Just returned from a trip to Morocco and my rear shock is completely knacked. No rebound, bouncy castle affair.

What are people's recommendations ? New aftermarket shock, replacement Yamaha ? And any idea of cost ?

Thanks

Jasper

Hi Jasper,

I have been looking for the same thing myself. On www.touratech.de online shop you can buy a ölhins rear shock for €499 which is cheap by Danish standards and is also one of the very best you can buy. Let me know if you find anything cheaper.

Cheers, Aubrey.

Had a good experience with Italian BITUBO shocks ..www.bitubo.com , approx. half price respect WP & Ohlins good thing that they make shocks even for old & very old bikes (E.G. XT500) In Italy they don't sell to the public, but probabily in other countries yes ...worth a try

Myself I have a Technoflex, very happy with it.

German companies Wunderlich and Kedo sell it, also by mail.

Price about 400 EUROs excluding shipping, they also do mail orders. They also have other cheaper brands.

Auke

Speaking to David Lambeth, the fine rebuilder of my bike, he recommended getting a stock shock from a breaker. £40 (55 euros) or round abouts. Can even go for the later Xt600e which is not adjustable. Said even if you had to buy a couple, was much better value than getting an aftermarket shock and would probably last another 10k miles..... Am going to get parts search on the go today.

This time , I definitely disagree with DL ... i'm at my 8th XT/TT and always the most consistent and immediately sensible improvement was the substition of the shock... it's true that the original is not bad ..but after the use lose the gas (ever tried to puncture it ? I even solded a gas valve to one to recharge it - just to find that the pressure was gone in few weeks)

The shocks that I used - and opened , Ohlins , Showa from a YZ , Bitubo were built in TOTALLY different way respect the original, for materials and design.

I should say that I weigh over 100 kilos, have a preference for riding offroad with full tank and luggage , so I'm always looking for a good damping effect...

I have had the standard shock repaired and gas refilled by a motocross shock specialist a few heavy duty years ago and it's still in excellent shape. Also the outgoing damping force adjustment has been changed from the original pos. 1-5 which were too soft, to say 6-10. I now use 7 or 8.
This cost Euro 80,-- at the time.
I'll put it to the test again in Morocco [Raid de l'Amitie] in April and May 2003.

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Fred, XTZ660, Holland.

A breakers shock (am using later xt600e which is supposed to fit my 1VJ) arrived yesterday (£58/88Euros) incl. postage. Will put it on at the weekend and ride it around and see how long it lasts.

The breaker does a return policy and I'd rather spend a little and see if it works before spending a load on an aftermarket shock. Unless anyone has a good aftermarket shock they want to flog me for £58 incl postage :-)

Jasper

Hi

I've just checked the shock on my new (for me) 3AJ to find that it is an aftermarket jobbie - Paolini on something similar. It appears to be fully adjustable for preload and damping, however I've never had a Paolini shock before - are they any good?

Cheers

Barry

hopefully its Paoli. they make good shocks, but that's no guarantee that whoever fitted it chose the right one. see if you can find a model number on it. better still, load your bike up and go to a motocross track: it'll amuse/irritate the MX riders, but test the suspension over the full range of motion and damping. it won't really indicate high speed stability, but it'll tell you if the bike will cope with the surprise wadis etc. it'll also give you an idea of the right damping to go for.

now that you've stopped laughing, go and try it. it'll also improve your technique and tell you which muscles need training for tougher terrain.

[This message has been edited by RichLees (edited 23 January 2003).]

HA HA HA!

I just had a thought - we could invade the Docklands MX track and have an XT600 overlander's day!

I'd pay good money to see people bustin' big air on 3AJ's with ally luggage!

I'm up for it, but I'll be on my XR650L if its all the same to you. its only £5-10 at Docklands and its usually pretty quiet. last Sunday on the month: see you there on sunday 30th March? I've got some mods for Ernie to do to the luggage between now and then.

We've done something similar on a smaller scale though last month. On one of our off-road tours through the east of the netherlands, we encountered some farmer boys on motocross bikes in a shaven maisfield doing oval racing. We all jumped in with our Ténérés, threw some heaps of mud into the air and scared the shit out of them. Was great fun !
So I wish y'all lost os success and let us know what happened [foto's?!].

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Fred, XTZ660, Holland.

i've just completed a fairly major trip (london-cape town) and the mono-shock was probably the thing that gave me the biggest headache.

just before the trip i fitted a top of the range aftermarket shock by a specialist shock builder, specifically to avoid problems with the rear shock which i had heard were quite common in africa. my friend on the exact same bike ('88 tenere 1VJ) decided to chance it with the original yamaha shock.

my new shock was great throughout europe where the roads were nice black tops all the way, and it handled nicely through the sandy desert sections in egypt and sudan.

ethiopia and northern kenya were another story, where the continuous jarring on the *VERY* rocky roads proved to be more than my gas shock could handle, and i only just made it to isiole in northern kenya (where thankfully the tar starts again) before the monoshock seized entirely and NO amount of trying could sort it out.

in the end i was very fortunate to find a guy in nairobi by the name of ric aglietti who built me another shock from old xt600 shocks he had collected over the years, but had i been anywhere north i would have been in serious trouble, as there is nothing between cairo and nairobi to speak of. couriering a new one in would have been the only realistic (and costly) option.

my friend who had left his original yamaha shock on his bike had no problems throughout the trip, even though he did not have as much travel in his shock as i did to start with and his bike sat a bit lower than mine.

moral of the story - i would be inclined to stick with genuine yamaha parts - but that is only my experience - i am sure that there are very good alternatives (i have had white power recommended particularly) but as they say, once bitten, twice shy. the main concern should be repair of your shock, and if you are going well off the beaten track then you should avoid fancy high tech shocks and go for simpler to fix hydraulic versions - had i had a white power shock, i could have had it fixed in nairobi as there is a local guy there who imports them (ian duncan), but as mine was not compatible with his tools, i had to replace it entirely.

hope this helps you & good luck for your trip.

the concern I have with aftermarket stuff for road-oriented dual-purpose bikes like Teneres, Transalps etc is that a lot of UK suppliers assume the bike will be used on the road. eg shock absorber, exhaust ...
I'd recommend using MX suppliers and test it on an MX track long before you go. maybe someone should start a black-list of parts that are too road oriented.