Harley Sportster.....what does a "3-degree rake" mean?

Question

I'm looking at a '99 Sporster for sale and the add says the bike has a 3-degree rake. So I have no idea what that means. Thanks!

Answer 1

I bet they meant a 30 degree rake. It had to be a typo. My bike has a 26 degree rake. Three degrees is almost straight up and down.

Answer 2

rake is the tilt of the forks....is the frame where the forks and handle bars are... like looks of a old chopper but i dont know what normal rake  is so cant say how much 3 degree's is  

Answer 3

rockbase, your answer is too long, it hurts my head to read that much ****

3 degrees isn't accurate, i can guess, that the seller has a steering neck cup kit that has added an additional 3 degrees of rake

Answer 4

The angle of the front forks. This is part of your front suspension.

Sportsters are poor motorcycles, as well as Harley Davidson in general. They are geared too low and very heavy for a beginner bike, and you should be able to pick your bike up off the ground if it and you go down. Get a standard or sport tourer, something that handles well and has pep.

Answer 5

Motorcycle Rake and Trail - Tech Talk

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Rake and Trail:

We know you were day dreaming about s*x when the triangles were floating about the blackboard, or for those of you who were already warped, you were doodling motorcycles while the teacher droned on about sines, cosines, tangents. Now all these years later when you finally got the money to build your dream bike, all you can do is thumb through pictures of other people's projects, searching for that "look" blissfully unaware of what all that trigonometry was for. We're going to show you how to do the calculations. We're going to present some data for you to study, and leave the decisions up to you. It might explain why shopping carts weren't meant to go 200 mph.

Your front suspension geometry is defined by the following six variables which are defined as:

OFFSET: Centerline of the top steering neck to the centerline of the top of the fork tubes.

RAKE: The angle in degrees of the steering neck from the vertical cord.

FORK LENGTH: The distance between the top of the fork tubes to the centerline of the axle.

DIAMETER: The diameter of the front tire.

TRAIL: The distance defined by the vertical line from axle to ground and the intersection of centerline of the steering neck and ground.

RAKED TRIPLE TREES: In order to bring trail figures back into line, triple trees with raked steering stems can be used. Usually adjustable in 3, 5, 7 degrees of rake.

HOW TO MEASURE CORRECT TRAIL

Raise the bike to an upright position, using a tape measure, hold the tape straight down from the front axle to the floor. Put a mark on the floor at that point. Then place the tape parallel to the steering neck, following the angle of the steering neck all the way up to the floor. Put a mark here also. Now measure the distance between the two marks and you have your trail measurement. It should read between 2 and 4 inches. Note: If your bike is equipped with a rear suspension, have someone sit on the seat when you make the measurements to simulate your actual riding condition.

TOO LITTLE OR NEGATIVE TRAIL

With too little or negative trail (steering axle mark behind the front axle mark), the bike will handle with unbelievable ease at low speeds, but will be completely out of balance at high speed. It will easily develop a fatal high-speed wobble. EXTREMELY DANGEROUS!

NORMAL TRAIL

Normal trail is somewhere between 2 and 4 inches. The bike will handle easily at both high and low speeds. Flowing smoothly through curves without swaying or wobbling. If you use a very fat rear tire, you should keep the trail as close to 4 inches as possible.

TOO MUCH TRAIL

If the trail is more than 4 inches the bike will handle sluggishly at high speeds. It will seem almost too steady. You will have trouble balancing the bike at lower speeds or on winding roads. It will feel generally sluggish and clumsy.

Answer 6

It is hard to describe rake without a diagram but here goes:

You have the bike in front of you. You look at the front wheel side on. If you imagine a vertical line which goes through the centre of the wheel, the rake is the angle between this line and the front forks of the bike.

Don't worry too much about it as it is a technical term and I only know about it because i read a book on motorcycle maintenance. The person who put the add in probably put it in because they ran out of things to say  about the bike, or because they did not know what it meant and thought it sounded impressive.

Answer 7

The above answers are very helpful, but a little incomplete.

You'll usually see rake figures for stock bikes in the range of 23 to 35 degrees.  The stock figure for a Sportster 1200 is 29.6 degrees.  I imagine that what the seller is trying to say is that they have modified the bike to have three additional degrees of rake, meaning that the front wheel is kicked out more.

This can be accomplished a couple of different ways.  First, you could take off the steering head and reweld to have the additional angle.  Not a job for amateurs.  The other way would be to install triple clamps which have the fork tubes at a different angle from the steering head.  I know that Harley does this on their V-rod, and may do it on their other bikes.  I'd think that the second alternative is more likely.

Best of luck!

Answer 8

THE RAKE IS CENTER LINE OF BIKE ,,,,,,,,,,SO IF ITS 3 DEGREES     OFF  CENTERLINE   THEN IT MEANS   ITS LEANIN BACK 3 DEGREES  

Answer 9

that means that the front forks are at a 3 degree from 90 rake, so basically the front forks are staight up and down, choppers normally have a really high degree of rake which puts the front tire really far forward making it harder to steer at slow speeds

Answer 10

It is the angle of the neck.  If you watch American Chopper you notice how the forks are really long and the front tire sits out about 3-4' from the bike.  It has about a 35-47 degree rake.  A three degree rake is not very much.  The larger the rake the harder they are to steer.

Answer 11

it would be best to find someone who knows about bikes to go with you when your looking its easy to get ripped if ya dont no anything about bikes expecially a harley that was probably beat on you maybe buying someone elses headache compare there price to a newone and remember a new bike you get a warrantie also if you buy a new bike from harley they warranty the bike but onlty if they do the maintenance on the bike and that cost more than a monthly payment and it can get very expensive for bike repairs i got got rid of my 04 sporty and sold for 6,100 but i had over 14000 invested after i had aftermarket harley parts put on they charge 95 per hour to work on it then add the price of parts just look at all your options before and good luck  

Answer 12

Who cares! Just put your butt in the seat ride it and see if it feels right to (You). Your the only one that can determine that. See Ya out there!!!