Sexy, those black legs and that flash of inner stanchion
Who needs usd's
My impressions so far without any component change are the further the forks are raised the better it gets . I went as far as 33mm but there are clearance issues between fork leg and yoke, no problem with horn,mudguard or rad.
But its really more about attitude of bike than where the forks are and could be acheived by also raising the rear, there is a sweet spot which I found , lost ,found and now lost again .
I ran at 24mm raised and an R6 rear with preload at 5 and the handling was really good but the fork damping was still irritating , the expansion jts on the Tay Road Bridge have now since been smoothed over using 2.5wt oil .
I filled the forks to 4.75" and with everything else same found the ride ht higher, the damping could now cope with the sharp hits and felt really nice but the extra oil was giving too much support in the first part of travel
I checked the sag figures and static and dynamic were the same so backed off preload to 3rings which gave static sag of 30mm and as I couldnt remove any oil without removing the legs decided to up rear preload a notch to 6 and add 2 each to rebound and comp, now 13 and set the hs comp to 2, the improvement to the damping on the forks was making the rear feel a bit soft .
Set up like this N Fife B roads were laughed at, front is almost perfect , rear still needs fiddling to cope on really undulating roads when you hit a big one fast. its almost a wallow . Apart from that the handling and damping are a million miles from the old lardarse that needed heaving about, I now get home exhilarated instead of worn out.
Today I fitted the shortened fork springs Kebab kindly provided, suspecting a repeat of similar characteristics to those from the extra oil, I reduced amount to 5", left preload at 3 and found the static sag had reduced to 17 so know my ride ht/ nice set up is gone. It has,
riding feels like the front is now nodding over the minor bumps ,its a lot more effort to hit an apex and fork feels much too stiff in initial travel
and I also blew my theory of possibly less travel , a tyre locking stop saw my zip tie hit the bottom yoke.
So feel a bit depressed , will wind off more preload tomorrow but think there is only 1/2 ring left , I dont seem to have the 5 they claim in the handbook so doubt I can get the front down anymore, cant raise the forks, cant raise the rear due to being a short arse, so right now think the spring cut is not for little folk