It will change it a bit, but the bike will look pretty silly with the butt dragging the ground. Raking the bike a couple degrees doesnt change the looks of the bike at all. This is a pretty common question asked. Everybody wants to rake the front end, but nobody wants to do the job the correct way by altering the frame's steering head. Ive seen alot of Sporties where people raked the front end a few degrees by doing raked trees. The bike still looked about the same cept the steering geometry was now poorly setup since trail was reduced to almost nothing. If you really want to set your Sporty apart from the sheep flock, send your frame out and do something radical that will actually SHOW a difference, like a 40-45 degree rake with some 4" over or longer fork tubes. Otherwise in my mind its pretty useless.

 

I'd like to throw something else into this mix; aesthetics. I've written this, or something similar, before. Anytime you do something to a bike that changes the looks, it shouldn't be something that immediately jumps out, relative to the entire bike. (If you're on a budget and doing things a step at a time, this "golden rule" doesn't apply to the imterim product.) Even the most utilitarian, functional bike should flow from front to rear.

Now, applying this to raking a bike: Look at a bike that has had the frame properly raked. The forks are parallel with the neck post. Now look at a bike with raked trees and notice the angle between the neck and the tubes. The angle jars the senses, to look at it in an artsy-fartsy way. Sometimes that "jarring" can be used to good effect in a visual sense. Sometimes it detracts from the overall look of the bike. Which of these two effects takes place is dependent upon the viewer.

Let me take some of y'all back to the late '60s - mid '70s. Choppers were "cool', and Fat Bob styles were just starting to make a comeback. There were tons of bikes around with extended forks, but without unraked frames. Some of 'em were so extreme I called 'em praying mantis bikes, because of the jacked up front ends. They also were lousy handling. So folks decided to rake something to get the bike semi-level, an at least handle well enough not to try and kill the rider every time he took it out.

Having a pro cut on the frame was expensive, so lotsa guys did it them selves. Sometimes they did a good job, sometimes an OK job, and too often they destroyed the frame. I've seen frames cut behind the neck, bent out to the desired angle, then just have a couple pounds of bondo fill in the gap left by the cutting & bending. Generally, the neck snapped off the first time the bike was ridden.

In came the raked tree guys. They advertised new raked trees and tubes that allowed the bike to have an extended front end, yet still sit level. Of course, they failed to tell the customer the bike's trail would be reduced to the point of no return, as in "Ride this bike, and you'll likely not return."

What's been pointed out in this thread is that there are several ways to have a raked-out look on a bike. Some of 'em are cheap & easy, and some are more expensive and difficult. If you're considering raking a bike to get that long look, do it right. And remember that what you end up with is a direct reflection of you. You can do it cheap, or you can do it right. What'll you choose as your legacy?

 

Pococj: Another great post man! Right to the point with tact and flair. Something my posts lack on many occasions, but thats ok, I know you'll follow up with a great thread.

 

Now see... THIS makes sense! Second ONLY (in MY mind) to performance is aesthetics. Tell me its going to run GREAT but look like Frankenstein, and I'm ok. But tell me it'll LOOK sweet but run like CRAP and I can't take that....