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Quick Guide to Motorcycle Rake, Trail and Offset, Part 1

4 Jul 2014, 15:18 UTC ·

by Florin Tibu

/ Home / News / Moto How-To

It’s really hard to find two motorcycles which feel the same during a ride, despite some of
them being exceptionally close as far as the outer attire is concerned. Most manufacturers
have their own secret recipes for making their bikes feel or behave in a certain way, and
these designs are protected by intellectual property rights and patents.

11 photos
Part of the handling characteristics of a motorcycle are dictated by the constructive
particularities of its frame and suspensions, and the purpose of the present guide is to provide
a quick introduction of three of the most important aspects that influence the handling of a
bike. While the present piece may seem a bit scarce in engineering data to riders and
mechanics with tons of experience, the guide is targeted to newer riders and its goal is to help
them get the basic notions.Rake, trail, offset
These three are the most important concepts governing the rideability of any motorcycle. The
offset may be absent in certain models, but where it is being used, it helps to adjust the riding
characteristics of the bikes in ways otherwise hard to achieve, if not impossible at all.

Motorcycle handling is a complex equation, and it involves geometry and weight distribution,
alongside the good-old balance and actually learning how to ride. However, regardless of the
riding expertise of a certain fellow, he or she will happen to throw a leg over a machine with
surprising handling. Now, the surprise may be a positive one, but it’s more than once or twice
when riders seem to be unable to get along with certain machines… simply because of the way
their handle.

The engine type and figures, coupled with the riding surface, tires and other factors are
obviously are all accounting for a bike’s handling, but the generic layout or foundation is
represented by the very design of the motorcycle: its rake angle, trail and if it’s the case – the
offset.What is rake?
A motorcycle’s rake may sometimes be referred to as the “fork angle”. Such a name is not
exactly the best one, because the rake is not a variable calculated in relation with the fork or
fork legs, but to the steering head. To eliminate any misunderstanding, we’ll refer to it as rake
or rake angle.

The rake is a number which tells the angle between two imaginary lines. The first one is a
vertical line to the riding surface, and which passes through the center of the front wheel. The
second line is the one which goes through the center of the steering hub and is one of the
characteristics of the frame, not the fork.

The angle between these two is called the rake or rake angle, and it has a crucial role in a
bike’s handling characteristics. It is normally accepted that the responsiveness of a
motorcycle’s handling is inversely corresponding to the rake angle values. Namely, the smaller
the rake angle, the more agile a bike is. If you take a look at a cruiser/chopper and a superbike,
you’ll quickly notice the rake difference between the two.

Sport bikes need to steer very quickly and come with a smaller turn radius and wheelbase
(read more on wheelbase below) for swift directional changes and fast tracks around sharp
bends. On the other hand, you’ll also notice that many high-performance sport bikes are also
equipped with steering dampers… because of their very sensitive nature when it comes to
changing direction. High-speed stability is dramatically improved with the presence of a
steering damper in this case.

On the other hand, most cruisers, choppers and baggers/tourers have a much bigger rake
angle straight from the factory. Larger rakes favor high-speed stability, even if it is detrimental
to the cornering capabilities. The motorcycle-building tradition has coined the longer fork legs
and wider rake angles as “classic” elements, pretty much as it did with chrome. Still, regardless
of how cool a bike looks, the raked-out fork will be a nightmare if you’re traveling on really
winding roads or plan to use the bike as your primary city slicer.

Standard (factory) rake angles can vary from generic values around 24 degrees to 35 degrees,
with certain manufacturers, such as Harley-Davidson having fixed values for certain line-ups,
thus being sure their bikes maintain a consistent handling feeling across model years.

If you are looking for a more visual way of putting things, rake describes how fast the bike will
follow the movement of the front wheel. A small rake means an immediate, response. Some
even say that smaller rake angles can be compared to having the steering (front) wheel
“closer” to the bike. The rake angle does influence the distance between the frame or neck
and the front wheel in bikes with zero (or zero-ish) offset.


Pushing things to a more extreme representation to help newer riders understand rake more
easily, we could imagine a bike with a very, very long fork and a huge rake. Turning the front
wheel to either side does indeed make the front of the bike start to move in that direction, but
it will take a long time and a huge amount of space until the rider and the rest of the bike
follow in that direction.What is trail?
While rake is a very easy to understand notion, getting the idea behind the trail concept need
a tad more visual imagination. The trail of a motorcycle is also a numeric variable (number)
and it is expressed as a measure of length, in inches or centimeters, depending where you are
on the planet. With an equally important role to play in the handling and stability of a
motorcycle, the trail is inherently linked to the rake.

The trail of a motorcycle is defined as the distance measured form the center of the front tire’s
contact patch to the ground and the point where an imaginary line passing through the center
of the headstock axis meets the ground. In bikes with no offset, the rake and trail are varying
proportionally: the bigger the rake, the bigger the trail. Offset is an engineering solution to
alter the relationship between the two and we will discuss it below.

If you want, the trail can be compared to a sort of buffer zone as far as the movements of the
handlebars are concerned. In bikes with bigger trail values, the front wheel acts almost like a
caster: the longer its supporting arm, the stronger its force when trying to realign with the
direction of travel. And yes, you guessed it – the bigger the steering effort needed to turn the
front wheel and maintain it on a new direction!

Just like the rake, a bike’s trail has a crucial importance on the handling, with bigger trail
values favoring stability. However, the excessive trail brings handling back into the less stable
area. With all these measurements being intertwined in the dynamics of a motorcycle, bike
designers and engineers are always trying to find the best compromise between the two, and
reach the ideal combination for a certain purpose.

Still, rake and trail alone are not enough to find the optimal stability of a motorcycle. The rest
of the chassis figures, the type of suspensions being used, the load of the bike and the
suspension settings are all parts of a much bigger picture which is rather hard to understand.
The understanding of dynamics and stability for both bicycles and motorcycles is still
incomplete, and putting everything in one single phrase is still impossible.

Altering the architecture of a motorcycle can even result in a negative trail, and this is
definitely one thing you don’t want. A negative trail is the exact opposite of the caster wheel.
To understand the importance of trail, you can head over to your nearest supermarket. Their
trolleys/shopping carts have at least two casters, though most of them have four.

Grab one, align the casters so that their pivot arms are facing towards the front and try to
push the cart. Now you’re looking at negative trail, and not only will they oppose such a move
in the first place, but fractions of a second later they will return towards you. By now, you’ve
probably guessed that pushing a trolley while maintaining the pivot arms pointing to the
direction of travel is impossible. So with negative trail, riding a bike is really close to
impossible, isn’t it?

Catch up with autoevolution next week for the second half of the “noob’s guide” to
Motorcycle Rake, Trail and Offset.


Welcome to the second part of our short digression about motorcycle geometry. The first
piece dealt with rake and trail and how these two figures affect the steering and the overall
feel of a motorcycle. The purpose of this article is only to get new riders familiarized with
certain terminology they will certainly run into in the years to come.
A Quick Guide to Motorcycle Rake, Trail, and Offset, Part 2 (Final)

17 Jul 2014, 15:22 UTC ·

by Florin Tibu

/ Home / News / Coverstory

A comprehensive guide to actually building a motorcycle or to changing the architecture of a
two-wheeler is a much more complex thing and it involves quite a lot of math and engineering.
That’s basically why bike builders often stick with some good “recipes” they discovered
previously and stray from them only when they are sure they can compensate for such
modification. So, to continue our journey into the motorcycle geometry world, here’s
something on fork offset.What is fork offset?
Offset is also measured between two virtual lines, just like rake and trail. The simplest
definition for the fork offset is the distance between the axis passing through the center of the
steering hub and the axis passing through the center of the steering tubes.

The offset of a motorcycle is controlled using various shapes of the triple tree, the piece which
clamps the fork tubes and which attaches the whole front end to the frame. Triple trees are
usually manufactured from forged or machined aluminum and are one of the essential
components of the steering assembly.

Offset affects the trail of a motorcycle: the bigger the offset becomes, the smaller the trail
gets. Inversely, if a bike has too little trail, decreasing the offset will compensate and bring the
steering within more manageable limits.


The offset can be modified with aftermarket triple trees, whose yokes are differently
manufactured than the stock OEM ones, but the same result can be obtained with different
steering head axles. Offset is often used as the main “weapon” for adding maneuverability to
custom bikes. Excessively long forks or extreme steering head angles may have an adverse
effect on the bike’s handling, and builders use special trees to correct the figures while
maintaining the aesthetics of their creations.

If you wish, the bike fork offset is a “tool” for altering the trail without affecting rake.
However, in case you decide that your bike needs such adjustments, you’ll be much better off
talking to a specialist. He or she will be able to do proper calculations and make sure you don’t
end up with rake and trail values that make the bike highly unstable.

This is especially important under hard braking conditions. With the fork legs compressing,
thus becoming shorter because of the dive effect, the trail and rake are also smaller. In
extreme situations you can even have a negative trail readout, which spells lack of stability and
big efforts for maintaining directional control. Wheel diameter also affects the rake and trail,
so if you plan to change the offset of a bike, you should also take this into consideration.What
is wheel flop?
Wheel flop is the tendency of the front wheel to accelerate the turning more than expected, in
a non-linear manner. This behavior can be also compared with an exponentially progressive
oversteering tendency for the front wheel, which actually feels like the front end is about to
flip towards the center of the turn.

Maintaining a steady turning angle requires that the rider applies more torque to the bars
than usual and significantly more than reverting from a slight turning angle to the forward
direction, in an early stage of the turn.

In a way, wheel flow has something from the idea of “the point of no return” in it, but reversal
is obviously possible. Too much trail and/or too little steering head angle enhances the wheel
flop behavior. Even more, wheel flop accentuates with heavier bikes and with more heavily
loaded machines, with the added weight on the front end of the bike contributing to reduced
stability.


Speed is one more thing that affects wheel flop. The slower you travel, the less momentum
your front wheel has, thus the bigger the tendency to “fall” off the straight direction into the
turn. As you accelerate, you’ll observe that the bike picks up almost by itself and steering
becomes lighter.

Now, if you remember the things we mentioned in the first Part 1 of this story, bikes with big
rake and trail are far more stable at higher speeds than their counterparts, while they require
more steering effort for turning at low speed. Wheel momentum induced by the rotational
speed of the front wheel is part of this phenomenon as well.

Now, truth is that each motorcycle comes with its own wheel flop tendency as a “born with”
characteristic. Sport bikes flop less, raked-out choppers flop more, and each type of motorbike
has its good and “less good” parts. Notice we avoided “bad parts” because we feel that all
bikes are cool, and even the least desirable ones are worth riding at least once.


All in all, as long as the modifications you plan to make to your bike are not extreme and they
don’t fall outside the rideability and safety limits, all should be just fine and the new feeling of
your bike should put a big smile on your face. Now that you know one or two things more
about motorcycle technology, you might appreciate more accurately how suitable your ride is.

And if you feel like really going for something extreme in motorcycle architecture and
suspensions, head over to this amazing GECO prototype machine, another exclusive
autoevolution coverstory.







TEN THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TRIPLE CLAMP OFFSET
On Mar 7, 2017 Last updated Mar 7, 2017
https://motocrossactionmag.com/ten-things-about-triple-clamp-offset/

1) Less fork offset (20mm as opposed to 22mm) increases trail and, on paper, should make the
bike steer slower and improve stability. Yet, for some reason (perhaps the wide number of
factors involved in bike handling), less offset often results in a bike that turns sharper and is
more accurate.

2) To make a motocross bike stable at speed, the steering head angle is angled forward. The
degree that the steering axis is angled forward is called “head angle.” Don’t confuse it with
“rake,” which is a different number that relates to how the forks are angled in relation to the
head angle (most forks are not raked at a different angle from the head angle). A chassis with
a slack head angle steers less when you turn the handlebars and wants to remain in a straight
line (think chopper). A steeper head angle turns quicker and is less stable at speed (think trials
bike).

3) The head angle can be found by drawing an imaginary line through the steering stem axis.
Now, draw an imaginary line perpendicular down to the ground at the same spot where the
steering axis intersects it. The angle created between the two lines is the head angle.
Measuring the angle below the steering-head axis to horizontal gives the steering-head angle.

4) Motocross bikes use head angles in the range of 27.5 to 26 degrees. A 26-degree angle
means that the steering head is angled forward less and is at a steeper, quicker-turning angle.
A 26-degree rake is the same thing as a 64-degree head angle. A 27.5-degree head angle is a
slacker angle and gives a steering-head angle measurement of 62.5 degrees. Slacker head
angles turn more slowly and improve straight-line stability.

5) Trail is a measurement of how far the contact patch of the front tire is behind the point
where the steering axis hits the ground. The number is achieved by extending an imaginary
line down the center of the head angle to the ground. Then, a perpendicular line is dropped
through the center of the front axle to the ground. The distance between where the two lines
hit the ground is the trail measurement. As a rule of thumb, it should be between 4 and 5
inches on a motocross bike (more on a chopper and less on a trials bike).

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6) Trail is what makes it possible for you to stay balanced on two wheels. Take a shopping cart
as an example. The cart’s steering axis is vertical—90-degree head angle and an axle offset of
about an inch behind the axis. When the cart is pushed, the wheels instantly swing into
alignment. The trail on a motorcycle works the same way. The front end of the bike wants to
snap straight and keep the bike upright every time it is driven forward. The farther the wheel
is behind the steering axis, the more stable the bike—the closer, the less stable. To get a bike
to turn quickly, like a shopping cart, would require very little trail.

7) A longer trail measurement gives greater caster effect, heavier and slower steering, and a
more stable feel in a straight line. That is exactly what less fork offset should achieve.
Conversely, more fork offset reduces trail and should cause the bike to steer lighter and
quicker—and the front end to feel more nervous in a straight line.

8) Axle offset is how far the axle sits ahead of the fork centerline. Axle offset affects trail. More
axle offset reduces trail and vice versa. As a rule, changing trail at the axle is better than at the
clamps (which KTM did on the 2014 Factory Edition 450SXF and will on all 2015 models). The
more offset at the triple clamps, the more the rider will feel the weight of the fork tubes when
steering. Although there needs to be some offset at the clamps to give fork clearance for a full
turning radius, the less the better to decrease the fork’s moment of inertia. The lightest-
steering bikes will put as much of the given offset as possible into the axle clamps.
9) Weight bias is how much of the bike’s weight is on the front wheel compared to the rear
wheel. More weight on the front wheel improves the front tire’s steering bite. More to the
back makes it easier for the rear wheel to follow the ground. Changing offset changes weight
bias.

10) How can reduced offset make the bike steer with a much lighter, quicker feel when the
science says it should do the opposite? Even though the actual steering geometry is slower-
turning and more predictable, increasing trail is also the same thing as moving the engine
forward and putting more weight on the front tire. In the end, riders find that clamps with
reduced offset steer better, because altogether it gives the bike a more stable feel—but with
easier steering and with a front tire that stays more planted.