Picking up my bike after suspension upgrade

**Road kill** · 13th January 2013, 09:20

Originally Posted by skinman

what sort of money is involved in suspension upgrades
I am considering doing mine as I am too light to make the stock suspension work properly. Does not soak up things like bridge transitions & other short bumps at all. Either that or its completely knackered.

My father in law has a C50,,,suspension knackered by 10,000kms.

What ever it costs it'll be the best performance up grade you'll ever spend money on.

**SVboy** · 13th January 2013, 11:22

Thanks BN-I will pass that info to my mate-sounds like a reasonable deal for a big improvement.

**pritch** · 13th January 2013, 14:18

Robert was saying a year or so back that Ohlins had introduced a more reasonably priced line of shocks.
They come without the all-singing all-dancing range of adjustments, but if KSS set the shock up for you, adjustments should be minimal anyway.

**Marmoot** · 13th January 2013, 15:39

If the back feels a bit harsh, just try reducing the preload by 1-2 mm

**bluninja** · 13th January 2013, 15:51

Thanks, Robert thought I may need to go up a spring rate with less preload if the current spring and preload is a bit hard. Will talk to him later in week once he's back from Nats and got time to breathe.

**Robert Taylor** · 23rd January 2013, 17:01

Originally Posted by bluninja

Thanks, Robert thought I may need to go up a spring rate with less preload if the current spring and preload is a bit hard. Will talk to him later in week once he's back from Nats and got time to breathe.

It needs slightly less high speed compression damping inside the shock, a bit of internal tweaking to optimise it further for you. We remove it, dyno it, pull it part and reshim, then reassemble and re-dyno to graphically verify the change. All part of the follow through to make sure you get the long term result you desire. Our roads are challenging so sometimes this is required.

**bluninja** · 23rd January 2013, 17:05

Originally Posted by Robert Taylor

It needs slightly less high speed compression damping inside the shock, a bit of internal tweaking to optimise it further for you. We remove it, dyno it, pull it part and reshim, then reassemble and re-dyno to graphically verify the change. All part of the follow through to make sure you get the long term result you desire. Our roads are challenging so sometimes this is required.

Goodo. Will call you in the morning, thought I'd give you chance to breathe after the weekend.

**bluninja** · 10th February 2013, 07:01

Well after a few weeks of settling in the bike was back in to Robert to adjust the Rebound and compression to my preferences. When I picked the bike up Rovert showed me the graphs from his dynamometer of the standard shock settings and the new adjusted settings; which would have been interesting if I really understood what it menat (other than he'd adjusted it and the tested that it was setup properly, not just 'try it and see').

Took the bike out for a quick spin and tried to find every bump I could. It was settled as before but a little softer.

Yesterday I gave it over 400kms of testing and I really really enjoyed my wee strom for the first time. The suspension upgrade has given me 2 bikes in one. There's the capable wee strom that pootles capably everywhere at 4-6000 revs, though much more sure footed and compliant. Then there's the 'hidden' fun bike that flies through the corners with the engine at 7-9000 rpm.

I went ot Whangamomona and the ride was great. The gravel road out the other side felt much easier. However the Uhura road was a blast. The road to Uhura is sort of narrow with tight bends that flow and always changing incline...and with bumps and ripples in the seal. I was running a little late and decided to press on. I had a grin on my face all the way through...even when I hit a ripple that was a min speed bump and both wheels left the ground...the wheels touched again and immediately settled. Beyond Uhura there was 1-2 km of deep big chunky metal (I hate gravel!) and the bike just trotted through slowly.....sure I could feel every chunk of metal but the bike felt steady all the way through...well apart from the down hill bit when the front was shaking it's head and twisting and the back was following a different path. A touch more throttle and it was all inline again.

By the time I had got to Te Kuiti I'd had rutted twisty road, a weird wide smooth flowing section on the Uhura road, new tar seal, 3 lots of deep metal roadworks and 15 kms of gravel. So a pretty good test.

Road steadily back to New Plymouth through Awakhino and over Mount Messenger. Beautifully compliat suspension, able to hold my chosen line at slower speeds perfectly and the more I rode the more confident I was that the suspesnion would do a super job...so much so I just looked where I wanted to go, pointed the bike and rolled on the throttle...what bumps?

**Dogboy900** · 10th February 2013, 10:06

Thanks for the update. Nice to hear how its is going and how good the after sales service is too!

**Robert Taylor** · 10th February 2013, 10:51

Originally Posted by bluninja

Well after a few weeks of settling in the bike was back in to Robert to adjust the Rebound and compression to my preferences. When I picked the bike up Rovert showed me the graphs from his dynamometer of the standard shock settings and the new adjusted settings; which would have been interesting if I really understood what it menat (other than he'd adjusted it and the tested that it was setup properly, not just 'try it and see').

Took the bike out for a quick spin and tried to find every bump I could. It was settled as before but a little softer.

Yesterday I gave it over 400kms of testing and I really really enjoyed my wee strom for the first time. The suspension upgrade has given me 2 bikes in one. There's the capable wee strom that pootles capably everywhere at 4-6000 revs, though much more sure footed and compliant. Then there's the 'hidden' fun bike that flies through the corners with the engine at 7-9000 rpm.

I went ot Whangamomona and the ride was great. The gravel road out the other side felt much easier. However the Uhura road was a blast. The road to Uhura is sort of narrow with tight bends that flow and always changing incline...and with bumps and ripples in the seal. I was running a little late and decided to press on. I had a grin on my face all the way through...even when I hit a ripple that was a min speed bump and both wheels left the ground...the wheels touched again and immediately settled. Beyond Uhura there was 1-2 km of deep big chunky metal (I hate gravel!) and the bike just trotted through slowly.....sure I could feel every chunk of metal but the bike felt steady all the way through...well apart from the down hill bit when the front was shaking it's head and twisting and the back was following a different path. A touch more throttle and it was all inline again.

By the time I had got to Te Kuiti I'd had rutted twisty road, a weird wide smooth flowing section on the Uhura road, new tar seal, 3 lots of deep metal roadworks and 15 kms of gravel. So a pretty good test.

Road steadily back to New Plymouth through Awakhino and over Mount Messenger. Beautifully compliat suspension, able to hold my chosen line at slower speeds perfectly and the more I rode the more confident I was that the suspesnion would do a super job...so much so I just looked where I wanted to go, pointed the bike and rolled on the throttle...what bumps?

This exercise raises interesting technical points. This customer required a significant increase in spring rate and this is by no means an unusual scenario with loading variations etc. The spring rate and the base preload determines the ride height ( static and dynamic ) is correct for the overall loading. Of course as it gets deeper into its stroke there is a much steeper rise in the spring force curve, and that can impinge on the ability to absorb abrupt bumps. Such bumps we have in ''ample sufficiency''
So it ends up being a combination of spring force and damping. Damping is about controlling rate of change of position. Because the spring force curve is a lot steeper we subsequently found that in this instance a lot less high speed compression damping was required in order to allow the shock to move more readily over such abrupt bumps, and therefore much more compliantly. This is something that cannot be adjusted out externally, its all about pulling the shock apart and coming up with a modification to the main piston shim stack, which we did. The product is not ''deficient or wanting'', its just that the stock settings fell out of range for this customer, as they would for any shock. In the primary markets ( Northern Europe and North America ) they have a much much higher ratio of groomed roads and of course riding is very seasonal. So there is a lot less issue with abrupt bump absorption quality as relatively they are so few and far between.
We also reinforced the rebound stack, just a little. It is thought that if you increase spring rate significantly ( to compensate for a higher load ) then you must also increase rebound damping significantly. This is in fact not so, because there is more load ( weight ) resisting rebound happening. It more or less self compensates.
Nick Cole with his race ZX10 is a good case in point. We run a very aggressive spring rate in the front forks, but because he is rather tall and heavier than the other Superbike riders and he ''gets over the front'' with body position the forks work better with a soft rebound stack.
Unashamedly, our shock dyno gives us a major advantage over our competitors as we can graphically see the effect of the changes we have made, we are not ( in effect ) flying blind. Changes are made, redyno'd and we know if the force curves are pretty much exactly where we want them to be BEFORE reinstalling into the bike.When we sell something and it proves in practice to be not quite ideal we will put it right ( improve it further ) for the customer, at no further cost. That ( sorry I guess this is a sales pitch that some on this forum will vilify me for ) is the ADDED VALUE if you purchase locally off us, and KEEP NZ WORKING. The chances are VERY high that had this customer bought off the internet resellers in the States (and our pricing is actually not that different ) it wouldnt have been sprung correctly ( we got that right first time ) as these faceless indiscriminate resellers in the States have no conception of our roading conditions and are not on the spot to follow it through, measure up and set up the bike etc. Certainly it wouldnt have been revalved for the same reasons. So the customer would have resignedly have thought ''this is as good as it gets'' and to put it right would have been a spring, labour , oil, gas and shims. $500 to $600 on the initial purchase price.

**Robert Taylor** · 10th February 2013, 17:32

Originally Posted by Road kill

My father in law has a C50,,,suspension knackered by 10,000kms.

What ever it costs it'll be the best performance up grade you'll ever spend money on.

Hate to tell you this.....it didnt work well at 5kms!