I’m being lazy here and asking for help rather than spend the hours researching SO, context first. I have just spent 2 days riding a mixture of straights and lovely curves around Scotland and despite a couple of hours of rain, I was able to push the ‘98 Monster (900) hard. Truly excellent experience. But... On the straights it felt a little choppy, but through the corners it was almost flawless. Digging in and massively predicable. It uses original forks (unadjustable) and shock, so nothing fancy. Is there a ‘suspension for dummies’ type site that describes symptoms and how to tune things out? I suspect a bit of tinkering with the shock and a new set of fork springs would do it, but would just like to read into it a bit while it’s still fresh. Cheers.
What do you mean choppy.... Lamb or Pork.... or up and down like the sea... If the last - I would say a little more compression and rebound dampening... but as you do not have adjustability... best suggestion... Change the bike and buy the 1200R or 1200S Monster - Then your experience will raise from Excellent to Sublime. OK - back to reality.. Are you sure your tyres are good and running at the correct pressure... chain correctly adjusted so your not getting slap... I do not know of a good web site... but really would suggest you start with going to one of the suspension tuning shops.. If you need springs or valves you will end up there anyway.. There are a few around - depends who is near you in Glasgow.. Ohlins manual attached - gives a little information.
@witchellski , I have mainly had older Ducatis with fairly limited suspension adjustment in comparison to the more recent bikes and I often found they had similar characteristics to what you have described. If you can find a local suspension specialist then pay a visit as it will not cost too much and be money well spent. One thing that Often helped me though was to take Mrs Dukesox on the back for a quick ride and see what effect her 9 stone had on the ride. Often I found the bike was far less choppy . If you can find someone to ride pillion and you find it helps then either adjust the rear shock to replicate a passenger or get stuck into the pies.
If you fix the straights, it will change the corners, probably for the better. Replace the shock, that’s always better to have higher spec than the front, and you can mess with springs and oil in the front for not much money.
Thanks for the suggestions. It’s close to great, so don’t want to do something that pushes it the wrong way! Liking the idea of adding weight (not to me though) to see what difference that makes... And then fiddling with rear shock settings. Start with the cat on pillion, working my way up to my Dad and his cannonball collection.
"Suspension for dummies" Might not help a lot for non-adjustable suspension but will give you an idea of what needs doing. Getting the preload right is the most important start point.
as above, i'm sure you're aware there's always a compromise:- set up best for the track will never equal set up best for the (uneven, pothole-riddled) road. One easy thing you could try which could yield an instant improvement* if it suits you of course/if it hasn't been done already on your bike, is to drop the forks 20 to 30 mm through the yokes which has the effect of reducing the caster angle very slightly. It's of most benefit on say, M750/M900 or even early Multistrada and the bike will lean in/turn in more 'nimbly' as a result. Only downside is a very slight decrease in stability when travelling at trickling speed but do be aware of this. *as pointed out, not a direct answer to O.P.'s question. like this:- rather than this:-
understood Paul, but mod is an easy to do/easy to reverse option, and O.P. might find cornering even better!
My 90s SS had almost unyielding forks. I cured the problem by reducing the viscosity of the fork oil. Standard is 7.5, try 5.0 Worth a try and easy to go back if you don’t like it.
I’d suspect the forks and/or shock are chunking down and not returning a fast enough so it cant cope with a starlight road with bumps. My first monster did that, but tbh it wasn’t great in corners either lol
I’ve only known him to be at Knockhill but he’s good. I had a Buell XB12s that was very twitchy to ride and he sorted it in ten minutes. http://www.shock-factory.co.uk/ A good fork service and new shock would do your bike a world of good. Don’t get fixated on expensive stuff YSS and shock factory make decent shocks.
