shorter links for raising rear ride height.

[kdxkawboy@aol.com]

In a message dated 2/24/2005 9:20:27 AM Pacific Standard Time, asbestosworkers@... writes: After all that you have went through with your seat it should massage your rearend while riding, causing you to not want to get off the bike. If I was going to spend that much money on one I would send it to Russel's and have one made. The one that looks like the old harley bicycle seat. Seats are one of those things were every one will have a valid difference of opinion on what works. The stock seat sucks, but a big part of that is it is a dirt bike seat designed so you can easily move around, but that makes it to narrow to comfortably support your checks. Being an old dirt biker, when I don't have the narrow stock seat it hampers my style. I've got a flat Corbin and love it for my long road trips, but otherwise the stock seat is on the bike because it works better for me off road. I'm looking forward to the chance to sit on Moose's bike to see what it feels like. If its good I might have my seat done, without the extra width and height. Pat G'ville, NV [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Keith Saltzer]

Yea, that's right. I'm talking about raising the back end up some more on the already tall KLR. Really light riders probably don't need them, shorter riders don't want them, but my now 200 pound frame is still compressing the back end down both farther than I like, and farther than the correct sag setting numbers will allow. Before I go on telling you about how these worked, and what I experianced on MY bike, with MY settings, and MY aftermarket suspension parts, let me point out the fact that others results can and/or will vary greatly. I've been talking about suspension setups, numbers, rates, theory's, ideas, and the like to people online, on the phone, and in person for many combined hours over the last few weeks. There is just WAAAAAYYYYYYY to many factors involved here to think that you can just do this or that, and get the exact same result. Some things are for sure, like putting shorter links on your bike WILL result in the back end being raised, but how much will vary, and the ride quality will vary as well. Here's what these links did for my bike and riding style. Note that I rebuilt my shock 1 1/2 years ago with a new seal-head, fresh 15 wt fluid, and a 175 psi nitro charge. The front end has many hours of work too. Enter some new heavy duty aluminum links from Eagle Mike. I got a set of these ultra cool black anodized links from Mike to try out on my KLR last week. They are a bit lighter than the stock links, and 6 mm shorter. They are suppose to raise the back end about 3/4 inch. I took all sorts of sag and stiction measurements with the stock links to later measure again and compare notes, then I pulled the swingarm completely apart to clean up the bearings, relube everything (it's been 2 years) and put on these shorter links. I left all the shock settings alone (rebound 3 preload 5) and just put it all back together so that the only thing changed would be the links. I like testing things out this way to try and eliminate all other influencing factors. When I dropped the bike down off the jack, the bike settled to the floor with a really aggressive GSXR looking angle to it. I said to myself, "Houston, we definately have lift up". I barely noticed the back end sink down at all. I later measured that it only dropped 9mm. I then threw a leg over it and settled into the front part of the seat and felt that my feet were off the ground more, but not enough to concern me. I got off the bike and put it on it's side stand. I looked it over for a while and noticed that while it was leaning over more due to the extra rear height, it didn't seem that bad at all, but I did think that I might have to watch how I park it on the side stand more carefully. I also noticed that my super simple way of checking for chain slack was changed a bit. Now for the test ride. I went for my first test ride on the "Sunday morning ride" with the usual local suspects. It was raining this day so only 2 other guys showed up, but during the 120 mile ride I did manage to get a good half hour run through one set of twisties while 2 of us battled it out. While riding throughout the day, at both slow and fast paces, I noticed a MUCH improved steering rate. If you like to turn as fast as possible, this is very cool. Not only that, but after reading and learning some things this week, then trying out my new setup, I learned that my stock setup had a decent amount of understeer going on while exiting turns hard on the gas. I now noticed that when I pointed the bike while leaned over and hit the gas hard, it went where I wanted it to go with less effort, and more accuracy. I also felt the back end "working" much quicker. It felt like my shock spring was stronger because the shorter links are a shorter leverage point. But it just "feels" this way. Measurments showed that I was still in the middle of the shock travel. After I was out for a while, it suddenly dawned on me that I was not having to pay attention to where I parked the bike any more than before due to the extra lean while on the side stand. For as high as the back end was raised, I thought that this was going to be a concern, but it wasn't. The one negative that I felt while riding was a very twitchy back end on slippery spots. Not wet roads, but the very slick type surfaces like tar snakes and white painted lines and arrows. I realize that most bikes will slide on these areas quite a bit, but again, I'm comparing my bike against my bike with different links. I didn't have this problem before. After coming home and learning some more, I realized that what I was experiencing made sense. In the suspension world, when your talking about springs and preload, you don't want a spring to have more than 25mm of preload when it is installed. You also want all of your settings to be dialed in with as little preload as possible. Here I was riding around with the stock spring (which comes with 35-36mm of preload, with the preload on 1) and then I had the preload cranked all the way up to 5! Two days later I took another test ride only this time I put the preload on 1. Big difference to say the least. I like it a lot, but I still have more work to do to perfect all my numbers. It was interesting to notice that with these links, and my preload cranked all the way down to just 1, my back end was still up higher than with the stock links, and the rear suspension still felt like it was reacting to bumps quicker. I then later cranked up the preload to 2, and liked it the best. I thought that it felt like that was THE setting for me at this stage of the game, and I later confirmed that by cranking up the preload to 3 before heading home. The very stiff rear end feel started to again show up, and the attitude of the bike started leaning forward again. All in all I'm very happy with the results. Instead of riding around with the preload cranked all the way up to 5, while still having a very slow acting rear suspension, and the back of the bike sitting way to low for me, AND having the back end squat even more with my touring/camping load on the bike, I can now ride around with the preload on 2 (or 3 with a load) and I get the added benefits of the raised up back end. All this from just 6mm shorter links, taking all of 5 minutes to put on. Pretty cool. MrMoose A8 (Barbie and Ken special)