cogent dynamics moab shock ride report

[Andrew Helman]

What did you have to do to the rear suspension to get it "dialed in correctly." With the rear shock set on it's stiffest setting, were you satisfied, or did you have to do more? Thanks. --- PRBKLR@... wrote:

> Ditto on the progressive front springs for riding 2 > up... that was the best modification I could have > made to my KLR. Riding, and most importantly, > STOPPING, were improved significantly! At the same > time though, as others have suggested, the rear > suspension has to be adjusted to compensate for the > additional weight, otherwise the ride will be > uncomfortable and unstable. My wife (135lbs) and I > (220lbs) have ridden many miles two up without a > problem once I got the suspension dialed in > correctly. > > Paul > Frisco, TX > A13

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[Devon Jarvis]

I had pump-down and bottoming problems with the stock spring, with just my 150lbs on the bike (fairly aggressive trail riding). The progressive LR rear spring fixed my troubles. Devon Andrew Helman wrote:

> > What did you have to do to the rear suspension to get > it "dialed in correctly." With the rear shock set on > it's stiffest setting, were you satisfied, or did you > have to do more? > > Thanks. > > --- PRBKLR@... wrote: > > Ditto on the progressive front springs for riding 2 > > up... that was the best modification I could have > > made to my KLR. Riding, and most importantly, > > STOPPING, were improved significantly! At the same > > time though, as others have suggested, the rear > > suspension has to be adjusted to compensate for the > > additional weight, otherwise the ride will be > > uncomfortable and unstable. My wife (135lbs) and I > > (220lbs) have ridden many miles two up without a > > problem once I got the suspension dialed in > > correctly. > > > > Paul > > Frisco, TX > > A13 >

[PRBKLR@cs.com]

Very good point... my wife almost took us out a couple of times because she would panic when we would lean into long sweeping curves at speed... The KLR is able to lean quite a bit and is also quite tall, making the lean angle seem far more than it really is... she finally got used to it and learned to trust my riding skill... makes a big difference. "kilrcalikawi" wrote:

>Well since no one else has mentioned it and blamed the bad handling >on the bike- was your passenger experienced at being a passenger?

[PRBKLR@cs.com]

I adjusted the rebound damping to the highest setting, and toyed with a notch below as well. Either worked well if I recall. It's been about 11 months since she and I have been on the bike together... we have a 10 month old baby girl, so 2 ups don't happen much any more. Just set it so that the sag when you are both on it is reasonable. If you and your rider are both on the heavy side, there may be a need for further modification. As was mentioned by another lister, and probably several others, your passengers comfort and knowledge of riding on a bike are very much a factor!! Andrew Helman wrote:

>What did you have to do to the rear suspension to get >it "dialed in correctly." With the rear shock set on >it's stiffest setting, were you satisfied, or did you >have to do more? > >Thanks. > > >--- PRBKLR@... wrote: >> Ditto on the progressive front springs for riding 2 >> up... that was the best modification I could have >> made to my KLR. Riding, and most importantly, >> STOPPING, were improved significantly! At the same >> time though, as others have suggested, the rear >> suspension has to be adjusted to compensate for the >> additional weight, otherwise the ride will be >> uncomfortable and unstable. My wife (135lbs) and I >> (220lbs) have ridden many miles two up without a >> problem once I got the suspension dialed in >> correctly. >> >> Paul >> Frisco, TX >> A13 > >

[Jacobus De Bruyn]

Family, that s what we are according to Fred, so we move with that. After a long day s drive, partly in the rain, I dropped the bike while coming to a stop to zip up my jacket. On a flat surface. Shame! An hour before I had suffered lunch in a provincial town, at a terrible shitty chinese restaurant, no lights in the bathroom, I had to use the lady s bathroom, since the men s was for liquids only. And I had more solid bussiness on hand. By the time I located the toilet paper I had my pants back on, so.... My raingear seems not completely waterproof anymore, so my sweater and shirts were a bit damp, and in order to swallow the awful food I decided on two beers, and two shots of wodka, to counter the dampness. Now I have found that in some situations, boldness and confidence make for safer driving, so that could be a positive side effect of alcohol, but the negatives far outweigh the positive, so drop the booze man! I share all this so you have all the cicumstances that could have contributed to dropping the bike. I think I lost my balance and footing, because of the softish front suspension. Even with fresh Yamaha 15W oil, so I pumped in a little air with my bycicle handpump, I hope this will make for a tad more firmness. With all the luggage on the bike, I could not get it up by myself, luckily a guy offered to help me, and I was on my way again, after rinsing most of the mud off my hands. It happened on a slippery mud surface, but that s no excuse. I wonder if a front brace would make much difference. The front seems very sensitive to loose gravel, and those lovely round smooth fist size pebbles. Wobbly. Also I find that the rear tire is not up to driving fast on bad roads with a passenger or with luggage. You hit a couple of bumps, and bang, the tire goes flat against the rim, and damages the inner tube. Even with 30+ psi. I have a MT21 at the moment, the only tire that stood up to this kind of abuse was a Tourance, but it cracked in the end, without any surface wear. Because of this, when driving home, ten miles before arriving, I had a flat! Luckily as Providence would have it, just in front of a Tire-Service workshop in the boondocks, so that helped and saved another hour of wrestling with beadbreaking and its reverse. Can one use a bigger size tire on this bike? 140/80 or..or...? Part of the problem may be the inner tubes, the ones I can get here for a 17 rim are usually 400/425. I am aware that I could use 18 inner tubes, so that would make 460 an option. Or is it better to get some heavy duty tubes from Fred? By the way I did not see them on the Arrowhead web site. I do not like flats, and soft walled rear tires, and I cannot get some of the tires available in the USA. So any comments will be very welcome, and I ll stop for today. For brake line bleeding issues, Fred sells Russell Speed Bleeders, that could make a big difference. For installing on your caliper, not on any of your arteries.. Cut it out, Jake, you are becoming way too funny. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Tonight's top picks. What will you watch tonight? Preview the hottest shows on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/

[Blake Sobiloff]

On Oct 13, 2007, at 3:57 PM, Michael Nelson wrote:

> I installed my new Cogent Dynamics "Moab" shock on my A17 this > morning and > took it for a shakedown cruise.

Cool, Michael--thanks for the review and glad to hear that there's another vendor of good replacement shocks for the KLR. As for the front end, I've found that the bike is surprisingly sensitive to the amount of sag at the front. I increased the pre- load at the front by just 0.25" to get the right sag and found that all the high-speed wobblies went away, even with my TKC-80 knobbies. In fact, I have a hunch that too much sag set the suspension up for my accident a year ago (dirt road tank slapper at 40 MPH, resulting in five broken ribs and a broken collar bone). Not that getting the sag right will do anything for all the dynamic handling woes of the stock suspension--as you mentioned, you'll need Race Tech emulators to fix that--but I figured it would be worth mentioning. -- Blake Sobiloff http://www.sobiloff.com/> San Jose, CA (USA) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]