Just read down thru these posts. Y'all need to look at the pic of my '72 Sporty. Yeah, that one over to the left of this scribblin'. See the front end pokin' out there? It was raked by cutting the frame, adding gussets, and welding it back together. Those are 15" overstock tubes. I don't know what the rake in degrees is 'cause we didn't do it that way "back in the day". Instead we did it by measuring how far we moved the bottom of the neck. This bike had a 7/8" rake.

It's low speed handling was like a semi with a 40 foot trailer. Going down the road was different; I think I coulda rode it from California where I bought it to Virginia where I was stationed without touching the bars. My bike's poor low speed handling/high speed stability was due to the greatly increased trail from raking the frame. If they'd had 3 degree raked triple trees back then, it would've reduced the trail to a more manageble figure.

But raked trees weren't available, except for ones that had 8 - 10 degrees of rake. And these were made for use on a stock frame with extended tube front ends. One of 'em was called the Allied 10-10 kit; 10 degree trees & 10" over tubes. If you were foolish enough to use them, you usually found why raked trees on a stock frame are still considered a no-no: bad case of the high speed wobbles, falling down, leaving copious amounts of hide embedded in the asphalt.

Raked trees are ONLY for correcting the trail on an otherwise raked bike. If you rake the neck 10 degrees, then install, say, 3 degree raked trees, you will reduce the trail back to a near stock amount, and low speed handling will be better. If you install those raked trees on a stock frame to "look cool" you will reduce the trail to a very small figure, or maybe even a negative figure. Then your front end will want to make like the front caster wheels on a K-Mart reject shopping cart.

Raked cups are OK on a stock frame; they won't reduce your trail, and are basically the same as raking your frame. And you can use raked cups with a raked frame for even more rake. Heaven help you, though, if one of the cups somehow breaks loose and moves relative to the other!

Here are a few links to explain rake & trail a bit better. Pictures is good!

http://www.kennedyschopper.com/raketips/rake.html
http://www.rbracing-rsr.com/rakeandtrail.html
http://www.wisil.recumbents.com/wisi...te2=yes#Actual Trail Calculator

I blathered all that to say this: The typical bike that has been raked and has an extended front end is not going to handle as well as the unraked version. Even with a good trail figure, the front end sticking out is going to negatively affect the maneuverability of the bike. Done correctly, it ain't that big of a deal. Just don't try keeping up with the kid on the Buell in the twisties.

 

So what would be the ideal trail for an Old Ironhead? If I wanted to rake the neck out say 5 degrees, what kind of raked trees would bring it back to stock?

 

If you rake it out only 5 degrees, to keep the bike level, you'd only go to about 4" over tubes on the front end. The trail increase would be very little, and I wouldn't bother with raked trees. If you go to raked trees, most of 'em are about 3 to 5 degrees over. That'd give you 8 to 10 degrees total rake over stock, and you could go to a 6 to 8 to 10 " over front end, and your trail would be near stock. It's hard to say exactly without knowing all the dimensions of the forks, tire/wheel combo, etc. Once you have those dimensions, go to one of the sites I listed and plug in the figures.