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> primarily by increasing trail and rake

This is oddly redundant, kind of like saying "primarily by using computers and laptops".

Trail is the tendency of the front wheel of a bicycle or motorcycle to act like a caster. If you change the bike geometry so as to increase trail, the bike will increase its resistance to being turned (steered). This makes the bike easier to handle, particularly at high speeds, and makes it much easier to ride no-hands. But it's not all good: it also makes it very hard to control the bike when the wheel has a lot of load on it (like front panniers) and makes the bike less manipulable.

You can change the trail by changing the angle of the steering column (steeper angle, lower trail), changing the size of the wheels (smaller wheels, lower trail), or adding "rake", which is the forward swoop that many bikes have in their front fork (more rake, lower trail). Though some think rake is to provide a bit of bounce or suspension, it's really not. It's a device used to add trail.



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