Hi all,

I have a full ohlins setup underneath my bike and I drive it everyday , no matter what weather ...

these days it's around -10 here in Belgium,

when I had the bike two years ago I never had any problems during cold temperatures, at least the bike , myself , that's a different story ...

The past two days since temperatures are dropping quite low , I notice the bike has a completely different steering handling ...

Yesterday I checked my tyre pressure and noticed that this was way to low (around 1 bar front and back wheel ) so I quickly changed this and stepped on the bike the morning after , bike was running as normal again ...

So few hours later after the bike had been outside the entire day , I again stepped on the bike and immediately noticed the same steering behavior :

the bike reacts slower to steering and feels completely different ...

Called my bike shop immediately and there they think it could be that the ohlins suspension , especially the rear shock will behave differently in very cold weather and that I should change some settings ...
But then I'm not sure what to change, rebound? spring preload , compression?
they think the shock is maxed out in cold weather and is not coming back enough after riding over a bump or when cornering
This all was via telephone so they didn't check my bike physically yet
It's strange as I never had this with the cheap sachs oem shock and front springs ..

anybody having the seem problem or notice the same behavior with ohlins in cold weather ?

I bought it and never changed any settings as the spring is set to my weight and riding style from factory ...

so there yo go , a 1000 euro suspension upgrade isn't always good



thanks , and have a safe ride you winter riders !

Are the symptoms only apparent when the bike is stone cold? Do the symptoms disappear when the engine warms up? If they do then it may possibly be the grease in the head race bearings stiffening up in the cold rather than the suspension fluids. Once the oil in the frame warms the headstock the grease will thin out. You can get low temperature grease for extreme climates, but I don't think they mean Belgium though! Maybe Siberia. Mate of mine changes all the grease on his pushbike in the winter for low temp stuff to make it easier to pedal and steer. Just a thought??

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In theory when temperatures drop oil will become 'thicker'... all oils will, also the one in your shock and front fork. This will 'stiffen up' the suspension. Normally I would expect the oil would warm up after 'a while' (however long that might be...).

I'm experiencing the same cold as you are (in the Netherlands) and have no issues,but maybe it is because I'm running on a worn out knobby front tire that already has a very poor steering characteristic (push it into a corner, then it will drop in to it, need to compensate ... got used to it)

If you would like to compensate for the thicker oil you should reduce compression and rebound damping.

HJ

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Riding the Mad Mule !! ... no more... went orange...

yes this morning same thing , out of the garage , all fine , 5 km further the effect returned and tonight it will be there completely , so it's for sure the suspension ,
gonna play with it over the weekend and see how that goes ,

but this cold is hopefully not going to last for too long ,

just wondering if other drivers with ohlins (Scandinavia,eastern europe?) have the same issue

I think most riders will notice their suspension characteristics change due to severe ambient temperature variations.

I notice that even my TTR250 with stock suspension suffers from this problem. I use 20wt fork oil because in the very high daytime temperatures found in my work (highest so far is 49degC shade temp) the standard 10wt is worthless. I also find that the shock's compression and rebound action is less during very hot days compared with cooler mornings of, say, 15degC.

As mentioned above, any oil or grease I'm familiar with thins as it gets hotter. So I don't think it's necessarily the fault of your Ohlins. Just how it is. All suspension settings are a compromise of some kind imo.

66t I agree gets dam hot in Adelaide but I've now got 20w fork oil and uprated front springs seems to help hell of alot

Alex

Sent from my X10i using Tapatalk

pommie mate, I use my TTR as my work bike for contract mustering in the far north ie currently near Tarcoola. Even the 20wt fork oil thins out drastically on hot days; especially noticeable when crossing the railway line randomly (ie not at crossings) which we have to do all the time. Hate crossing the railway line for various reasons...

Doing it on the Tenere would scare me!

That sounds proper cowboy..... Jealous.com....

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Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

He he mate.. Did you mean hot.sweaty.dusty@alsofreezing.sorea**e?

Hottest 49degC, coldest -7degC (early morning, shudder, we aren't used to such pain!).

At sub-zero temps the suspension feels like, erm, there is no suspension!