Road to Romaniacs - Episode 5 : Suspension
Off-road, suspension is everything. Let me say that again, suspension is Everything. Manufacturers build motorcycles for the average rider, and historically that has meant, motorcycles are built for a 165-187 pound rider. As someone 50 pounds short of the average, riding off-road on any stock bike has meant that gravel roads and two-track are just fine, but as soon as I get into any rocky terrain, I don’t have enough weight to actuate the suspension.
For reference, on a 250 pound dirt bike, I run 2 spring rates softer than stock with a gummy tire, a 3L water bladder and an extended range tank that is always as full as possible. By the end of a long day, when I’m empty on fluid and fuel, I’m down 32 pounds. That is 25% of my weight. That means I have to change my riding style to avoid looping the bike and getting tossed by obstacles. I also change the suspension settings, but ultimately, that is fine tuning that can not make up for a 30+ pound differential.
When you translate this to an adventure bike, the effects are a bit unexpected. We had the great fortune of working with MX-Tech to develop a custom suspension for the Yamaha Tenere 700. Andy and Adam go in depth on that development and testing process, but let’s start with the numbers:
2023 KTM 300 EXC
246 lbs
1482mm +/- 10mm
370mm
48mm WP Suspension
300mm
WP XACT Monoshock +310mm travel
2020-2024 Yamaha Tenere 700
Wet Weight: 452 lbs
Wheel Base: 1595mm
Ground Clearance: 239mm
Front Suspension: 43mm upside down telescopic fork
Front Travel: 210mm
Rear Suspension: single shock, adjustable preload and rebound
Heavy Enduro T7 with MX-Tech Suspension
430 lbs
1595mm
264mm
49mm Blackjack fork
260mm
MXT National Shock
The reality behind these numbers is that you are competing on a bike that is not just heavier but with a longer wheelbase. That means you have that much less room to maneuver and that much less run up on an obstacle. An after-market suspension can not fix the wheelbase, in fact it may make it longer as you increase the height of the bike. But, the MX-Tech suspension will increase your ground clearance, allowing you to clear obstacles that much more easily without risking damage to the skid plate. Thankfully, the Tenere 700 has lower frame rails, protecting the bottom of the engine and also giving strength and structure to the skid plate.
Separate from the very obvious difference in travel on the front forks, the stock Tenere has very limited compression and rebound adjustments with no preload adjustability and no bottoming resistance. That means as you hit bigger obstacles like down trees or large rocks, the weight of the bike coming down on the stock forks consistently runs the risk of bottoming. The MX-Tech build has a proprietary huck valve that kicks in at the bottom 30% of the stroke to add hydraulic bottoming resistance. Even if you bottom, the incremental increase in resistance with the huck valve means that you will not feel a sudden jolt. This same technology is built into the National shock. Where the stock shock has adjustable preload, compression and rebound, the MX-Tech National Shock allows for significantly more adjustments through high-speed, mid-speed and low-speed compression, rebound adjustment and a pre-load adjuster on top of that magic huck valve. And, the National Shock has 40 some odd clicks of adjustment, allowing for improved fine tuning on your settings.
Traversing 4 days of hard enduro terrain up and down the Carpathian Mountains means that even if the stock suspension could deliver the same travel, the materials themselves are not designed for something like Romaniacs. The stock forks are 43mm aluminum fork tubes with steel fork legs, whereas MX-Tech designed a beefier 49mm fork with Kashima coating on the upper fork tube and DLC on the lower fork leg. This attention to detail and creating not just a premium-looking product but one that can stand up to abuse is clear throughout the build, including the National Shock. If this is sounding like a sales pitch for MX-Tech, well, quite frankly, it is. Because the stuff works. Rewind back to previous blogs for how the suspension held up at the KXCR Hard Enduro in Kentucky or Grinding Stone Hard Enduro in Arizona. It has been tested in the worst conditions and continues to deliver unmatched performance.
TLDR: learn about suspension, whether it’s through our friend MotoAdventurer and his podcast or Adam and Andy’s YouTube conversation on suspension and testing tires, go learn the basics and start messing with your clickers.
