Recommended Rider Sag by Riding Category

Rider (loaded) sag targets in mm, front and rear, by riding category. Standard is the exact number as given — slide up for Expert/Pro (5mm tighter), down for Novice/Intermediate (5mm looser).

Free (static/unloaded) sag is commonly cited around 5-15mm for street/sport bikes, but that figure scales up with travel — it runs deeper in mm on higher-travel categories like Adventure, Supermoto, and Moto Cross, so don't apply the flat street number to those. Either way, this chart covers rider sag only, not free sag.

3. Spring Rate & Preload Troubleshooter

Spring rate only becomes the issue once preload adjustment alone can't get your sag numbers into target range. Fill in your profile below, measure your sag above, then pick the symptom that matches what you're seeing.

💡 Change one spring (front or rear) at a time and re-measure sag before touching the other end — otherwise you won't know which change actually fixed it.

Be honest about your level — it directly shapes how aggressive the recommendation below is, and an inflated answer will steer you toward a setup that fights you rather than helps you.

Fluid Dynamic Assessment

Hydraulic Circuit Troubleshooter

Pick what you're actually feeling out on track or the street — not the technical cause. The diagnosis and fix are below.

💡 Change one click at a time, on the same road or same section of track, back-to-back — otherwise you're guessing which change actually did what.

Fork Oil Settings

Oil Level (Air Gap): 100mm

Oil Viscosity: 7.5wt

Rear Shock Oil & Gas Charge

No oil level (air gap) slider here on purpose — a fork is a genuinely different design. Forks use an intentional air gap above the oil that gets compressed for progressive end-of-stroke resistance, which is exactly why oil level is a real tunable parameter up there. A rear shock's damper body is sealed and fully oil-filled, with no air gap to speak of; the job of giving the fluid somewhere to go under hard, fast compression is handled by a separate nitrogen gas charge instead (in the piggyback reservoir or an internal bladder). Different mechanism, different parameter — viscosity and gas pressure, not "oil level."

Rear Shock Oil Viscosity: 7.5wt

Rear Shock Gas Pressure: 180 PSI

This range is illustrative, not a spec — actual gas charge PSI varies a lot by shock model and manufacturer. Set it to your shock's actual spec sheet as the real baseline; treat this slider as showing the direction of the effect, not a number to chase.

Oil Troubleshooter

Pick what you're feeling. If clickers alone haven't fixed it, this is usually why.

💡 Change one thing at a time — air gap or viscosity, not both — and give it a full session before judging, since fade-related symptoms only show up once things get hot.

Track Geometry Advisor (Track / Racing)

Describe what this specific track demands, and this sets a suggested starting point on the four sliders above — it drives the same map, it doesn't replace it.

Geometry Troubleshooter

Pick what you're feeling and where in the corner it happens — straight, braking, entry, mid-corner, or exit.

💡 Change one lever at a time — fork height, rear height, pivot, or wheelbase — and go back to the same corner before changing another. Moving two at once means you won't know which one actually fixed it.

Be honest — it changes how big a move the troubleshooter suggests.

1. Static Balance Check

A quick push test that tells you whether the front and rear are working together as one system, before you ever add speed, weight transfer, or cornering forces into the mix.

How to do it: bike upright on level ground, off any stand, both wheels down, nobody sitting on it. Find roughly the bike's center — usually somewhere around the tank/seat junction. Push down firmly right there and watch the front fork and rear shock together as they compress: they should move down at a similar rate, not one end diving noticeably faster or deeper than the other. Then let go and watch them come back up — both ends should extend at a similar rate too, not one snapping back quicker while the other lags.

If they're off — one end visibly faster or slower going down, or coming back up — that's a compression or rebound damping mismatch between the two ends, not something sag or preload alone will fix. Adjust the faster end's damping up (or the slower end's down) until they move together.

This gives you a solid static baseline — how the two ends respond in isolation, with no weight transfer or moving contact patch involved. What actually happens under real riding load can shift from this, so treat it as a starting reference to test against on track or the road, not a final answer.

2. Zip Tie Fork Travel Marker

A loose zip tie around one fork stanchion is the cheapest travel indicator you'll ever own. With the front fully extended, slide it down until it rests on the dust seal — that's your zero. As the fork compresses, the seal pushes the tie up the stanchion and it stays at the highest point reached, even after the fork extends back out.

Barely moved: using very little travel — not necessarily wrong, but worth knowing.

Comfortably up the tube, room left above: healthy, normal usage.

Right up near the top: you're bottoming out — a real warning, treat it as a case for more preload or compression damping.

Run one on each leg for a consistency check — if the two sides don't match, check Geometry & Swingarm before assuming it's a straightforward suspension setting.

A relative, by-eye read, not a measurement — it tells you whether your Suspension & Sag numbers are holding up in the real world, it doesn't replace them.

3. Tire Pressures & Temperatures

Two separate readings, both worth taking every time: pressure cold (before you ride, your known baseline) and pressure hot (immediately after, before it has time to bleed back down) — the rise between the two tells you whether you're actually reaching working pressure or overshooting it. Log both; the delta matters as much as either number alone.

Temperature is the same idea applied across the tread instead of over time — take it at the inner, center, and outer thirds of the contact patch (a pyrometer probed into the rubber is far more reliable than a surface IR gun, which mostly reads whatever's on top of the rubber, not the rubber itself). Even heat across all three thirds generally means pressure and lean angle usage are matched to the tire; a hot edge next to a cold one is a pressure or geometry mismatch, not something to average away.

Log the actual numbers and get the diagnosis on the Tires & Thermals tab — the fields and the interpretation both live there. This box is just the "why" behind taking the readings this specific way.

For tracking these numbers session to session rather than just diagnosing one reading, log them in the Setup Sheet tab alongside whatever else changed that session — that's what actually lets you tell whether a pressure change did what you expected, instead of relying on memory.

4. Lap Time Tracking (track)

Every check on this tab, every number on every other tab, is ultimately in service of one outcome: is the bike faster and more predictable to ride? Lap time is the only number that can't be argued with — it's the one place where a setup change either shows up or it didn't.

That's exactly why the Setup Sheet tab has a Lap Time field built into every session, right alongside every setting you changed for that session. Log it every time, even on a day that felt slow — a session that felt bad but times fine tells you something different than one that felt bad and was slow, and you can't tell them apart later without both pieces logged together.

One change at a time, one session at a time, lap time and notes logged alongside it — that's what turns the Setup Sheet from a list of numbers into an actual record of what worked. Without it, you're relying on memory for which change did what, and memory is the least reliable instrument on the bike.

A single quick lap doesn't prove much either way — conditions, traffic, and a cold tire can swing a lap time more than most setup changes do. Look for a consistent shift across a run, not one outlier lap.

3. Compound

Tire Troubleshooter

Pick what you're feeling or seeing — appearance, pressure feel, or compound behavior.

What does your tire actually look like?

Cold Tear

Rough, chunky, torn — not melted

Hot Tear

Shallow, shedding patches

Overheated / Greasy

Marbled, debris stuck to surface

Healthy

Even, consistent, fine texture

Reference photos only — lighting, compound, and camera angle all affect how a surface looks. Use these as a rough guide, not a certain diagnosis. Appearance alone can't tell you whether it's pressure or compound — pick the matching symptom below for both possibilities.

💡 Change one thing at a time — pressure or compound, not both — and give it a full run before judging, since some of this only shows up once the tire's fully cycled.

Be honest — it changes how big a move the troubleshooter suggests.

3. Digital Logic Systems Troubleshooter

Symptoms are sorted by where you're actually riding — a Street list and a Track list, since the same complaint often points at a different system (or isn't an electronics question at all) depending on which one you're in.

3. Gearing Troubleshooter

A sprocket change touches more than just the ratio number — chain fit, chassis behavior, and everyday rideability all move with it.