How to Make Your Bike Handle Even Better! 

Forgive for my earlier comment, as I am an idiot. I did not watch the full video , I only watched the first few seconds of it. After watching the full video I felt like a clown, as the video was very informative. So sorry!!!

I've been correcting people who said "dampener" for over 40 years. Most of them have argued and told me I was wrong. It's good to hear someone else get it right.

The statement about *"not wanting to surprise a tire"* is simply genius.

'load the tire before you work the tire' I did an advanced track day course this past weekend and I learned more from Nick Ienatsch in a 10 minute video than over 3 days of coaching/track riding.

You nailed my two favorite saying when improving my riding skills. "Wait for the weight" and "Don't surprise your tires." If you learn both then you're on your way to accomplishing the 3rd. "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast." ✊️

Dampening versus Damping....thank you so much for reaching out to those think/thought that the words are interchangeable!

Great visualization of the rebound of the tire! It drives home how easy it can be to make the tire skip and lose traction (which is all a squealing tire is) with abrupt inputs, both vertical (in the direction of the suspension) and longitudinal (in the direction of motion) when we grab the brakes.

Excellent! From the title I was ready to correct you, but you explained damping & dampening nicely!

😅 absolutly had me in stitches. Mmmmm dampening the tyres. Very good. Also this short vid is what's known as "a quicky". 💪🏼 Great stuff 👍🏼

Don't surprise the tyres, wise words Dave. Stay safe, ride well 🤔🏍️🤓

I'm heading out on a 3 day trip tomorrow. I'm hoping that my bike will be "damped" but not get "dampened" 😂

I haven’t heard that explained before.. 💯👍🏽

Thank you. Thank you! Damping. By a damper. The spring action is damped. There’s no dampening unless your seals are bad.

It drives me crazy too when I hear dampening instead of damping. Thanks for validating me 😆

LOL That used to drive me nuts in the Navy. Guys would call the dampers on the helo dampeners.

I have been following your channel since 2018 and subsequently did track days, bought a track bike, did ChampU online courses (I am in Australia), advanced rider course and I also follow MotoJitsu, Lee Parks etc. I am a much faster, safer and better rider after literally consuming all of your content and putting them into practice. All of you guys heavily emphasis on trail braking techniques. I have learned a lot from your videos and apply them every day on the road and on trackdays. However, I recently delved into Twist of the Wrist by K.Code and I am totally baffled by his approach of almost never touching the brakes (when cornering) and actually increasing throttle when cornering 😮 to shift weight to rear wheel.... Also quick flick etc. Twist of the wrist feels very counter intuitive (after following you for last 5 years) but Keith Code is no dummy either and his school produced some very fast racers too. I am keen to try some of his techniques on my next spirited ride.... But I must say I am very confused. What is your thoughts on K.Code? Note: I own a 2022 BMW S1000RR ( Australia spec, no hole in power-band like US version) and my track bike is a 2006 SV650. On my S1000RR, I have cornering ABS so a lot of what is written in the Twist of the Wrist about braking doesn't really apply to the bike... However they do apply to my SV650.

At 1:55 in, I wasn't cringing, I was laughing! Thank you for this video.

"Good and damp." Love it!

I'm now Damp after watching this, Giddity! Thanks for the Infotainment Dude

Excellent information. Well presented as always. Thanks!

It's all about force. No, not the 1% kind of force. When you put a force on a spring it changes its length (distance). When you put a force on a damper it changes its speed. When you put a force on a mass it changes its acceleration. The classic spring-mass-damper system. Springs store and return energy. When you hit a spring with a hammer it compresses and then expands again. It would keep doing this for a long time if it were not for damping (motorcycles have a large mass it is acting against). Light damping only transfers a bit of force to the front wheel under braking. Heavy damping transfers a lot of force to the front wheel. Think how many swings it takes a child's swing to come to a stop. (Viscous) damping absorbs the energy from the spring and gets hot. If your swing swung into a pool of water it would stop abruptly. Springs and mass shouldn't get hot except being in contact with fork oil. Forks should get hot. Absorbing energy is its job of fork oil. This energy absorption is damping.

Brilliant! Like getting a complete ChampStreet review!!

I always ride with each index finger covering brake and clutch levers at all times

One the problems with the instructional RU-vids for motorcycling in particular just seems to be this “one size fits all” mentality. This is usually coupled with terms like “never”, “always” and “don’t” and “best practices”. The problem is when you’re out in the real world you get thrown a lot of curveballs on the road. I can recount at least a couple of instances where all the “rules” went away. One such time I came over, a rise going about 70-75 and in the midst of my path stood a deer about the size of a small horse. How much braking do you suppose I used? Do you think I was abrupt with the front brake? Well, let me tell you I used every bit of mechanical braking that was available and I was squeezing the front brakes to the bar almost immediately- all over the rear as well. And I was not loose on the bars- I was elbows-locked death-gripping the bars-I was not gonna let the front wash. Almost immediately, both wheels were fully locked, and I was in a lovely skid toward this critter. And when I got within about 50 feet of the dude-he decided to jump out of the way. But I would like to ask you all a question? What would have happened if I defaulted to my “practiced” braking very nice and smooth and progressive? I can tell you beyond ANY shadow of a doubt I would’ve “progressively” broken nearly every bone in my body and probably killed that animal as well. So this notion that we are always going to do the same thing no matter what simply IS NOT true or that we are ALWAYS going to revert to our primal instincts because we’re under stress or “nervous”. I hate the word nervous I never get nervous riding a motorcycle-EVER. I recall a time when I hit a bunch of gravel in the middle of the road and I stood the bike up- like a moron- and ended up exiting the road surface on the oncoming side. I was never nervous then in fact, I just kept riding the motorcycle for about 400 yards in the culvert on the wrong side of the road until I was able to climb back onto the road surface. I’m not telling the story like I’m some kind of motorcycle Jesus but don’t STOP riding the bike no matter what happens -don’t just crash because you THINK you’re crashing. There’s no MSF thing tell you what to do when you’ve accidentally left the road. The point I’m making is there is no RATIONAL form of instruction that doesn’t take into account the situation that you may find yourself in. I’m a ton more abrupt on the inputs when it’s dry- then I am when it’s wet- I DO NOT ride the same. I suspect ton of people don’t. So to pretend we’re going to regress or revert just because we’re stressed isn’t NECESSARILY true- we are quick-thinking, high-functioning primates. We are INFINITELY capable of situational awareness. Go watch about a dozen Marc Marquez saves- and tell me that there’s ANY individual flight plan for any single one of those. Not a CHANCE. It’s instinctual reaction to whatever the situation is at the time.

Your high IQ lectures are simply unreal mate. Fantastic the visual and every day comparisons to the isssue you are tackling. Full points also to your conciseness and minimum time of your tutorials as the human mind cannot concentrate full power for more than approximately 5 minutes and it’s so important in your videos not to miss a single word. 🎉👍💪👋

He has a thing for dampening like I do when I hear "hot" water heater. It's a water heater.... Not a hot water heater! Great vid!

Great thanks

For Adv riders, when is a good time to increase dampeni.. damping? I assume offroading? But is there a ‘too much’ damping?

People in the comments section defending the use of dampening where damping is appropriate in 3, 2, 1 🤣

Using "Dampening" in the thumbnail: well played, sir.

Love damping off everything, specially when getting sweaty 😂

"Dampening" is to make something damp/wet. "DAMPING" is related to suspension.

Awesome Dave, Where did you get so smart. Certainly not from your dad and I ... a, let's leave you dad out of that last statement. Proud of you my friend.

Is that a berm peak reference?

This seems like a job for grammar police... People often mispronounced many words, but I am certain each person knew what someone ment when saying dampening...

No. From Merriam-Webster: Damp can be used both for wetness and for reduction of effect. Dampen is another verb, which means "to make damp", which makes sense for both meanings of "damp". So a dampener is a thing that mekes something else damp, and a damper is a thing that damps. Since the damper in the whole of a suspension is a subsystem that alters the behaviour of the whole, it is a dampener. It makes the suspension damp: it reduces the effect of the suspension (avoiding it to oscilate or overreact, etc). So no: just a simple visit to the dictionary tells us that you can use dampener or dampening to refer to that part of the bike that prevents the whole of the suspension from "overreacting", being preload or rebound. No shame, and I would actually say that it is more precise than just "damper".

Damping is a vibration and natural frequency term. Reduce energy spikes through inertia stiffness matrix. Newtons 2nd law.

Not DAMPENING! It's not a diaper! 😂

wont lie, you kinda hurt my ego. Damping.... got it haha

Dampen and dampening are both correct as they mean the same thing. Only one meaning is to dampen, i.e. to wet a surface. Another is to reduce something, like amplitude. You need to dampen your rant on the term dampening, as it means the same. :-)

Good stuff. Regarding staying focused on the road, I do that and unfortunately it means that I miss a lot of the scenery that goes by and we have a lot of beautiful scenery here. My solution was to get a 360 degree cam so that I can review it later. Here's an example I shot of a mountain road near my home with the Mediterranean on one side: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Xd-6mga4atw.html

You Americans are such cards! Damping? quite right.

Awesome video! Just please don't compress a spring in a vice...I think I was triggered

Good and damp.. Mmmm…

American Gangster (2007), staring Denzel Washington; based on true events.

I adjust my suspension dampening more often than the damping.

👍

Well I feel sheepish…

Oh yah make it moist

My guess is there’s at least a few people who have a “wet motorcycle suspension” fetish that you just made very happy with this video. 😬😂

Damping. The word you are looking for is damping. Not Dampening. ;-)

Your wetting your suspension

*damping, not dampening

Damping reduces suspension oscillation, which makes your bike ride better. Dampening makes it wetter.

Damping ,people damping. I know what they’re referring to so do you don’t get bent over spellings!

Why dont you do research before you make videos like these. The word damping is the correct word and it means, the decrease in amplitude of an oscillation as a result of energy being drained from the system to overcome frictional or other resistive forces. The word your using is incorrect and the meaning does not have anything to do with suspension. People beware before taking advice from this guy!

Finally someone outright murdering those who say 'dampening', next time someone asks me for help with tuning in their dampening I will just hand them a water bottle and tell them to pour it over their suspension! More seriously though, fantastic video that highlights core fundamentals of riding.

On the down side, my bike lives outside. But on the up side, that means I don't need to worry about dampening my suspension!

LMAO i hated being that guy who always felt the need to correct people on damping Vs. Dampening, but technical terminology is always important to me when you’re talking about technical things

I clicked on your video just to correct the word dampening, I already came with the definition, LOL: the word "dampen" The correct word for reducing the amplitude in waves (such as spring action) is "damping" or "to damp." The word "dampen" means to make damp or moist, and is concerned with liquid, not to reduce the amplitude of the spring. I'm glad you explained this for everyone.

Thank You for clearing up the confusion about suspension dampening

Some general rules for suspension settings I have learned are: For the front, rebound damping encourages confidence, but too much causes the front to pack down and bottom the fork out. Compression in the front is used to get the front fork to only collapse to about 1/4" of full compression. You want the least amount rebound that still achieves confidence, and allows the bike to hold a line out of corners. Compression will mostly be about how hard you brake. The rear is more complicated as you have to read the tire. Rebound and compression tear is real, just as much as the affect of tire pressure has a tell on the tire. You want to retain as much compression as you can before traction is an issue. For rebound you rely on the tire mostly. Too much rebound and the bike will run wide out of corners. Too little rebound compression and it will want to keep falling into the turn. Too much compression reduces traction, while too little causes the bike to want to run wide out of turns exacerbated by the amount of rebound. I find it easier to dial in the front first, then get the rear dialed in, then repeat back to the front etc. Eventually, you will get to a point where you are chasing your tail. That is where you have to learn what YOU are doing wrong. Most rider problems are caused by the rider. So you have to learn what the changes in the suspension do for you, and what you do to cause that result. Then you can learn how you cause the suspension to do things you don't want it to. Eventually you will get to a point where you won't be any faster, and the bike won't get any better. This is the point where you need to improve the suspension to suit you and your riding style, and then you repeat the process again.

THANK YOU for calling out dampening. That's what happens to my underpants due to prostate issues and has nothing to do with damping!

And there's me, a non-native English speaker, looking at the box my certain phone mounting accessory... It says "vibration dampener" All this time I thought it protects my phone camera but what it's been doing is to secretly make my bike wet

🤣🤣🤣not dampening or even damping my enthusiasm for this channel 😁👏

Finally someone said it. I learned the difference in English As Second Language.

You never disappoint, brother!

Way sweet info bro... Thanks!

Good Stuff. Thank you! 😊

Lmao. It's funny.

Not only did I improve my riding skills, I’ve also graduated high school all from watching this video 😊

It's like people talking about a ''Double Action Revolver'' In a revolver a double action is the fact that you can set the hammer two ways to fire the gun. Stil people holding a double action revolver and staging and setting the hammer with the thumb continuedly call this ''single action'' A gun where you can ONLY stage and set the hammer with your thumb is a single action gun. Only one way to stage and set the hammer. Even seasoned gun people don't understand this difference and get mad if you point this out. When there where handguns who was not able to pull and stage the hammer with the trigger, we had only single action guns. Then came the guns where you could do both, stage and set the hammer with your thumb, and stage and set / fire the gun by pulling the trigger.

Consider also-1) Teaches that abrupt inputs always produce undesirable results. 2) Also rides a motorcycle with traction control systems where automated inputs are immediate, abrupt, fast, dramatic and heavily intervening.

Awesome info! Simple and easy to understand, and so important as well.

Thank you so much...I absolutely HATE when people say "dampening". It's DAMPING!

You totally click baited me with the "DAMPENING" graphic. Good one. I loved the "dampening" demonstration ha ha. Good info, btw.

All systems have some damping, including tires.

Damping should be the LEAST it can be that deals with Spring Rate AND Tyre oscillation forces . And yes , load the Tyre smoothly before REALLY loading it up . Same exact rules apply to Cars AND Trucks .

hahahahaha "dampening".... Guilty as charged

87% of riders never touch shock or fork settings and should not as they do not ride well enough to need to tune suspension. Any setting is fine for the center tire wearers. Not like even many sport bikes get ridden fully like a sport bike, just cruise main strips revving to rev limiter doing burn outs wheelies and semi drag races. In my 40 plus years riding I think most buy sport bikes and never use them for their intended design, carving corners. Sad but true, so it is best they stay away from the dampening settings they do not need anything but stock. Not sure they even know they are adjustable on many bikes LOL

Suspension guys are super obnoxious idiots who are complete trash at explaining the physics behind suspension. But you just gave me an incredible weapon, much like how we have been using "clip" against gun purists, "dampening" will become a standard of legend.

I'd be interested to see this study that recommends covering the front brake. In my experience (and learnings) covering the front brake leads to poor brake use due to receive applications. Technique is improved by not covering So your brain has that second to consider the application before activating the brake poorly.

I would be interested to hear the argument as to why you feel tires are more important than brakes on a bike. If I had to choose between riding on bad tires or bad brakes, I'm choosing the good brakes and the bad tire. You can ride carefully with rotten tires, but you cannot ride carefully with rotten brakes.

My face, when I saw the spring in the vice. I can't be the only one with an elevated heart rate and a bit of disgust. Yikes! lmao

Google the word! This guy focused on dampening so much he made him self look stupid and like he thinks hes a know it all! If he is that wrong about the word dampening what else is he wrong about and just giving his opinions and not facts!?

Ok, now let’s call out "FRONT FORKS"! (Not to be confused with rear forks?) And then can we talk about "rear shocks"?

I only clicked because I was triggered by "dampening"... Well played.

If I use a soft fat bicycle tire on my bike vs a hard motorcycle tire the same size the bicycle tire gives a rough ride cuz it doesn't alow the shock to work .

Is this video an overstretched way to say "don't surprise your bike"? I bet much more than 13% of riders knew that.

at 4:44 you say you dispense with techniques that need lower speed or optimal grip conditions. What are those techniques??

Ok, an observation- "Damp" also gets a lot of use in music. For example, a drum, a bell, actually most any instrument... you typically don't want them to "ring" for a long time... I've seen drummers put towels inside their kick drums to damp them. A tight well controlled drum is refereed to as damp. This would be a situation where you are actually using a towel for damping. It could even be a wet towel- the towel could be damp while making the drum damp as well. :) Note: I am not recommending drummers actually put wet towels inside their drums. 'Cause that's just stupid.

Haha, you got fallen on the floor with "I'm dampening my suspension" :D :D :D

I was dampening my suspension tonight on a foggy road near Lake Michigan 💦

Berm Peak approves this message!

Thank god you addressed "damping". I hope you tackle gender next, lol.

87% of riders don't understand this is DAMPING, not dampening

You have the best explanations & valuable lessons... keep up the great work!

damping... thanks for the correction lol. I knew I wasn't saying it right so I try not to say it

Grate video. Smooth is fast. Trail braking is the key to pitch and yah.

🤣 how did you calculate 87%