, Cleveland or something. Yeah. Yeah. He just moved here.

 Yeah. Yeah. So I ended up getting, you know, I was looking for some additional work at that point and got hooked up with Dave Simon, who is probably one of the most brilliant dudes. I know as far as like, you know, technological advance motor wise, you know, I set my own speed records, did a lot of R&D for FMS. That's cool. So it was really cool getting to be able to work with Dave and still work with Dave to this day.



 And so we did a ton of R&D together, of course.

 If you know you're going to be going on a very flat, very straight course and there's only like little bitty pumps, like what do you do with suspension? Yeah. Is it just stiff or is it totally soft?



 Yeah, exactly. So low and stiffer.

 Yeah. I would think you'd want to hold the car down just like, you know, in my, you know, cup days, we were holding the back of the cars down at Daytona with, with rebound and all that. So yeah, you know, similar to that car down. Yeah.

 Yeah. And Arrow at that point too, you know, when you're, of course, he'd set that on a land speed record and you know, single cylinder 450 Honda.



 So Arrow is a big thing that, you know, of course, trying to achieve any type of speed record.

 Anyway, I didn't mean to throw you off.

 No worries. No, no, that was about it. And of course there's other stores along the way, but yeah, circling back around. So yeah, getting the Chattanooga.

 Yeah. Getting the Chattanooga. What's up?

 Yeah. So yeah, more than a race in Pennsylvania, Southwest from PA, which really kind of shaped riding and skill. I mean, I think that there's just about every type of train there and soil type as well. But anyway, you know, spent about a dozen years out in Arizona and yeah, my heart was definitely long ago.



 Longing to get back to the green and the trees and the water and the terrain, you know, I missed it for sure. So start searching around and ironically enough, it was the Western side of North Carolina.



 We'd stopped in a mountain bike shop and talked to a guy and his, where's he's like, well, have you checked out Tennessee? I said, yeah, a little bit. He's like, well listen, man, if I had to do it over again, he said be Chattanooga. So have you been there? Yeah. I just said, no, I haven't.



 He got to give it a, an honest try. I said, all right. So of course, you know, the, the motorcycle industry and you know, the off road community, it's what's the old saying what you're never more than three degrees from Kevin Bacon kind of thing. You know,



 three calls, right?



 You can pick up the phone and get ahold of someone very quickly who was regionally located and actually ended up one of the first couple of people I talked to was drew Dobbs and then will press and dad, actually Ted press and he was born to hard enduro. Yeah. Yeah. And so Ted's, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You know, Will's dad Ted, super, super good dude. And he's like, Hey man, come on down. He's like, you know, I'll show you around. He's like retired and, and met with him and check out the area and fell in love with it. And it was exactly, you know, we're looking for.

 I think one thing you left out though, I know that I haven't written with you personally. I know you have, but I hear you're a pretty fast guy. So you must have done some racing in between there.

 Oh, sure. Yeah. And it's, it's only really.



 You know, towards a kind of later years where I started more recent years, I should say later.



 Agent out already.



 That it just kind of sparked more of an interest. I think that motor cycle, you're riding for me in general has always been about fun. And so, you know, I think that that, you know, your vision and your definition of fun can change.



 And so whether it's just trail riding or hard and do hard and do or like shooting hill climbs with your buddies or whatever.



 Yeah. Just started to, of course, hang around with, you know, Brian Mercer a lot and he's a say double that loves it.

 Yeah, for sure.

 Loves a ride race, a bunch of different things.

 I have owned bikes after him. Yeah. Don't own bikes after him.



 He gets all the good out of him.

 350

 XCF that was his that we had like 50 hours on it and it's smoking.



 He's, he's riding a much of E mountain bikes now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's getting after it on bicycles.

 Are you going to start tuning that too?

 You know what? There's so many long story short and probably not at this point in time. Can you do that? Absolutely. I think that there's with the nuances between each and every individual different piece and the special tolling. Yeah. It's an investment in itself. It's a totally

 different tool set.

 Yes, exactly. Yeah. And a lot of research too. I mean, I think that's where the majority of your time is just kind of vaporized as in NRT and stuff. Like that in research.

 So you don't have to be that far over. You're escaping the camera a little bit there. I noticed. Gotcha.



 But sorry to throw you off. Oh yeah.

 Yeah. So yeah, I mean, you, you mentioned tools and that's one of the things that I want to talk about. So I mean, there's a, there's a big difference between, you know, dubbing for fluid and, and filling it back up and doing what you do, which is, which is, you know, tuning these things, building these things, right?

 There's a reason that we don't do like major suspension.

 It's a huge investment. I mean, you know, we've, we've got bikes with all the brands of suspension on. Like I can't think of a brand of, you know, a major brand of suspension that we don't have owned some of our bikes. Yeah.



 And you do it all. And it's not a cheap, you know, it's not a cheap proposition to get told up to do all that stuff.



 You know, just, you know, if, if you're going to do it yourself in your garage and you're going to replace sales, you've got one set of four silver hours. Right. I mean, it's not a, it's not a huge investment, but looking at it from your point of view. I mean, you've got a clean bench, you got a dirty bench, you've got, it just goes on and on and on. You've got an autor and you've got all the adapters to do all the notion on the different bladders.



 And how much money is that in tools? He's going to start thinking about it because he doesn't want to know. No, maybe, you know, I don't know. I mean, it's, it's expensive, right? I mean, that's the, that's the point.

 Yeah. I mean, it just depends too. Right. I think to kind of relay that into something that, you know, your average consumer or, you know, someone listening could digest is, is I think that the expense has come down considerably. I think that the availability of some of the toiling, you know, via even like Rocky mountain stuff or there's a lot more people making it. Now, I think that there was more of a monopoly and less, people making stuff, you know, back in the day than there is now with the, you know, the advent of YouTube. I think that there's a lot of informative DIY stuff. You know, if you're willing to take that on, not everybody's willing to take that on.

 So my point in asking that was just that it's an investment. Like you made an investment of your time going to MMI. You've made an investment your time, like personal training and probably doing a little bit of apprenticeship with Stillwell. And so it's time, it's tools, it's money. So whenever I hear, Hey, you can, you know, do a full custom suspension set up. And it's $1,000. That sounds expensive to me. Like that. That's immediately I just spent $10,000 on this bike. Why am I going to spend another 1000? Just get it perfect for me.



 And that's one reason I brought up like, it doesn't have to be perfect for you. Right. You can have, you have something that's good enough until you're ready for that.



 But if you're going to spend money, this is a great place to spend it.

 Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, you know, one of the things that really sets us apart is just our honesty and integrity. I think you get a lot of people out there that hammer you with like kind of the cheesy use car salesman approach where they're just trying to just shove it down your throat and try and sell you anything works. This is not the case. I mean, I'm a rider. It's a small community. Yeah. Work it back. You know, there's a lot of fly by night people that come in and just try and get you know, take you for your money. But I've seen them come and I watch them go all the time. Big time. So I think honesty integrity goes a long way. It's just, it's not all about the sale. You know what I mean? So just like, for example, when I was talking to you, with your 500 and you had asked about it, you know, I think that, you know, for people who are even on the fence, I'll just be straight up in the list with them. Get a baseline, you know, put the springs in there for your weight, right? Because most bikes are going to be sprung for generally a lighter rider. So



 like the average and early rider off road is going to carry about 20, 25 pounds of gear. You know, we're talking eight to 10 pounds for boots and other two for helmet plus other gear. Yeah. So get it sprung for your weight. And you know, get yourself a baseline if you're on the fence, because then you might say, Hey, you know what, I'm just putting around and this thing feels just one. And then that's awesome.

 You know, but you also do some stuff just to make people more comfortable, comfortable on their bike. And I think that is something that's key. I don't really encourage people not to lower a bike until they've ridden it, like go out and ride the bike. See if you can tolerate it and be comfortable on the bike. But if lowering the bike makes you more comfortable on it, you're going to be a better rider and you do a lot of that as well.

 Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Yeah. And that's, you know, we always encourage people to try it first and get away with the least amount of lowering as possible. Start with a low seat, you know, go ahead and you know, we could, there's a couple different things, a couple different tricks. We could try to get a sense for what it might be. You know, as far as where you're feeding, you may plan it when it's lowered, but yeah, confidence is key for sure. And if it means you don't need 13 inches of suspension travel in the rear, I mean, you know, the modern suspension is very forgiving.

 Yeah.

 You can easily get away with, you know, minus one, two, or in a very extreme case, you know, three. But if you're, you know, 70s plus year old, and if it's the difference between you riding and not like, just get it lowered for sure.

 And I always was, this was the conventional wisdom back in the day, but I know my dad always taught me like, if your, your suspension is perfect, if you bought them out once in a race, or in the same section every time, is that still the wisdom?

 Yeah, I think so. I mean, there's no sense in really having, you know, all that suspension travel, if you're not using all of it. So yeah, like one to three times softly, per lap or per section, or like you said, per particular obstacle for sure.



 There are some bottoming devices that, you know, have a more extreme, like

 a 7030 setup.

 Yeah. There's some products like the, like the Huk valve and stuff like that, that have a pretty extreme bottoming resistance. So that if you do find on those that you're not buying out all the way, that that might not be uncommon, unless it's for like an extreme drop. But yeah, no, you wouldn't even be using a full travel.

 And ideally, that kind of goes, but I mean, you've talked about a lot is, is I think generally people think you got to stiffen, like when you rebuild the suspension, you're always stiffening it up. Right. And that's not the case at all. I mean, we've, we've, and it's always a moving target, I guess also. Because as, you know, let's say you build, build a gas suspension, as he gets faster, now his needs in the suspension, you know, set up changes, right? And, and what works for me doesn't always work exactly for you. And that's where your knowledge and, and, you know, all this time that you spent building these



 things and dealing with different riders and hearing different riders perspective of what they need and what they think the suspension is doing. Like, that's where you're, you're, again, all this time that you spent doing this comes in to play and why that's really important. It's not calling up race tech and punching in your weight and your skill level. And they send you, they send you a kit to stick in the, in the forks or whatever. Right.

 Sure. Yeah. And most often it's kind of small intelligent changes to, you know, like, if you're getting to the point where, you know, you need some specific tuning for, you know, whether it's weight train, skill level,



 of course, you know, even someone who has a very tall torso, you know, who's very tall in stature and has a destiny habit, you know, over the bars, aggressive.



 You know, you've got a lot of leverage over the front of the bike. So, excuse me, you know, gathering up the most, the most amount of information up front is going to help you. Of course, based on experience as well, we'll help you come up with the best outcome.

 Right. And not everybody's racing. And I think that's something that if you're sending off your suspension, they're going to assume that you're taking it and you're going to race with it. They all, I know that if you'd go in on race, text, tuner, like their, their chart, whatever you can do, they ask you what level of rider you are as far as racing, ABCD. Sure. And so not everybody's doing that. And sometimes I think that it helps to have someone local that can listen to that need and just say, Hey, you're wanting something that's making you comfortable as a rider.

 Absolutely. Yeah. And someone who's the local train, you know, expertise to for Southern California based company that, you know, may have just computer generated specs.



 Are you going to hit the nail on the head? It's unlikely. You know, if you have someone's local nozzle, and he has experienced, you know, a vast different terrains. I think that, you know, you're more than likely at the mark. We generally do, you know, I would say, you know, most times that we do.



 And of course, you know, we're always, you know, very open and receptive to feedback too. So it's like, Hey, you know what, we answer the phones, you will be able to help you work through. I mean, there's nothing that we can't figure out. Yeah.

 Yeah. We talk about like how much training you've had and how like, how involved it can be. And there are people who are, you know, fly by night, suspension tuners. Sure. But I don't want to call anybody out by name, but you found some stuff I know.



 Oh, it's pretty crazy. Yeah. The stuff that you see, it's I think that the one of the things that gets me like the most fired up is, is just when I see people getting took, you know, when someone who claims to have expertise and even believe some of the stuff I see me a brand new parts just, you know, applyer marks all over. And some of the, you know, the low friction coating on there, like the kashima coated forks and internals may just scarred up and people using fender washers and they had to stack it up and literally, you know, I insisted that the customer stayed at one point.



 You know, there was a new fly by night guy who was coming in and, you know, swear he had all this experience up and down. And, you know, of course, customers can play as like, Hey, man, can you help me up? See, of course, a stick around. Let's see what we find. Because this thing was just Jack hammer and, you know, bucking him like a bull. And sure enough, I, you know, with his own eyes watching, I pulled it apart and there were parts installed upside down.



 And he said, man, he said, I appreciate you. You let me stay here and take a look at this, you know.



 And so it's a shame. I hate to see people get banged up for that, you know, but, you know, stuff like that usually works itself. Unfortunately, you know, it's, you know, work gets back around and then you start messing people stuff up like that. You're gonna be around for long.

 Yeah. I've seen coming to.

 Yeah, exactly. A couple of big players in the game too, man. You know, of course, you know, people do good work or whatever, but shoot craft left the game. You know, which I think craft was a brilliant engineer. You know, of course, I know he's other things going on. I think stuff in the mountain bike world. And what's the phone inserts for the mountain bikes? Well, this thing's called, I believe he is at the kind of the forefront of that.

 The what is the craft course. Yeah.

 I think, I think he might be at the head of that. I didn't realize that was him. I think so. Yeah. I might be mistaken, but yeah, it's interesting. A couple of other.

 So not really like builds on like what we use on the motorcycles, but like a bottom out device, like half a bit almost that. Tire related. Yeah. Tire. Okay. It goes in the world. It's like half a bit really. And then you still set it up too. So you still put a sealer in it, but it keeps it keeps from the side walls and mountain bikes really. I've seen.

 So you're not damaging a wheel or a wheel or a side wall.

 Like, where the side wall makes contact with the tire and opens it up so bad that the side wall makes contact with the tire. So you can't can't. Yeah. Yeah.



 Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Cool stuff for downhill, more downhill. If you're really hitting the wheels aggressively. Yeah. I mean, if you're hitting sharp edge stuff all the time, landing on sharp edge stuff. Right. More importantly. Yeah. Yeah. So suspension set up differences between mainly around here. Like, unfortunately, we don't have a whole lot of Moto around here. Motocross.



 But we do have a ton of hair scrambles. We do have a woods racing. We do have a ton of hard enduros. So sure. Talk to us a minute for a minute about the differences in the setup between the two and what riders are looking for. And obviously one's a lot slower speeds. The suspension is going to be softer wouldn't would be my expectation. But maybe not.

 Yeah. And, you know, I think that give, you know, the listeners a good visual,



 especially when it comes to racing, you know, like trail riding or racing are a bit different. In the aspect of generally for trail riding, you're going to be looking for more comfort.



 And had someone asked me about the local racing, you know, the hair scramble of sorts to use, you know, and they said they were looking for more comfort in sorts. And that those two words generally don't land in the same sentence. You are left with courses that have been run bidirectional for the last 10 years. So it's all the exposed square edge. It's rocks, shirt rocks.



 So.



 It's rough, but it's not hard enduro.

 Last year's breaking bumps are now acceleration bumps. Yes.

 Yeah, exactly. That's a great way to describe it for sure.



 You know, I think that a great visual for for people.



 Would be to if if you've never seen a trophy truck go through the desert, I encourage you to get on YouTube and take a look at it. And if they pan out and you see a side view of it.



 You see that the chassis is staying stable, but yet the wheels are traveling underneath it. So the chassis staying stable and that's generally as far as racing goes.



 You know, really the best we could do and the best you can hope for is a firm but plush feeling, right? So meaning that it's going to keep the chassis stable and so that it's, you know, that it's working the suspension underneath you. And, you know, keep it keep in mind too is like as you use suspension done and your skill level increases, it's gonna need to be stiffer. Yeah, you know, because you're going to your confidence has increased your experience is going to increase so that you know, when it does come time for service. And then we always offer like any updates or you know, if you're wanting an adjustment, no additional charge. So, but yeah, there's, I would say it's a different. Did that answer your question to differentiate between like kind of a trail and racing. And I think he mentioned some

 like hard enduro, like where you should where you're just, you know, you may splatter rock and you need the thing to kind of hang on to the rock for it to get tuned for. That's, you know, that's definitely different than what you're after with a hairscrew. I think the board you're always looking for the tire to stay on the ground as much as possible with weight off it like you don't want to think packing up in a corner.



 You know, we're talking about the acceleration and the breaking bumps and if it just gets lower and lower and lower and lower the chassis does because it's packing up. That's not good, but you also want to keep the tires on the ground as much as possible.



 So yeah, I mean, like the differences between a softer set up on a hard enduro bike versus a stiffer set up on a cross country bike.

 Yeah, and I think that two things come to mind is compromise and strengths and weaknesses.



 So I have, for example, some customers that explicitly said, hey,



 I know you're not going to be able to maybe make it amazing everywhere, but here's where my strengths are. While everyone's struggling, mangled up in a rock pile, you know, that's my strength. Like I wanted to hammer through like the baby heads in the rock gardens. I'd say like, you know,



 go up the creek bed at trials training center. You know, I want to be able to lean back, keep the light in the, keep the front end light and just pin it in third or fourth, you know, which is pretty scary. If you could pull that off, you know, because if you've ever ridden near that place is pretty insane. Yeah, it's pretty nasty. Yeah. But yeah, and so I think that, you know,



 a lot of suspension can be compromised. I think that we're to a point where suspension systems have a better diversity more so than they ever have.



 And, you know, most often when we tune, we're using the original pistons and just tuning the shim stacks and making small intelligent changes.

 I wanted to like, you're talking about packing up and I think that a lot of our listeners may not understand exactly what you're talking about there.



 So I think it's a good opportunity just to talk about the fundamentals of suspension. Sure. Where you have, you have spring rates and then you have compression, you have rebound and then you have high speed, high speed and low speed. So do you mind going over some of that?

 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And then we'll just, you know, keep it kind of quick, you know, not going to some insane detail.



 First and foremost, and by and far the most important thing you could do if you're trying to set up in work tune a suspension system, even to get a baseline would simply be to get it spring for your weight. Make sure, you know, that's what I always ask up front. You got to figure out your weight with gear, you know,



 and after all that's all said and done is setting your sag. In other words, like the sag is the amount of suspension that moves down under your weight. Right. And that's prescribed by the engineers at the factory.

 And a static sag.

 And yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that's the static size, the amount of movement that the bike moves under its own weight.

 Yeah.

 So super easy to measure. It's, you know, a three step process. There's a lot of aid. Out here now, as far as like, you know, you got the electronic measuring tool.

 You're selling them now on the, on the website. If I'm not mistaken, I think I saw. Sure.

 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And run for a long time. No tool. The slacker was good. And then there's a good old fashioned and exact stick,



 which is, you know, very critical.

 I'm kind of good eyeball.

 Yeah. Yeah.



 About three. Yeah.



 Like the chain slack.

 I'll be sure to check my bike when it goes back.



 Exactly.



 So yeah, I mean, I would say that that like always start at the top. So I'm going to, I'm going to get to the clickers here in a second. But if you don't have your side dialed, or if you're trying to, if you're trying to tune on the wrong springs and you know, you're trying to tune on something that has just beat oil. It's you're just going to be like a dog chasing its tail. It's just, you're never going to get anywhere and it's just going to be pointless.



 So if you're honest, if you're trying to give it an on shot, and then let me kind of back up here and just get into something else here real quick to before we get back to the clickers is you got to get back to the basics. So motorcycle maintenance, you could have the best suspension in the world. And then come to find out your battle and problems. We get the motorcycle in and I pull the bearings in the fall out in a pile of rust dust.



 It's bound up. You know what I mean? So those are absolutely massive.

 Well, I see people to trying to lower their bikes by adjusting their fork level. And like slide them on the clamps and you're throwing off the wet bike handles already.

 Yeah, they take all the preload off your spring and shove the forks up. Yeah, the clamps to and yeah, yeah, I mean, we talked about the fact that you can lower lower bikes earlier. And I actually think you have a kit, right? And we're getting off off subject here. You've got it. You came up with a kit, right? For PDS bikes. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So internal adjustment is the right way to go. But anyway, yeah, back to back to the to the clickers and sure base kind of basic suspension settings.

 Yeah, it's, you know, so making sure that like, I would say start with the basics, you got to make sure that your machine is maintained. There's so many other things that affect us suspension. Maybe we could let's touch on this after let's get back to the clickers because we're, you know, it's easy to zoom off on a tangent.



 But yes,



 start with the basics, make sure you have a full maintain machine, start in the springs getting sag.



 And then as far as clickers go, an easy way to relate compression, think about the amount of resistance, right? And this is probably one of the easiest ways that I could relay to people as far as, you know, making adjustments because, you know, you start telling people like you're rattling off like rebound, you know, low speed, high speed, this and that and all that. And people just kind of glaze over and they're just like, uh huh. You know, think of it this way. Righty tighty, lefty loosey, right? So compression. It's, it's the amount of resistance that you're going to increase. So righty tighty, more resistance. So that means it's going to be a stiffer, compressing. Think about the wheel. There's a frame in the motorcycle and this is compressing when it's compressing. Right. So righty tighty, it's going to make it stiffer. So you're going to have more resistance of the wheel coming up. So if it's feeling like a boat in the ocean and you want to make that a little bit stiffer, go righty tighty on that. And then as far as rebound goes, it's just the time in which, uh, you know, the wheel can return to the ground.

 So, so if you're, what he's talking about with packing up is you have to set your rebound fast enough to be able to respond. To after a bump to meet the ground again.

 Exactly. Yeah. You know, ideally you'd like it to follow the terrain. So if it's just plain too slow, the condition, which is called packing, which is most anonymous with a series of bumps. So like, let's say, for example, you have a series of bumps consecutively and you hit the first couple and they're not so bad. But by the end of that section, the bike's swapping violently out of control. Um, and it just gets successively.

 Super cross.

 Yeah.

 Uh, if you ever want to really look at suspension dynamics, man, that's gotta be tough.



 It's, it's intense. Yeah. Most definitely. And on a, a much, uh, you know, greater impact is as far as, uh, you know, um, some of the, the landings and of course, my skimming, the whoops section stuff. Yeah.



 Unless you've ever walked a super cross track.

 Yeah. Yeah. You don't understand. Yeah. Like on TV, he doesn't feel any justice.

 It is insane. Yeah. You walk in, it is extremely intimidating.

 Yeah.

 Yeah. Well, you don't really realize the depth, like it's like chest.

 And I think I've only been on like something like actually riding through that once and I'm doubling it. Like I'm not, I'm not about to try to just skim a whoop section like that.



 Yeah, exactly.



 Me, if it was a legit super cross track, I'd probably ride around it.



 I'm just getting the stands. Yeah, exactly.

 Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And especially after it's been on like a violent mode, like, you know,

 they start wearing out.

 Yeah. And they start getting peaked like, uh, you know, like kind of a, uh, you know, white cap and like a wave would, and you've got, you know, uh, ruts that are so deep there, you know, scraping the foot bags.

 Back to the subject. That's where you'll see packing. That's where you'll see that.

 That's the condition. Right. Exactly.



 So the rebound is just the rate in which the wheel will return to the ground. Right. So that's where it might be a little confusing. We're like, Oh, Rob, you said right. He tidy. Well, ready, tight. So just think about tightening is, is the speed, right? So if you go tight, it's going to slow that action down. But if you go lefty loosey, it's going to make that action.

 What you're, what you're controlling is oil and only move at a certain rate through a certain hole. Sure. So you're setting the maximum speed that it can move.

 Yeah. And actually this, you know, like a lot of the clakers internally are, are mainly, uh, you know, an additional bypass circuit, right? So at the end of that screwdriver slot, you have a needle that goes all the way up through a fixed piston, which is fixed orifice. And then you've got thin metal shins or washers for like better description, right? If to help you visualize it, but they're essentially bypassing. You have a tapered needle and on the end of all that stuff is an orifice, right? So it allows fluid to bypass through there and you're controlling that by the amount of tape on the needle. So it's really a bypass circuit.

 Yeah. Which is already tidy. It pushes the needle further into exactly. Orifice and slows fluid flow and rate down.

 Absolutely. For sure. And there's actually as far as high speed compression goes, like on the rear shock.

 This is something I've always been a little fuzzy on, like I haven't been internally on it. So can you explain that to me? Seriously?



 And it's, there's, um, I encourage you, uh, you know, everyone listening to, to do a little, uh, search in as well. There's a, there's a really good article that, um, factory Kawasaki, Jim bones, bacon.



 Had on high speed compression, which was a very informative and very condensed. I think it was on a one page article as far as, uh, yeah, I think it was like a dirt bike or dirt rider magazine or something years ago.



 And I think I even tore it out and saved it because it was so informative, but the gist of it is right. It controls the overall fluid flow or resistance to fluid flow of the shock. So



 in addition to the main piston, which has a, you know, of course it's just fixed orifices and then you have a shim stack for compression and rebound. That's forcing oil up and out through a small orifice and then into the shock body or reservoir. Actually we got,



 uh, we could probably talk a little bit about it right here.

 So, you can show the camera. So

 yeah, so here's your piston here. It was actually going to force fluid through up here over into your piggyback reservoir and here's where all the, the high speed compression.



 It's just an additional, uh, see, so it's got a piston and it's actually got a spring, which preloads a small shim stack inside there. Okay. So this controls the overall fluid flow back and forth. So you could add additional resistance. Um, ironically enough, this is an older style. K Y B with just the low speed

 bypass in case the pressure increases over a certain point, it's going to start flowing through there.

 Yeah, for sure. And it's, it's, it's functioning all the time.

 And now spring determines the point, the pressure limit where that starts to allow fluid in.

 Uh, so yeah, I mean, that's just another tuning. Most people don't tune with that spring rate that is fixed and this is going to flow continuously whether the, you know, it's closed off all the way or not. I don't believe it will bottom out the spring completely. So it won't mechanically bind it. So it's under constant working condition. But, um, to kind of get away from the technical aspect of it, um, you know, as far as adjustment goes using the high speed. And here's just kind of a good tip overall to not to get lost in too much explanation is to adjust the attitude of the motorcycle.



 Most often what I'll do, let's say moving from a trail type technical mountain scenario where I come lefty Lucy out of writing a little bit more comfort. There's a lot more, uh, you know, slower, uh, rocks and roots and stuff like that. So I'm looking for a little bit more comfort to speed. Hard enduro type thing, right? So you come lefty Lucy on that high speed,

 but then you want to do a splatter.

 Yeah. Um, I mean, there's going to be compromise there.

 No, I'm saying like I was thinking that the highest speed would be more like you want to have that available in that situation,

 which, which brings me to actually, you know, a great point to maybe I failed to kind of describe this. So what is low speed versus high speed? Yeah, that's what I was meaning. Exactly. So yeah, let's, let's touch on that first is the low and high speed in a shock. The adjustments have nothing to do with the forward movement of the motorcycle. Rather it's the speed of the shaft. So if you're hitting low speed, uh, you know, obstacles, it's kind of like this, you know, the shock shaft is, is moving out in slowly. Whereas like, let's say you hit, um, a square is like a really squared rocker route. And then that shock shaft movement is going to be very rapid.



 So that's kind of a quick way to digest that.



 But as far as like adjustment goes from one train to the other, most often on my personal personal bike bikes, uh, is I will use, I will kind of get a setting that I feel is generally pretty good. And to give you an idea, um,



 as far as adjustment from a trail, a technical mountain to like, let's say a national enduro, the only adjustment I'm making on my bike is generally going, let's say from two and a half turns out on the high speed. And I'll go in righty tighty, a half turn on the high speed and then maybe slowing down the rebound two clicks. So it allows you to make a massive adjustment with one simple adjustment. So let's say for example, I might not even adjust my rebound, but it's a great way to move from, uh, you know, to, to vastly different disciplines. So I hope that wasn't too much.

 And that's one cool thing about lay model suspension. It's, it's all really good stock, right? And you're only making it, you know, better, but it used to, you'd turn a clicker, you know, lock to lock in the end. And you were wondering if it made any difference at all, right? Oh yeah. And what, what happens is everybody just start turning clickers and hoping for the best. Nobody keeps up with anything. And they turn all of them at the same time instead of keeping notes. So they go back and, you know, now, you know, two clicks, like you just said, half a half a turn here, two clicks there, make, makes a huge difference. And you can take a motorcycle from 22 of them. It varies. Um, but yeah, I mean, you can take a motorcycle from a, from a hard enduro bike to a Paris Grammler, a national enduro bike or sprint enduro or whatever, and, and not change anything drastically.

 Sure. It is pretty cool. I definitely really dig like, uh, you know, all the engineering changes as far as like, uh, the WP stuff because now everything's tool-less. Yeah. So you don't have to bust out the screwdriver or the 17 millimeter wrench, you know, that's, that's really awesome. I literally could reach down and sometimes often I've done it when I'm riding where I'm just, I'll just let off for a second, reach down, boom, make quick adjustment, high speed adjustment.

 Maybe you should just answer my question, but I was going to ask you what your favorite brand of suspension was. What's the most tunable? Like, obviously we send you more WP stuff than we do anything. Um, but we've got, like I talked about earlier, we've got Sacks and KYB and Showa and, uh, I mean, we've, we've got all of them, uh, on, on various. Bikes in the shop, but what's your favorite?

 Oh, that's, that's a good question. I think just like anyone's favorite, I think that, you know, you, uh, have seasons, right? I think that the seasons change as well as, uh, you know, uh, you know, the kind of the discipline or the things that you're having fun at and, and, and not. So, um, of course the new, the new WP stuff is, is generally pretty good. Uh, of course, though, you know, the coveted KYB stuff is good. I think it's better in a race setting. I think that, you know, um, you have trail rider might not be as happy with it. You know, uh, it is a twin chamber, which is in its nature, uh, more of a competitive type of suspension design. So they're looking for generally some more comforts that might not be their favorite, but you know, that's where we come in and we can adjust it.

 And yeah, that's where people are listening to the magazines. A lot of times they, uh, everywhere I was selling, um, the old gas gas and they had the old, uh, KYB suspension on when people were like, it's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It was a closed chamber. It's a twin chamber. It's, it's something that like, I was like, it's, it's awesome, but you're a rider who needs an open chamber. Thank you. You should not using what it has capable.

 Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's kind of like carbon breaks, right? You've, you've got to be, so you've got to be fast enough to use the brakes. They're, they're great. But the suspension is the same way. And we all, um, think we're, a lot of us think we're faster. Sure. We really are. Uh, you know, me included in that statement and, and we, you know, we think we need these settings because it's, it's supposed to be fast. And, and that's where you come in and that's where you're important. And, um, you know, we've, me and you have had a lot of conversations about my race bikes and, um, and getting them dialed in for me. And generally speaking, you know, I guess I wish I was fast enough to keep stiffening them up, but we've, I think more often than not, we soften them up. Sure.

 Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, just, you know, a big thing, which we're trying to procure upfront, uh, you know, via the form on the site is really getting your information, trying to build a rider profile and then establishing how you're going to use the bike 80% of the time. You know, that's going to be absolutely massive. Um, and then, uh, you know, figuring out that chassis balance minutes, so critical. And that's probably the only ever, uh, you know, pushback or feedback or something that we'll get will be often chassis related. You know, uh, the first things that we always require for people when asking for a tuning aid or help is, you know, you have to measure your side. We actually include free metric measuring tapes so that you're not having to convert fractions. So, you know, for your significant other, whoever it may be, you know, they're just, they're kind of like, they're guys 11, 16, I think.



 So just make it easy with metric there. Um, but man, it's, you wouldn't believe that it's just literally the number one complaint is just chassis balance.

 I've had a lot of like local guys who have set up suspension and I get on the bike and it feels like a chopper. Uh, the, the rear is sagging too much. I mean, even after setting it. Yeah. Um, and the front, the forks are so stiff, you can't get anything out of them.

 Yeah. And that's what it's like when you, when you say chassis balance, it's just getting the front and the back of the bike to work together. Like you could have a front end that works really well. And with the box garbage,



 the whole motorcycle is going to be garbage, right? And sure. And you know, you've, you've also, we talked about it at the shop, you, you know, I don't, I don't know that spring rate on dirt bikes, like spring rate in the tires on dirt bikes is terribly critical, but the unsparing weight absolutely is right. So, um, that's, it's important to get the bike where it's the same, uh, comfort level front and rear and they compliment each other. And that's what you're talking about when you run

 into a situation occasionally where you have to correct the rider and work on their body position. And you know, sometimes if you're an older rider or you're just riding for comfort, that's not something you necessarily need to do. But I was always told ride a motocross. So I've long arms and a long torso. So that kind of pushes me back on the bike and I tend to ride further back on the bike. And it sure, if you ever watch me ride it, like I look really relaxed, but, uh, and that'll cause me to have that situation where I'm over weighting the rear shock and not putting anything on the front forks.

 Right. Yeah, exactly. And, and, you know, uh, to kind of make a chassis balance in your mind, and maybe a little bit more palatable is think about the amount of pressure or think about like a scale, you know, and ideally, you know, when we talk about sag and all that, like you want to, you don't, let's say, for example, uh, let's say if you were 230 pounds with gear, what's happening is you're tipping that scale.

 Follow me out.

 Yeah.



 If you're tipping that scale, especially we see it with tall riders, uh, tall riders with bad knees, generally tend to sit farther back, right? And the motorcycle was a lever, you know, um, you know, if you find that it's pretty crazy and that's what, like in our explicit instructions, as far as setting sag as you need to have your weight centered over the bike. And if you're getting on and off the motorcycle changing spring tension or preload is that, you know, you need to sit back in the same position. Right. So for example, like if you set it and you get back on it and all of a sudden you're six inches back farther than you were, then farther than you were rather, you're going to find that the it's drastically different. So yeah, it's a giant lever. And if you're sitting off the back, there are greater challenges, uh, you know, with, uh, taller riders, uh, older riders, people with bad knees. Um, and we can always account for that as long as it's consistent.

 If you're calling it a giant lever, are you talking about more of your, your, your linkage? What, what is the fulcrum here?

 Yeah, sure. Well, I mean, the, the swing arm in itself is the giant lever, right? Right. So you have the swing arm and which generally is like a four to one, roughly three to four to one ratio, right? So, and that means for every millimeter that the shock shaft moves, it's going to be times that amount, you know, three or four times that amount of wheel travel at the, at the, um, swing arm at the rear wheel.



 So when you sit on the linkage.

 Yeah. And so when you sit on the, the, the motorcycle, having your weight centered, right? That's the difference between extreme front and extreme back. And ideally that's where you'd want to be, you know, is centered all the time, but that's not in reality of where we end up. But if you do find yourself sitting farther back on the boat, the motorcycle that will greatly affect your sag. And if it's something that, you know, we know that we need to tune for, if, uh, you know, your taller, you know, your knees are hammered out and you know, Hey, this is just the way I sit. Then I kind of big deal. I might need a bump up the spring, right?

 Yep. And most of the faster guys, I'm thinking of Russell as Russell on it as like his chin bar looks on his helmet. Looks like it's at the, he like at the tip of the front fender when he's like, we've, we've got to ride with him. I'm sure. I think you've got to ride with him. So I might have quite a bit and, um, he, you know, most of us are not wired. Like those guys are, you see about over there.

 You see, you saw like, with like, uh, I always think about like James Stewart. He was always a guy who rode over to the front of the bike really aggressively. And then when he got on the Yamaha and I had that weird angled engine, he kind of threw off the way he rode. That's when you see him really crashing a lot.



 Um, and then you had someone like Kevin Lindem, who we, people always looked at his body language and called it beautiful. And he was more of a relaxed rider. Like he looked relaxed on the bike. And so you have people that just have different riding styles. Most of the time you're going to see the guy who's riding over the front aggressively. And that's what they always tell you. If you ever do in kind of motorcross training, you need to be right up on the tank whenever you're turning, you know?



 So body language affects the way the suspension works. It's affects the way that your tires hook up everything.

 Sure. And I think that goes back to what you, what you do and what you're good at is, uh, it's like I said earlier, it's always a moving target, right? As, as the rider gets better, as the rider gets faster, his needs and suspension are going to change. And, and you, you offer that. I mean, you, you offer the touch up to the, the tune up

 guy allows him to look at you and see you ride if he you're out of this source race or something like that. And be like, Hey

 man, you know, the local train, like, you know, you know, you go, we go in a resource together. I mean, we've, so, I mean, you know what everybody's doing. You go ride the hard enduro stuff, you go ride TTC. So, um, you know, it's not like shipping your suspension off, you know, to the, to the West coast and, and hoping for the best when it comes back. Right.

 Right. Exactly. And I think that, uh, you know, having spent a lot of time, you know, you know, 12 plus years out in the desert and in the high desert and mountains and, and, uh, you know, a lot of that experience comes into play too. Right. So, you know, being able to spend the time on the train, whether it's slick, nasty soil and all that, um, you know, really helps out. Um, and, uh, you know, talking directly with people and asking the right questions and knowing what to ask, I think is, is really massive. I think that my natural sense of curiosity, like I just, I kind of never stopped thinking about things. I'm always, um, I, I try and get the most 3d or dynamic view of the scope of the rider and their bike and what their goals are. And I think that that's probably like, you know, one of our biggest assets too, when it comes to experience set up, you know, um, uh, yeah.

 So, sorry, go ahead. Well, I was just, uh, we've talked about dirt bikes. We've talked completely about dirt bikes and a lot of it's been about racing, but you also do, um, go sport bikes and, you know, like small adventure bike stuff. And I think generally speaking, one, those bikes are getting lowered so people can, can touch the ground on them. And two, those bikes do get stiffened up quite a bit from a spring rate point of view, especially in the back, because all the luggage that everybody puts on them to go camping or traveling or whatever they're doing. Right. So, um, you know, I know, I know you've done a lot of that for, for our customers that we've sent to you, uh, I'm thinking, I'm thinking of all the seven and one six nineties, that kind of stuff. Right. Uh, the, the kind of middle size did, uh, adventure bikes.



 So yeah, it's, it's not just dirt bikes that you're doing.

 Oh yeah. Yeah. Lots of ADV and, uh, mostly so a lot of that stuff gets a little tricky too. Like, especially like the 10 9 11, 9, 12, 90 platforms, only really the adventure, our stuff is what we could lower. Right. Um, the stuff that has the, you know, electromagnetic suspension there. Yeah. A lot of that stuff you can't, uh, mechanically or physically alter.



 So, but, uh, yeah, I

 was going to ask,



 expectations and do you, yes, you invent that and they get unhappy.

 Sure. Yeah.

 Yeah. Exactly. The 12 minute venture. Oh, why did you buy it? If you're going to lower it,



 50%

 of the, uh, it's intimidating, especially if you're a smaller fellow like me, you know, uh, it is, yeah. It's crazy. When you got seven gallons of fuel waving in that tank up high and you know, I got one, but cheek on the seat and one foot planted. I mean, the width of those seats really eats up any and seem that you have. Come to stop. You better slide your ass on over and get your foot down.

 You know,



 you said the first, first profane word on the podcast. Oh yeah. Good job. Yeah.



 I guess that was technically a name for donkey as well.

 So



 it's all good.



 So real quick, we're running out of time, but me and you've talked about it a little bit. Um, electric dirt bikes.



 Like I think it's cool. We, like I said, we've talked about it. You think it's cool. Where do you think that's headed? And to tie that together, electronic suspension, because it's, it's coming to, if you look at the, so if you look at the new WP stuff,



 there's a plug in the top of the fork that



 I don't know why it's there unless it's for electronic suspension in the future. Um, so, yeah, electric, electric motorcycles and electronic suspension.

 And I guess those electronic suspension, that kind of thing where you're talking about the electromagnetic data stuff, I know it's going to be difficult to work on, but is it just changing clickers or is it, I mean, you got to wear it to adjusting preload and everything as well. I don't know. I mean, that's according to whatever settings the rider puts on it electronically, whether that's through a dash or an app. I mean, you think about the,

 the street bikes, the road bikes bikes that we've got electronic suspension on, I mean, think of a new Paniagoli or a new S 1000. Double R.



 You've got kind of preloaded settings. You can manipulate those to some degree, but, you know, does that start the reason I'm asking, does that start eliminating some of what you're doing? Or do you feel like you will still be able to manipulate that stuff and make it better or eliminated?



 Right. Yeah. And I think that it all starts with the rider and what their goals are. And of course, like, you know,



 ultra high end electronic stuff is really a budgetary thing and then availability, right? You know what, what parameters are you available to operate in and are you wanting to keep the stock system functioning? You know, at that point, you just negate all that stuff and just yank it out and just go straight mechanical because that's probably what most, you know, hardcore racers are doing unless you get a system that's so advanced with a multiprocessor and like a stepper motor in there. That's really making like micro processing adjustments and you've got multiple pressure sensors and like some really, really high tech stuff.

 I know BMW has talked about having a sensor out front to read the terrain in front of you and make those adjustments as you're approaching. And I also wonder about like, if you're on a track setting and you know what the train is like every lap, could you have different suspension settings for the loop section? Yeah. And then have a different one for the next triple you're going to hit.

 And that's why I asked the question. So think about the new KTM, most foreign gas gas stuff on the factory bikes and you can now buy it with the with the CCS, the GPS. Yes. So I don't know that it's realistic that at least right now that will GPS a hair scramble course, you know, a 10, 12 mile hair scramble course. But you could GPS a motocross track with electronic

 suspension and they could preload maps into what they already have.

 I mean, you can you can manipulate the engine side of things and the suspension side of things in, you know,



 certain corners or incrementally over the energy piece stuff. Yeah. So I think it I think that's coming.

 Oh, yeah. Sure. And I think that you're starting to see some of the evolution of that stuff in the the mountain bike world as well. What is it? Fox has the what's the one that automagically adjusts the.

 It isn't weird, by the way,

 Air Force or something. It's something.

 Something's on those. It's got a similar brain box. Yeah. Howard. And supposedly supposed to adjust on the phone. I just think the tram had the shock wheels

 there for a long time. But yeah, now, yeah, to your point now that it'll it'll it's got a sensor in it that, you know, sees that you're climbing a hill and if it starts bobbing, it's jacks up. You know, it basically locks out the rear shock. Right. So that there's no wasted energy through the through the suspension. Yeah, exactly.

 What is this you see here? There's a new shop with a kind of a test loop.



 Yeah, I mean, you have a test loop available for, you know, obviously that that that costs money.



 But for the right customers, you have that available.

 Sure. And it would probably greatly depend on, you know, the individual and then what their needs are to because, you know, I've got like 100 yards of busted concrete. I've got some pretty gnarly logs and rocks stuff like that. Some absolute bar banger, tight enduro. But that doesn't necessarily dictate what, you know, your source type course is going to be, you know, so that that'll only get you so far. Yeah. But it does give me, you know, from the motorcycle there, I'm able to tell very quickly whether, you know, it's going to be set up to works. Yeah. Overall, you know, well or not. So for you for more of the R&D side of things, it's really good.

 And it gives you the opportunity to take your stuff for my stuff or whatever. Right. Absolutely. And and either take my complete motorcycle or my forks and shock and stick them on your bike and do some testing. And obviously that one you can have a

 customer over there, see how they look like on the bike.

 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of electric motorcycles real quick, just kind of circle back around. I was just watching the new Stark Varg EX. Do you guys see that video? Yeah.

 Check it out. It was pretty cool.

 So street legal version of the Stark Varg. It'd be interesting to see, I think that just to kind of summarize and make it real quick. I think that the platform is cool. The engineering is cool.

 I think the suspension and more brands kind of come on with it. I mean, Zira had been doing a dual sport for a long time.



 And you have KTM coming out with their free ride, the other free ride in the Pioneer. But the electric stuff is coming. We'll see more and more of it.



 And people are saying that Motorcross is really the avenue for it. I think that right now the industry is trying to find a place for it. Yeah. I agree. To see where it fits. And I think that we're a little bit away from every consumer taking a Motorcross track.



 But I think that we'll have to see performance before we have people go over there. So we'll see what happens. Yeah. Cool concepts. Do we have any last minute things that we're kind of out of time?

 Yeah, we are out of time. I feel like we could talk about that. We've got another hour in us that we could talk about suspension. But the biggest thing that I wanted to ask, the reason I asked about the electric motorcycles is how does that affect suspension dynamics?



 The way they deliver power.

 The lack of rotating mass.

 Yeah. So it does change to their motorcycle dynamics. But does it change suspension dynamics?

 Yeah, good question. I mean, I think that depending on the manufacturer,



 you know, as far as like the frame and like, let's say, for example, on the start, the battery pack is like an integral part of the frame, right? So I think that that's going to require stuff like that. You know, you could put your settings in your computer all day long. But in the end, the bat dyno is what matters the most. You know what I mean? Like what translates to a quote unquote good setting when it's on the trail or whether it's on track.



 How does stiffness play into it?

 Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. What like so I think that there's that's such a moving target, but I'm very curious to see, especially, you know, with the Stark at least has some good K-YB stuff on it. So there's some other stuff that has some Chinese stuff like the fast ACE stuff, which I mean, we don't even touch some of that stuff. But I have haven't had very good luck with, you know, taking that stuff apart and some of the metal material quality is so soft. And yeah, get it back together. Yeah, you're lucky to. Yeah, exactly. Yes. It's you know, the quality from one to the other could be so off.

 But from our perspective, I think the biggest thing that electric changes, we talked about chassis balance. And I think where the weight is located on a it's like one homogenous piece from a



 center of gravity point of view, I think where the weight is located in an electric bike versus a gas bike is completely different than the amount of you move. More than a fuel tank from up here, it kind of gets moved down low to a battery pack.



 So I think that's maybe where the electric stuff really affects you and what you're doing own own with the suspension stuff is figuring that out because it's

 I think they probably have some work to do there as far as figuring out centralization of mass. And I think unwittingly we all kind of use the rotational mass of the motor to handle the bike. Right. Big time. We realize it or

 not from a balance point of view, right? I mean, you know, you're slow riding some more endurance stuff and you and you pull the RPM up on the motor to to get the balance effect. Sure. Yeah.

 Think about region breaking too. You know, like, for example, you go on an e-bike and you take off in the air, you have to lay on the throttle a little bit because if you chop the throttle close, boom, it's going to fix that front end down, man. Like, if you're not ready for it, it'd be scary. Like, so you'd have to start out small.



 Lots of things.

 All the things I know I can recommend you for hard enduro and duro hair scramble, that kind of suspension. How are you with motocross? Should I send people your way?

 Sure. I mean, we could do basic stuff like refresh and it depends on the model. A lot of the older air fork stuff I don't touch and even like 20 2010 in older now, a lot of the stuff is getting, you know, because a lot of those things never get serviced. So we pulled apart.

 Do for a first service at 10 hours. Then what's the interval and most of the WP stuff?

 Yeah, first service at 10. Most people don't get there, but that's fine.



 30 hours. If you're racing, you'll see the performance drop off dramatically.



 And then if you're still breakdown in particular, it's in it.

 Oh yeah, massive. The performance will just drop off. You know, all of a sudden if you're setting goes from good to you hunting, you know, in the clicker settings, you know, that you've got it. The oil life has just dropped out. It's due for some service. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, but anyway, motocross. We're more of, you know, like an enduro off road type setup and stuff. So if I have settings for it, I will say yes. If I do not.

 So I'll be on the bike.

 Yeah, it depends on the bike, counts on the rider, what your goals are. But you know, like I said, we'll be straight up in front and tell you if we don't have settings for you, I would rather direct someone to, you know,



 someone who does. Well, that's a problem.

 Go to him, little lab dirt bikes.com for any kind of suspension needs.



 Meanwhile,



 we're Pandora's European Motorsports. Check out our website. If you're looking at this on YouTube, check out the comments section below. We appreciate any feedback that you have.



 And otherwise just have fun riding.

 Yeah. Check out the Spotify. Two guys listening. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah, for sure. Appreciate you guys. Thank you guys. As always. Thanks for coming on.

 We'll leave us a rain. Awesome. Thanks guys. Bye. See you next time.

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