Season has ended here, its below freezing point almost every day so I'm real happy its only 140 days until next time [8D]. There will be a couple of days to do repairs or whatever needed. Will you just put the bike aside for a while and drink beer, or are there any plans for the bike?

I'll replace the rear shock, open and clean the fork, and replace fork sealings as a preventive action. There will also be progressive springs both front and rear. A new set of rubber will replace the worn Z6's, but that can wait to the very last shivering minute.

Any one having experience in progressive springs? Are they working well or being bogus? The damper doesn't know it co-operates with a progressive spring which might be a problem, but the damper doesn’t know how the next bump is shaped either so it might still be an overall improvement. There is a lot of information, or perhaps commercials, on:

http://www.hyperpro.com/cgi-bin/index.pl?p=springs

So, what are your plans for the winter?

 

Well,my 1KF has been off the road since the end of October,as it needs the brakes sorting before next year.
I've got a rear master cylinder off a blackbird to try and cure the spongy rear pedal,and gonna have the front
callipers apart and clean 'em out.

Also gonna respray the wheels a nice shade of gold,and rub down and spray the swingarm too.

Got a nice new x-ring chain with a steel front sprocket and one of those alloy/steel teeth anodised rear sprocket
to be fitted as well.i want to drop the gearing a bit,but not keen on the speedo reading wrong so not sure whether
to get a 16t front sprocket or not.the rear one is 43 tooth so thats 1 bigger than standard so i might just fit 'em and
see how it is.

It's a shame taking it off the road,but i'd rather do all that needs doing,rather than ride it over winter and have the
rusting/corroding parts get worse.

 

I have tried both progressive and linear and I wouldn't even **** on the progressives.

They may be good for the smooth USA & Euope Highways but on any other road you'll find they dive a lot and use up a lot of theor travel just at rest.

For maximum handling go for Linear. If you want more comfort thn instead of progressives go for dual rate springs.

For linear you really can't go past Racetech

 

Thanks trips, sounds like bad news for me then. I’ll change to linears if progressives work as lousy on my combination as on yours. There are a lot of parameters that counts, weight of rider/ bike; the basic handling of the bike etc, but the information from you definitely cools down any expectations on progressives.

Edit: According to HyperPro the static (rider loaded) sag will decrease since the spring is stiffer than stock in my case, it goes down from 35 mm to 20 mm. To keep the geometry the bike shall be lowered 15 mm's by the fork clamps. Then I found some more information basically saying - on bikes with simple non-adjustable forks, progressive springs can be beneficial. On advanced forks the desired amount of unlinearity is already built in to the hydraulic system, and the fork should use linear springs as it was designed for. End result, I don’t know and will try both types to see what works best on the Bird.

 

I've heard... stay w/ single rate springs on the forks of a blackbird. Clean and free, Ripp'n

 

Hey:

On a previous bike (RC51 sp1) I changed the oem pro springs out to aftermarket stiffer progressive ones and it was not the
best move or money spent as the bike pogoed alot. After consulting the company I got them from they said I needed to
change the rear spring to the same type, both progressive or both dual rate or linear single rate and not to mix and match them.
I tossed them and went back to the oem stock ones and was way happier. They got sold on ebay and lost $100.00 USD
on that improvement, what a deal.

Dub

 

Like the idea of the springs, let me know how you get on.... I've put mine in the back shed, as I do need to at sometime sort out the front brake seals, but on seeing the forcast, I could be out again on sat, we'll see though. Don't have any great plans for her this winter but have conceeded the fact that I will put the original exhaust and final bits and pieces on her next winter and try and get as much enjoyment out on the roads as time allows. But as we all know, that is always subject to change. Tyres are the next priority as I'm still chasing down what type to use.



[sm=bounceybounce.gif]

 

Stay tuned, the suspension report will come any day in April 2007 . Hopefully you will get a few more chances to ride in the UK.