Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Wolfe
How the heck do you measure that? I could tape a stick to the fork leg, measure the distance between where the stick intersects the ground and the tire contact patch, then adjust for triple clamp offset, and assume fork legs are parallel to the steering stem... Or take it to a chassis guy?
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Here's my take... and I'm big on the trail numbers on a racing motorcycle being the key for a great setup.
To measure, it is a formula from things easy to measure... if you know the offset, if you know the steering head angle, and if you know the tire radius, then you have the trail.
There are variations with actual trail and effective trail, and I use actual trail which is a more complex formula.
Keep in mind that it's a dynamic number that moves around as the tires/forks/frame/attitude move around, and 102 is a great target... maybe a little more like 103 or 104 if the bike setup moves around more than usual (16.5" tires move more than 17" tires... setup for Laguna Seca may move around more than the setup for Daytona, etc)