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It's going to be a long 300km...
Bolivian Amazon



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  #1  
Old 23 Feb 2012
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DR650 Rear Shock
Good afternoon all

We are not far away from getting on the road, I bought a YSS rear shock with a very minimally stiffer spring.

I bought the shock mainly for the adjustable damping to take out the pogo effect more than the weight carrying capacity but I have a question.

Would I be better to use the DR factory spring with the YYS shock body which will be more supple or the heavier duty spring, we are not going to be searching out hard trails or Paris Dakar racing with house and contents on board as my wife is not a gun rider.

The biggest torment it will get is South American roads, shingle roads, back roads etc (corrugations galore) and we certainly won't be doing warp factor 2.

We are on tour with adventure back road emphasis rather than sticking to the main drag.

I will have the usual top box and two side panniers plus small boxes for carrying the fuel bottle, water and cooker etc, all up weight with luggage, racks and cases will be 45kg plus food etc so that may vary 8 - 10 kg kinda thing (estimated)

So that is less than a typical passenger weight, further we will only be one up so no passenging required.

Your thoughts from voices of experience would be welcomed.
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  #2  
Old 23 Feb 2012
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Definitely go with the stiffer spring, I would say that this is probably the most important upgrade to do to a DR650 before a long trip.

We took 2 DR's through Africa last year when we bought them one had a stock spring and one had upgraded one, the difference between handling was huge. At highway speeds with luggage on the stock one would twitch and wobble a lot.

Its a fairly cheap upgrade and easy enough to change yourself.

Second most important upgrade: seat!

Matt
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  #3  
Old 23 Feb 2012
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kimandmatt View Post

Second most important upgrade: seat!

Matt
Heya Matt

What a great site you guys have, many hours of reading coming up for us.

Thanks for the advice and I hear what you are saying, I will see if I can get the spring rate tested to see where it sits compared to the stock spring, Gognent make nice springs so I might end up going that way, see Adam lewis Short Way Down, ideal seems to be about 7.6kg/mm, factory DR is 6.5kg/mm.

We have Keintech fork intiminators going into the front and I think they will be good enough for what we want.

The seats we have sorted, Sargent Seats are sponsoring us so we are lucky enought to get the low seat comfort model.

See here Sargent Cycle Products - Suzuki DR 650

Ok, bit more homework for me, many thanks for your input.
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  #4  
Old 24 Feb 2012
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Originally Posted by Two Moto Kiwis View Post
Heya Matt

What a great site you guys have, many hours of reading coming up for us.

Thanks for the advice and I hear what you are saying, I will see if I can get the spring rate tested to see where it sits compared to the stock spring, Gognent make nice springs so I might end up going that way, see Adam lewis Short Way Down, ideal seems to be about 7.6kg/mm, factory DR is 6.5kg/mm.

We have Keintech fork intiminators going into the front and I think they will be good enough for what we want.

The seats we have sorted, Sargent Seats are sponsoring us so we are lucky enought to get the low seat comfort model.

See here Sargent Cycle Products - Suzuki DR 650

Ok, bit more homework for me, many thanks for your input.
Thanks, the blog is a bit behind (maybe 10 months )

Can't remember what spec the new spring was now, just flicked through my old emails and can't find a record of it. We left the front stock and haven't had any issues, but we don't really hit the hard stuff!

We went for the Corbin seats, I like the look of the Sargeant ones and have heard good things.

How long til you head off?
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  #5  
Old 24 Feb 2012
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Originally Posted by kimandmatt View Post

How long til you head off?
May 3rd we land in Anchorage then all hell breaks loose from then
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  #6  
Old 24 Feb 2012
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+1 For a cogent shock
I left Seattle on my '07 DR650 with a Cogent rear shock, and my friend left with his '08 Dr650 with simply a stock spring.

By the time we arrived in Peru, Tom's (my friend) rear shock had blown. He had to replace it with a stock shock his mom brought down on a visit.

My cogent held up the entire way and was multitudes better in regards to handling.

DEFINITELY upgrade your rear shock.

You can check out my ride report here:

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...396#post330572

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  #7  
Old 25 Feb 2012
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Hi Andi & Ellen,

Yep, as the guys have mentioned a stiffer spring is required on the rear of the DR650, for a loaded solo trip with full metal panniers id be thinking of a 7.6 for Ellen and 7.8 for you, I used an 8.1 Eibach for our 2up South America trip and it was a little under sprung for our weight - but it was a compromise for me riding solo too.

good choice going with a better shock, the stocker is not up to it for a long trip - better to invest some money at home than have it fail in the middle of the Bolivian Altiplano.

I ran .50 Eibach front springs and found them a little stiff on rough pistes, some Intiminators are on the list to sort this out but i might have to drop the spring rate down a bit too.
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  #8  
Old 25 Feb 2012
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Heya Grif and Alex

Cheers for your input.

The YSS shock I have has great damping adjustment so I will probably run with a Gognent Spring.

On cleaning the YSS spring is has YSS -60-65-245 on it.

The spring ID is 60, the length is 245 so I am guessing it to be a 6.5kg/mm so same as DR factory.

Adams Gogent spring has bigger wire dia and about 10 wraps so can carry the weight and +/- be reasonably supple.

All good, might have to ride to Moab with the DR spring in place and change it on the way
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