Best way to increase trail. Reduce fork offset or reduce head angle.

nexusfish

El Mariachi
Gday, after owing a 2016 Nukeproof mega 290 for a few months now, I think im finally on top of the bike and ive notices a quirk im trying to tune out. In the sort of tight corners you really want to weight the front and just rail through, i notice the front wants to "tuck" or it seems like it wants to keep turning in. I can avoid it buy riding a little more centrally and steer the back around, keeping the handle bars straighter, but this way seems to blow a bit more speed. Ive read a few articles that said they kept the trail short on some of the early 29 enduros to keep them handling twitchy in order to mask the wagonwheelyness of them.

So... which way would be the best to increase trail? Is the solution Im looking for? Ive got the suspension set up as perfectly as i think i can get it, even tried running the forks a little higher to try stop the tucking, but was just harsh.

Facts that might be helpful:
Long chain stays 450mm
Dvo sus front and back - pretty sure it has 51mm offset forks
66deg head angle.
50mm stem, 15mm spacer stack, 780/15mm bars.

110 bucks for an angleset. Have the option of 0.5/1/1.5 was thinking 1 deg...
500ish for offset change.

Which is the better way to increase trail and why? If I can piss that tucking off, it will be a perfect bike (for me)!

Cheers.
 

Oddjob

Merry fucking Xmas to you assholes
Have a listen to Cy Turner from Cotic on the downtime podcast before doing anything.

Might be as simple as a shorter stem.

Sent from my SM-T820 using Tapatalk
 

nexusfish

El Mariachi
Thanks everyone.
Ill try the rebound, ive always had Fox and these DVO forks behave a bit differently, so my "bouncy around" rebound setting technique may now need calibrating.

I run the tires fairly hard around the 30 mark, so i dont think they are folding over. 2.35 (really 2.5) hans dampfs

Ill source a stem, however, i had a 35 on it when i got it and it felt like it was all choppered. Though ive spent most of my time the last few years XC racing, so everything aside from a slammed XC rig will feel choppered.
 

kten

understands stuff moorey doesn't
First thing I would do would be to drop the tyre pressure and then hit a known corner repeatedly to gauge the difference.
 

nexusfish

El Mariachi
Had a 2 hr session at a skills park with a bunch of good turns with different features in each one. 1 min 20 fast run time down with 10 corners. Perfectly moist sandy dirt. Rode the track a few different ways, super aggressive berm blower-outter style and some nice and smooth runs.
Tried much less rebound to the point where is was pushing through corners (too fast) and worked back Now the 'turning in' issue is effectively gone.

However, it still feels quick to turn, as if its a little too keen to initiate turning. I suspect it might the the length of the bike compared to my old Giant reign 2008. I keep riding the front wheel the way my old bike liked but the stopwatch was telling me that riding more centrally was faster. Ill be trying running the forks a bit harder as the forward riding style might be causing the fork to compress too far into its travel and make it twitchy.

Might buy a 32mm stem and see if that changes it. Going to give the angel set a go as im a constant tinkerer and my stupid brain has convinced me (for no real reason) that it will fix all my woes.

Thanks for the pod cast oddjob, it was interesting.

Found this cool calculator. -1 deg head angle has exactly the same effect on trail as a 44mm offest. http://yojimg.net/bike/web_tools/trailcalc.php

cheers, everyone. If there is any more tips, chuck them in!
 

SummitFever

Eats Squid
Good to see the front rebound cured it. Now that you're close, look at your rear shock rebound. Adding a touch more low speed rebound damping can slow the rear-to-front weight transfer and help slow the turn in. If you don't have separate LSR adjusters then be careful with too much rebound as the rear will pack down in the braking bumps.
 
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