Howzit everyone.
I wanted to give you guys some feedback on my experiments on my Rally. I pulled the shock from my Tornado this morning. The spring rate is probably 20% stiffer and damping is probably 40-50% more than the Rally's rear shock. It appears to be visually similar on the outside but they behave completely differently. The Tornado shock is about 15mm shorter than the Rally shock.
I turned the preload on the Tornado shock to max. It fit perfectly except it's a bit lower at the back now and probably has slightly less suspension travel because the shock stroke is a tad shorter. To compensate for the lower rear, I dropped the forks through the triple clamps by 17mm. It's a little more raked out but only marginally.
Also installed bar risers, raising the bars by 18mm.
I was feeling cramped on the bike when standing, even with the bars as far forward as I could get them so using fuel hose and long M5 bolts, I tilted the windscreen more vertical. This allowed me to move the bars a fraction more forward and it looks more like the Rally bike now which has a pretty verticle screen.
This really was a keep/no keep test so I took it out over some gnarly koppies in Mnandi area, down some seriously corrugated dirt and naturally down the tar at speed because I was a little worried about the windscreen angle change messing with the wind flow.
Result:
It's not even vaguely the same bike to ride. That rear shock allows me to wheelie over humps now and doesn't just bog and make the bike unstable. The marshmallow feel is completely gone. The back feels planted now too, even managed a power slide or two
The front feels a little skittish and does deflect off smaller rocks so I could set the rear pre-load down a fraction but only a tiny bit. Personally, I like it like it is. Having said this, I took it up the most unpleasantly rocky hill I know in the area so it actually performed admirably. That particular hill is even unpleasant on my mountain bike.
I actually like the front. If you slam into a gully in a decline, it will bottom out but for ordinary adventure riding, it's ok.
One obvious advantage for short people is the lower seat height. This was very noticeable and made for an extremely manageable package in tricky terrain. In fact, I'd actually recommend a slightly shorter shock (like the Tornado shock) for short people. Ground clearance is still 250mm+ and with less sag, it's less of a problem.
The windscreen worked perfectly and looks a damn side more Rally like in my opinion so I'm happy with that change. Also no handlebars fighting with it and there's lots of space for charging sockets and whatnot. The new bar position has made the cockpit more roomy so I also felt a hell of a lot more comfy.
So, I ask with tears in my eyes, why can Honda manage to build a proper shock for the Tornado some 20 years back and make such a fuckup of this bikes shock. It literally spoils an otherwise great package.
The engine is still gutless low down but I put the snorkel back in which improved it just a tad.
After the experiments, I've decided to persevere with this bike. I'm sure once all the bits are done, I'll love it like everyone else loves theirs.
Topic: CRF250 Rally/DS (Read 53555 times)
