More suspension musings

[Geoff James]

I've just got back from the maiden test ride with the new Penske 8983 rear shock with remote damping adjustment in place of the OEM Honda unit. For a cynical bastard like me, the difference came as rather a shock and was pretty profound! Suspension gurus would say that this is stating the bleedin' obvious but sometimes, something like this simply has to be experienced!!

It might sound contradictory but the most noticeable difference was that you simply didn't notice the suspension doing its job and maybe that's the biggest compliment that it's possible to give. On the OEM unit, rear wheel chatter over my local favourite bit of road was really noticeable and with the wheel not having constant contact, the impact on handling was way less than optimal in terms of grip, rate of turn-in and a whole load of other factors. With the new unit, the chatter had completely disappeared and I was able to corner with greater confidence because the bike felt much more stable.

The shock was set up specifically for me by Cogent Dynamics as part of the group buy (spring rate, valving etc) and I haven’t played with ride height, sag, preload or any of the multitude of damping options. I don't doubt that that a suspension god could extract even more performance from it, but I'm leaving well alone for a while! Top suspension units like Penske and Ohlins are always going to outshine OEM units by a country mile but I'm also wondering how much of the improvement has been due to that imperceptible performance decline of the OEM unit over time which is very difficult to detect when you ride regularly.

If there is a downside to fitting the new unit, it's because it's magnified just how crap my stock front fork setup is! Fortunately, the new internals arrived from the Jaws in the UK yesterday so I hope to address that shortly.

Good suspension doesn't only give benefit to good riders but clearly applies to the whole spectrum of abilities and type of bike; conferring increased grip, quicker handling and probably a significant increase in tyre life which is another thing I'll try and monitor. Again, it's probably stating the bleedin' obvious but from my experience today; I'd opt for good suspension way before aftermarket cans, Power Commanders or any other form of tweak!

BTW, if anyone is interested, there are 4 photos of the installed Penske unit here: http://picasaweb.google.com/geoff.james74/...SBikesAndStuff#

Cheers,

Geoff