Front motorcycle suspension design in which the axle is mounted at the front end of two short links that pivot at the bottom of solid forks. The links are sprung to control movement. A long leading-link system has a complete fork that pivots behind the wheel.
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The best leading-link for motocycles is the short-link British DOT design of the 50-60’s, devised by Burnard Scott-Wade. The main difference to other designs was that there were no springs involved, but a rubber bush. The dampers were just that, dampers, and they could be removed and the bike could still be ridden! The rubber suspension was very sensitive, reacting to the slightest unevenness, with none of the ’stiction’ you will find in normal telescopic forks. The design was very light, too, and cheap to make. The lightness helped dampen ‘tank-slappers, too, all forks ever designed suffer from this to some degree, the inertia the tank-slappers release is what causes them to keep on ’slapping’. The lack of weight in the DOT fork gives lesser inertia, thus control is regained more rapidly. The only fault rose when used in MX, the design limited the suspension travel to about 6″, perhaps 7″. It gave quality suspension, not quantity. My first MX:er was a DOT 250 White Strength from ‘66, and it took me a year to adapt to the inferiour steering and suspension characteristics of the 250 HVA I later raced.
[...] front suspension that is similar to the leading link design, except the layout is reversed: the links pivot forward of the [...]