What's your favorite ESA settings?????

Just wondering what people set there ESA for single riders and no luggage for different situations?
1. General street riding?
2. Twisty street?
3. dirt road with a few rocks?
4. dirt road with lots of rocks?

You really only have adjustments over spring preload and rebound. The comfort would be more applicable for general street and sport for twisties. I would use the mountain settings for any off-road excursions for the increased travel. Compression adjustment would be nice but apparently GS owners aren't sophisticated enough to be able to discern the difference. Good luck and don't be afraid to play around with the different settings.

I've played with the settings on my 2009 12GS but I keep coming back to 1 up with luggage and comfort settings. Also, I ride about 95% on the road and I'm 6ft 2in and 210lbs.

I'm 205 (but I'm on a diet!). I run 1 up with luggage and normal most of the time. If I'm on broken up pavement or a bumpy gravel/dirt road I punch it to comfort.

I prefer low dirt, normal for my type of general riding; mixed dirt/sand and paved road. I have the WIlbers ESA on my '09 GSA.

On the road I mix it up between 1up and sport and the small mtn setting depending on how rough the pavement. Off road it is between the tow offroad settings. I found the big mtn setting to be the best when riding 2up with luggage. Still playing around with the settings and what I like. A lot of it comes down to level seating as I hard sliding forward when the rear is up and the front is down. I'm 6'2 and 200lbs.

High mountain normal for every kind of riding....

1 up with luggage for all rd sealed rd conditions alternate between normal and hard depending on speed and rd condition...
Small mountain for any dirt rd...

Does it make the ride more comfortable? Noticeable difference?

+1, but when it gets hairy I'm up on the pegs and switch it to soft.

Different users may choose different set-ups for the same road condition.

For example for twisty roads, do you prefer a ride with fast cornering, racing against time, or are you a fan of slow, scenic, touristic travel... You can change settings according to your choice...

I see all these different settings talked about and I guess I don't understand how to use the ESA on my 2011 GS.
I only see three settings total. I have Normal, Comfort, and Sport.
Is this right? Or am I missing something. I read the manual and didn't see anythiing about the different settings.
Maybe I overlooked something, but I don't think so.
I haven't seen anything about one or two up, or any type of off road settings.
Help. Please!!

Lewis

When street riding I go 2 up comfort, I really enjoy being high on the road. Off road it varies.

Lewis, you have to pay attention to your push/cycle on the ESA button a longer push will change mode and a quick push will select type.

Cheers,

Do you have the owners manual? It's packed with information about your bike and is the best source for your answer.

If not, I'll post more about the procedure when I have more time.

Yes you are missing something...

The normal, comfort and sport settings are change on the fly setting. The other setting one up, one up luggage, two up, the little mountain picture and and the big mountain picture are 5 setting prelaod setting. You change these by holding the ESA button while the bike is ideling in nutreal with little or no load. On the display it will indicate what setting you are in. Than push the button again and cycle through the choices. As it is making the change the setting on the display will flash. Only when it is done flashing should you ride off. The big mountain setting visibly raises the bike by about two inches.

Enjoy!

Just finished a 5000km ride through CO, WY, UT, ID, and BC. Lots of twisty river and mountain roads as well as long gravel stretches, mountain passes, jeep trails, logging roads. Pure fun. All done with two weeks of baggage so bike was running heavier than 'normal rider plus luggage' setting. I constantly played with ESA controls. John on his 2009 w/o ESA would adjust his manual preload from time to time but the convenience of the ESA meant that I could fine tune the bike and compare settings quickly.
My preferred settings (5'- 9'' and 180 lbs)
Fast twisty roads - 'sport plus two up' setting
Gravel - 'normal plus two up setting' or 'low off road' setting.
Logging roads - 'normal or sport plus high off road setting'
I switched from 'single rider with luggage' early on in the trip to 'two up' and the ride change was much better on fast twisty roads. When on roads the bike was always on 'sport'.
When running on fairly quick logging roads up near Chatter Creek BC (goggle it ...thanks Dan and Dale), it was necessary to run 'high off road and sport mode' to stop the bike from bottoming out on the water ditches running across the roads.
Although not ESA related, my traction control was turned off most of the time but I left it on in the rain or greasy roads. The ABS was cancelled every time we ran off road.

back... looks like ya'll provided the requested info.

I read it and just didn't get it I guess. I would appreciate the help.

Thanks

Lewis

I'm 5'7", 135 in my skivvies. :eek1 FWIW, and this is based on one 250 mile ride and another about an hour ride: One up, comfort for 90% of the time. "Normal" IS the sport setting for me. I've not had the experience of riding an ESA bike while carrying a load. I did notice that on the ≈1500 mile demo bike, the suspension "softened up" compared to the zero mile bike I did 250 miles on, making it more comfortable.

Wandering, see post #15 above as it explains the process.