Let's break trail down so you can really envision what it means. Well, better yet, print this out, walk out to your shop or garage, get a tape measure and some chalk and perform these measurements so you can really see how it works. See why it is the most difficult to understand? Trail is the distance determined when an imaginary vertical line is drawn from the front axle to the ground and that line intersects with another imaginary line going from the center-line of the steering neck to the ground. Diameter of the front tire is another variable.īut trail is often the most difficult to understand. Fork rake is the degrees of angle which the neck is angled from true vertical.įork rake works in most cases with the triple trees which create the fork rake however, triple trees with raked steering stems have additional adjustments, usually of 3 to 7 degrees rake, which are used to adjust trail.įork length is simply the measurement, usually in inches, from the top of the fork tubes to the center-line of the front axle. The front suspension of any motorcycle is made up of six key variables. But knowing rake and trail (and fork rake) is something you should 'get'. The good news is that, unless you plan to become a from-scratch frame and suspension designer, you won't need a university degree and a keen understanding of tangents, sines, and cosines to comprehend the basic concepts you need to understand how your motorcycle functions as a synergistic creation of many parts.

Motorcycle rake and trail diagram