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Biography |
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"Works" performance for the local rider
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Meet Thomas Leatherman "Optimum Suspension was a dream that developed over a period of years spent consumed with the passion to ride bikes of all sorts, and the intellectual quest to achieve the highest level of performance that each bike was capable of. It all started in San Diego over 20 years ago where I had been stationed in the U.S. Marine Corps. As a Super-Sized rider (I'm a die-hard weightlifter), I couldn't seem to find anyone that could explain how to set up a bike for someone weighing +240lbs. An AMA D-38 desert racer, with a fanny pack, food and water, I was straining the suspension of my poor YZ and in time the bottom frame tubes were as flat as popsicle sticks from dragging the ground too often. |
Playing in the "Dobies" north of Delta |
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KTM of Grand Junction
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Later, after graduating from the
University of Nebraska with an Engineering degree, the passion
continued. Now, however, as an Engineer I had the intellectual tools
required for a high-level understanding of dynamic suspension action.
Over the next few years I worked with a local suspension tuner in the quest to attain optimum suspension action for my race-bikes. I would test and document a specific setup, then get back to my tuner with a request to make this or that change. My tuner, on the other hand, would suggest that I was on the wrong track, that the change I was requesting would not work. I, in return, would argue the theoretical basis for my request while he would assert that the practical solution often diverges from the theoretical. "How?" I would ask. |
Competing in the Master's class at the 2004 Mountain States Open, a regional drug-free Pro-Qualifier where I placed 4th (click here to learn more) |
| In the end we would make the changes that I was looking for, resulting in an improved ride. Eventually, tired of debating the merits of my own design concepts, I enrolled in an Advanced Suspension class where I learned that I was well ahead of the curve, so to speak. The class was filled with mechanics and technicians from all over the world, eager to learn the fundamentals of suspension design, fundamentals that I had already learned as an undergraduate Engineering student, and through subsequent research and development testing. | ||
| This turned out to be a revelation of sorts, in that the guys I was taking this class with were all making a living as suspension tuners. The reason for my own enrollment in this class was twofold. First, I was seeking answers to long-held questions that others seemed incapable of answering; and secondly, I wanted to become my own tuner and perhaps to help my friends with their suspension setup. What I did learn was that most tuners simply do not have the engineering background to support a high-level analysis of dynamic suspension action. | ||
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Shortly thereafter I spent
time working with GP Racing
in Lewiston, Idaho to learn the nuances of disassembly/assembly.
Thanks GP! Then I was off and running, testing all sorts of
theoretical suspension setups and looking for that
optimization point with each of my (six) bikes. The changes that I was
able to affect in the ride dynamics of each particular bike were nothing
short of amazing to me. Soon my riding partners were noticing how
effective my bike was in difficult riding situations and began asking
for my help in setting up their own machines. Optimum Suspension was
born during this period."
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Gone Testing |
