Robert Taylor
30th April 2011, 14:04
This thread is to clarify what we do and distribute in the suspension world in New Zealand
As most of you will know we have a huge presence in the road race world, with the results to prove it. But in fact most of our work is selling and upspecing suspension for everyday road riders who are seeking MUCH better ride quality on our bumpy roads but also with much improved chassis control.
Also, although we havent had a heavy focus on it over the last few years we are doing more and more MX work and we do a little bit of race car work
CUSTOM BUILD of discontinued listings, one offs, VINTAGE MX etc are all specialities
This is a list of what we distribute / source and some candid comments about some of the products we selectively dont onsell;
OHLINS Our staple, the most famous suspension brand in the world. Almost everyone has used this product at some stage to win races and national championships. Still very much at the top of the tree in international road racing and also HERE IN NEW ZEALAND, having won the 3 major titles at the last TriSeries and the 5 major 2011 NZ ROAD RACE TITLES. Unashamedly we worked very hard at this and the results showed.
BUT, road racing is only a bit part of the market. the reality with Ohlins is that there is a very wide range of suspension listings for ordinary everyday road going bikes ( and dirt bikes )for as I said, riders wanting much better ride quality and chassis control. Where a listing is discontinued ( eg for an older bike ) we custom build off the archival spec card.
The Ohlins products we dont sell are their 20mm and 25mm piston kits as they are ''too agressive'' for road use, they are road race specific.
ALSO, WE HAVE CREATED A VERY STRONG SECONDHAND MARKET AND WE TRADE USED OHLINS FOR NEW. As the most sought after product there is strong residual value. None of our competitors offer such a regular facility, if at all.
RACE TECH. We are the master Race Tech centre for New Zealand and fit and optimise lots of their piston kits to both forks and shocks. We fit these because its simple, their front fork pistons are the very very best on the market at absorbing bumps! But still retaining and in fact enhancing chassis control and stability. Very often we will fit an Ohlins rear shock and get asked by the customer to also fit Ohlins 20 or 25mm kits to the stock cartridges. We absolutely insist on in this instance fitting RACE TECH piston kits as they perform much better at bump compliance duties on our bumpy roads and tracks.
At the just completed road race nationals Midge Smart and Jaden Hassan finished first equal on points in Superstock 600, a class that states you must run the stock rear shock and fork cartridges, but you are allowed to modify the internals. So we pragmatically used a combination of the best available and best performing parts. In the rear shock we used a Race Tech flow seperator in tandem with an Ohlins 40mm Indycar piston, Ohlins spring and oil. In the front Race Tech rebound and compression pistons with Ohlins fork springs and oil. Ohlins steering damper with a Traxxion Dynamics bracket
TRAXXION DYNAMICS We sold a lot of this stuff a few years back and in fact have never stopped being the distributor. Traxxion have a few listings in their range that Ohlins and Race Tech dont and they make a few components that are quite clever and nice. Over the last 3 years all the riders on SV650s at the sharp end of Pro twins racing have been using Traxxion Dynamics damper rods which tighten up all the tolerance and alignment to give much better damping control, in tandem with our own road race spec modified RACE TECH EMULATORS. We have been selling a bit of Traxxion Dynamics stuff and because of our long term relationship and on site training with them ( about 7 years back ) they reccommend CKT for installation
K-TECH Ive had dialogue with their sales manager Chris Taylor a few times and in fact again only a few days ago. If we wish to buy parts off them they will sell to us as they are well aware of our huge and long standing presence in the NZ market. The reality is if we so choosed we could be their distributor but that would then be an unacceptable conflict of interest with Ohlins. But K-Tech would still sell to us on a requirement basis as they know we have an excellent track record of following through on installations and making sure they work properly.
BUT the reality is that they only have a road race specific range and even at the current exchange rate pricing is a problem. Also their fork piston kits are biased more towards road racing and by implication wont work as well in absorbing bumps ON ROAD as well as big port piston kits. This is exactly the same reason we wont sell Ohlins 20mm and 25mm road race specific piston kits.
Great product but only a very small targeted and specific range, no shock listings for everyday road bikes etc.
RICOR INTIMINATORS We tested these with a view to distribute but were less than impressed. If anyone is interested Ill start a thread about the issues with damper rod forks, but its a big subject
PENSKE We have for several years been able to source these shocks and our sell price is no different to buying out of the States. Again a great product and I guess for someone who doesnt want an Ohlins this is a great alternative. PLUS, you know that if you buy off us you have the security of knowledge in knowing that we provide full and proper backup, for example spring exchange if the fitted spring rate proves to be not quite ideal plus we have also trained in the US for servicing Penske
SHOWA AND KAYABA REBUILD PARTS, ALSO FOR SACHS, PLUS SPRINGS. A lot of bread and butter work for us is rebuilding and servicing everyday shocks for everyday riders ( most of us! ) at affordable and realistic prices.
TOTAL COMMITTMENT
Myself and my very capable sidekick Dennis Shaw have each been rebuilding / servicing suspension units for coming up to 30 years. We are not new boys on the block and are therefore VERY EXPERIENCED. Our workshop is state of the art and we dont cut corners on service tools, if we need it we have it! We have a state of the art vacuum shock bleeder ( some of you may have seen this at the last two rounds of the road race champs ) That means we can change the oil in shocks very quickly and very efficiently. Much much better than doing it by hand!
BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!OF TALL CLAIMS SUCH AS ''YOU CAN INSTAL THIS AND YOURE NEVER GOING TO HAVE TO TOUCH IT"( and as a conman once said to me about another character , ''it takes a conman to recognise a conman'' ) The conversation I had with Chris Taylor touched on the difficulty companies like theirs have with finding distributors. Such companies need technicians with feet on the ground at meetings to tune / optimise suspension. There is no suspension that is ''bolt in and go'', optimisation is needed at every track, especially if you want to be competitive. Thats down to the grace and work ethic of suspension technicians. If your technician is indolent or disinterested then you are in trouble. And Im going to make no apology for saying this, we saw stark evidence of that very issue during the road race nationals, as did many other people. (We ourselves struggle to please everyone but at least we try!)
SET UP TIPS / MANUALS / FREE AND SINCERE ADVICE. We stand tall and proud on this one, not only in helping people but helping them to understand. We wont bore you with tall stories or any nonsense, we are there to get your suspension working properly.
As most of you will know we have a huge presence in the road race world, with the results to prove it. But in fact most of our work is selling and upspecing suspension for everyday road riders who are seeking MUCH better ride quality on our bumpy roads but also with much improved chassis control.
Also, although we havent had a heavy focus on it over the last few years we are doing more and more MX work and we do a little bit of race car work
CUSTOM BUILD of discontinued listings, one offs, VINTAGE MX etc are all specialities
This is a list of what we distribute / source and some candid comments about some of the products we selectively dont onsell;
OHLINS Our staple, the most famous suspension brand in the world. Almost everyone has used this product at some stage to win races and national championships. Still very much at the top of the tree in international road racing and also HERE IN NEW ZEALAND, having won the 3 major titles at the last TriSeries and the 5 major 2011 NZ ROAD RACE TITLES. Unashamedly we worked very hard at this and the results showed.
BUT, road racing is only a bit part of the market. the reality with Ohlins is that there is a very wide range of suspension listings for ordinary everyday road going bikes ( and dirt bikes )for as I said, riders wanting much better ride quality and chassis control. Where a listing is discontinued ( eg for an older bike ) we custom build off the archival spec card.
The Ohlins products we dont sell are their 20mm and 25mm piston kits as they are ''too agressive'' for road use, they are road race specific.
ALSO, WE HAVE CREATED A VERY STRONG SECONDHAND MARKET AND WE TRADE USED OHLINS FOR NEW. As the most sought after product there is strong residual value. None of our competitors offer such a regular facility, if at all.
RACE TECH. We are the master Race Tech centre for New Zealand and fit and optimise lots of their piston kits to both forks and shocks. We fit these because its simple, their front fork pistons are the very very best on the market at absorbing bumps! But still retaining and in fact enhancing chassis control and stability. Very often we will fit an Ohlins rear shock and get asked by the customer to also fit Ohlins 20 or 25mm kits to the stock cartridges. We absolutely insist on in this instance fitting RACE TECH piston kits as they perform much better at bump compliance duties on our bumpy roads and tracks.
At the just completed road race nationals Midge Smart and Jaden Hassan finished first equal on points in Superstock 600, a class that states you must run the stock rear shock and fork cartridges, but you are allowed to modify the internals. So we pragmatically used a combination of the best available and best performing parts. In the rear shock we used a Race Tech flow seperator in tandem with an Ohlins 40mm Indycar piston, Ohlins spring and oil. In the front Race Tech rebound and compression pistons with Ohlins fork springs and oil. Ohlins steering damper with a Traxxion Dynamics bracket
TRAXXION DYNAMICS We sold a lot of this stuff a few years back and in fact have never stopped being the distributor. Traxxion have a few listings in their range that Ohlins and Race Tech dont and they make a few components that are quite clever and nice. Over the last 3 years all the riders on SV650s at the sharp end of Pro twins racing have been using Traxxion Dynamics damper rods which tighten up all the tolerance and alignment to give much better damping control, in tandem with our own road race spec modified RACE TECH EMULATORS. We have been selling a bit of Traxxion Dynamics stuff and because of our long term relationship and on site training with them ( about 7 years back ) they reccommend CKT for installation
K-TECH Ive had dialogue with their sales manager Chris Taylor a few times and in fact again only a few days ago. If we wish to buy parts off them they will sell to us as they are well aware of our huge and long standing presence in the NZ market. The reality is if we so choosed we could be their distributor but that would then be an unacceptable conflict of interest with Ohlins. But K-Tech would still sell to us on a requirement basis as they know we have an excellent track record of following through on installations and making sure they work properly.
BUT the reality is that they only have a road race specific range and even at the current exchange rate pricing is a problem. Also their fork piston kits are biased more towards road racing and by implication wont work as well in absorbing bumps ON ROAD as well as big port piston kits. This is exactly the same reason we wont sell Ohlins 20mm and 25mm road race specific piston kits.
Great product but only a very small targeted and specific range, no shock listings for everyday road bikes etc.
RICOR INTIMINATORS We tested these with a view to distribute but were less than impressed. If anyone is interested Ill start a thread about the issues with damper rod forks, but its a big subject
PENSKE We have for several years been able to source these shocks and our sell price is no different to buying out of the States. Again a great product and I guess for someone who doesnt want an Ohlins this is a great alternative. PLUS, you know that if you buy off us you have the security of knowledge in knowing that we provide full and proper backup, for example spring exchange if the fitted spring rate proves to be not quite ideal plus we have also trained in the US for servicing Penske
SHOWA AND KAYABA REBUILD PARTS, ALSO FOR SACHS, PLUS SPRINGS. A lot of bread and butter work for us is rebuilding and servicing everyday shocks for everyday riders ( most of us! ) at affordable and realistic prices.
TOTAL COMMITTMENT
Myself and my very capable sidekick Dennis Shaw have each been rebuilding / servicing suspension units for coming up to 30 years. We are not new boys on the block and are therefore VERY EXPERIENCED. Our workshop is state of the art and we dont cut corners on service tools, if we need it we have it! We have a state of the art vacuum shock bleeder ( some of you may have seen this at the last two rounds of the road race champs ) That means we can change the oil in shocks very quickly and very efficiently. Much much better than doing it by hand!
BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!OF TALL CLAIMS SUCH AS ''YOU CAN INSTAL THIS AND YOURE NEVER GOING TO HAVE TO TOUCH IT"( and as a conman once said to me about another character , ''it takes a conman to recognise a conman'' ) The conversation I had with Chris Taylor touched on the difficulty companies like theirs have with finding distributors. Such companies need technicians with feet on the ground at meetings to tune / optimise suspension. There is no suspension that is ''bolt in and go'', optimisation is needed at every track, especially if you want to be competitive. Thats down to the grace and work ethic of suspension technicians. If your technician is indolent or disinterested then you are in trouble. And Im going to make no apology for saying this, we saw stark evidence of that very issue during the road race nationals, as did many other people. (We ourselves struggle to please everyone but at least we try!)
SET UP TIPS / MANUALS / FREE AND SINCERE ADVICE. We stand tall and proud on this one, not only in helping people but helping them to understand. We wont bore you with tall stories or any nonsense, we are there to get your suspension working properly.