As the years have gone by, I’ve learned a bit more about the various subsystems of motorcycles I ride. I’ve not yet had to really deep dive into the suspension. This Triumph Speed Triple wants to change that. Our roads in this part of the world while not littered with potholes aren’t exactly smooth. As the soil settles, the asphalt develops waves which then ricochets through the suspension. Having ridden mostly adventure bikes, the suspension on the big adventure tourers makes any archipelago of pumps disappear.

The tightly wound sporty suspension, however, begs to differ. Several times the rear suspension smacks my ass into the air which I’m sure is not the intended effect. A good friend of mine – way more skilled motorcycle mechanic than I am introduced me to tiny screws that have massive effects on the operation of the motorcycle’s suspension.

Generally, on any motorcycle’s stock suspension, three concepts come into play: pre-load, compression, and rebound. I only had the tools to adjust compression and rebound, so we started there. I simply screwed the screws to closed, just feeling pushback from the bike. I then turned the screws the appropriate number of turns that the manual indicated was soft suspension hoping to gain some of the characteristics of the adventure bikes I’m used to.

I don’t need to feel every flexion in the pavement at high speed. I’m just looking for a softer Sunday ride and for the bike to be more predictable over less than pixel-perfect pavement. After the ride on Saturday, I knew it was time to fiddle.

What a difference two days make! Whereas Saturday was hazy and cold, Monday was outstandingly awesome! The sun was out, so bikes came out. A buddy of mine reached out wanting to go riding, and I didn’t have much going on, so off exploring we went!

A quick technical aside: both photos were taken with the iPhone at 3X zoom. The photo on the left used portrait mode, whereas the photo on the right used the standard camera settings. The blur in the background is called bokeh—it’s one of the things photographers live for in wide-open lenses, as it makes the subject stand out. For what it is, the iPhone has reasonably good bokeh.

I’ve also been shooting RAW with my iPhone, and I find that RAW provides some of the same benefits in recovering under and overexposed segments and photos (to a lesser extent than a DSLR camera). However, when in portrait mode, the camera shoots in HEIC, not full DNG RAW format.

Sometimes random crap drops into my brain. Today’s random phrase: Jocund Din, I remember it from some literature course many years ago but didn’t have a clue what it actually meant. A little googling cured that itch:

“Jocund din” is a phrase that refers to a lively, happy, and loud sound. The word “jocund” means “happy” or “cheerful”, while “din” refers to a loud noise. 

The phrase “jocund din” appears in William Wordsworth’s poem “There Was a Boy”. In this poem, Wordsworth uses the words “mirth” and “jocund” to convey ideas of happiness.

While the poem takes a very dark and unremembered turn, the phrase still describes the two of us out on bikes—enjoying the wind, the sun, the throttle, and the grunting roar of the engines. My brain wasn’t totally off the mark when I came back to this somewhat archaic phrase.

It was fun being out; however, I think I may need some more specialized help getting set up with the suspension. I’ve also learned it’s great to work alongside experienced people willing to share their knowledge. Learning how they work has given me great confidence in making my own changes on my bike. As I spend more time with this bike, once I learn the fundamentals, I will likely make changes to tighten the suspension as I grow more comfortable with this kind of bike.

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