It's not a question of being light, but being matched to the spring. The lowering links change the leverage on the shock, which makes it effectively a bit softer, and unfortunately the shock doesn't quite sit in the ideal part of its stroke. But the upside is that the softening via the lowering links means I don't have to change the spring out for a lighter one!Originally Posted by cooneyr
The 200 fits me well out of the box; not only is it lighter and shorter (wheelbase) than the bigger bikes, 250 and up, but it is sprung for a lighter rider... I'm in the overlap between the std spring and the next one lighter. I'd definitely have to change the springs on the 250. [Edit: actually this is not true. All the bikes are set up for my weight, it's just that the bigger bikes use the next size up springs to achieve this.]
I put a lighter spring in the Ohlins on my Honda Dominator (NX650) and have also put the lightest spring available in the Ohlins on my Trophy. So being on the lighter side of the mythical standard rider can be just as bad as the other side.
Well that could be two things: the spring is simply too low a rate for you, or it is poked. People seem to think suspension systems last forever. They don't. The OEM shock in my Trophy only lasted about 20,000km before the damping went off and the spring was sagged out after twice that. No amount of twiddling will fix it when it is inherently poked. The Ohlins gets serviced every 20-25Kkm.
The shock in my DR-Z250 was serviced as soon as I bought it; used with 8,000km on it. It only had half the amount of oil it should have, ex-factory. That shock got serviced every year. It only cost a couple of hundred bucks to have it serviced and re-valved the first time, expensive because the non-removable end-cap had to be replaced with a removable RaceTech part. After that it was something like $80 to service... but it was hugely better than a stocker. I wonder how many DR650s have got poked shocks, possibly ex-factory too?
The thing is, people seem to know that fork oil needs to be changed regularly, but they forget about the shock. The forks have around 1L of oil, the shock only 200mL... and it probably works harder.
What you're feeling is the stiction, much of it from everything being new & tight. Plus the forks are probably dry which will make it worse. Initially I rode my 640 with the compression damping backed right off, and the rebound backed out considerably, until one day I got the shits with it because it was too soft. Reset the clickers to near std and it's been great since. Its better again with fresh fork oil.
The 200 has the compression backed all the way out, it only had 30-odd hours on it when I got it (1000km) but I've heard a good fix is to reduce the fork oil weight from 5W to 2.5W. I'll try that next change. The other thing is to remove the third bush to reduce stiction; I'm not landing 50ft supercross jumps so I don't need the extra support.
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