DonRich90 said:
Paul - The only complaint I have with my new (500 miles) 650 is the jarring bump over frost heaves across the road. Sometimes it's enough to bounce my 260 lb butt off the seat and cause me to slide slightly down the seat and I have to keep readjusting my seating position.
Do you think Ikons would help? My shocks are set on the stock position (2, I think). Would adjusting them help?
Yep, we have lots of those around here too. And they are on those country roads where I am zipping along at 60 mph plus. Really annoying.
Just got back from a 100 mile ride with my wife on the back of the 650. The only thing she complained about was some jarring when going over those things. (Only one complaint ain't bad though... :wink: )
The Icons help with that, but they don't provide a total cure. In particular though, I seldom get launched off the seat anymore when I hit those.
There are a couple of things to consider.
My rear suspension has been enhanced, but the front forks haven't been. So the rear suspension is handling those frost heaves better, but the front forks are still underdamped. Changing to 15 weight fork oil in the front could help some more. Maybe Allwalk could seek out some of those frost heave ridges after he changes his fork oil & tell us if it helps.
The other thing is that the scooter wheels are smaller in diameter than my motorcycle's wheels. A 19" front wheel smooths those things out much better than a 15" front wheel - and there isn't much we can do about that. So we can experiment with shocks, fork oil, seats, even tires (Is a Pirelli better than a Bridgestone with frost heaves?), and we can expect to get some improvement, but I doubt that we'll ever be able to glide over those things like they aren't even there on our scooters...
Experimenting with your stock shock preload is easy - and you should do that. I could change the adjustment on those things just using my hands (look out for the hot muffler though). I think that for frost heaves, what you want is the softest preload that you can run without bottoming out. So I'd start with position one, and work upwards as needed. I weigh 225, and I ran the stock shocks in positions 1, 2 and 3 - and didn't really see a drastic difference in ride quality. For aggressive cornering, with your weight, I'd think you'd want them on at least position 3 - so I'd avoid overcooking any curves while you are checking out the lower positions for ride quality.