I am in a fantastic frame of mind this morning.

[Jimmy B]

Its Friday, the weather is great and Motohaus have done a fantastic job on my front end, completed on time for a very reasonable price. In fact, I wish I had blown that seal 6 months ago…. As one Penguin said to the other…

I digress

New stoppers
Forks stripped, cleaned and rebuilt

The ride in this morning was very engaging. Feels like a new bike, I cannot wait to go for a decent burn.

[Blackbird]

'ello Andy

Stopped taking your pills, have you?

Glad it's all worked out mate. Made that much difference huh? Is that due to less oil in one leg or the extra oil that Kerry put in?

So you'll be finishing at lunchtime and heading for Northland eh?

G

[Jimmy B]

Hey Geoff

Sure has mate. Since I put the Ohlins in the rear it has exposed a somewhat soft front end. It sounds counter intuitive but the front was way less compliant that I felt it should have been. It actually felt too firm. Not bottoming out just some impressive fork travel. Not too noticeable on good surfaces but corrugations at speed through corners were a bit iffy.

I think it’s reasonable to say that the altered ride height and more dynamic rear caused the front to pack down a bit and lets face it, although I have cut down to about 10 pies a week I am nudging a 100kg which wasn’t helping.

Last Sunday coming back from Helensville, which was a brisk ride out I had to stop quickly, the front squirmed under reasonably hard braking. I got home and checked the front out and viola, a good pool of oil on the left fork leg.

Saw Kerry on Monday and mentioned my thoughts about the front, I considered respringing but Kerry suggested that we first try increasing the oil level by about 20ccs. I guess this decreases the air gap marginally and increases preload. May have some effect on compression and rebound so will take it easy for a few hundred ks till I get my head around it. Dark art as you say but it seems to work on my bike very well. Certainly saved me a few hundred bucks.

Also worthy of a mention is I had a 18K service a few months back, a piston in my front right calliper was sticking and had forced one brake pad through to the metal at a slight angle, casual visual inspection (which is the absolute limit of my mechanical aptitude) meant I missed it, so did the mechanic servicing my bike. I think its kind of a bad miss for a professional when the bike is on a hoist, the service schedule says “I” for inspect brakes and I had also specifically asked. Kerry didn’t miss it and fixed it. I am deeply grateful for that.

Happy days.

Andy