It all started when my wife, in the pursuit of a more comfortable ride, replaced the stock shocks on her Sportster Low with a Ohlins set. More info on this can be found here

I found her new setup so great, that I started looking for a suspension upgrade for my Street Bob (which I had not considered until then). Rather than looking for relatively cheap sidegrades, I aimed straight to a top quality solution, and I came across forum member FastHarley and his website www.motorcyclemetal.com. After MANY questions and MANY, MANY answers, I ended up with a set of Penske shocks, which have been tailored to my specs (bike weight, spring rate, valving, fully chromed) and a Race Tech kit (springs and Gold Emulators) for the front fork. I also got setup instruction so that I could learn to set preload and valving right for my ride.

Now all this stuff has been installed on the bike, and deeply tested on the road: the difference is HUGE. Ride quality is not even comparable to the stock setup.
I would say it's something you can't describe with words, but definitely seeing (riding) is believing. Cornering now is a real fun, at low and high speed. No wobbling, definitely. And with this huge performance gain, what you get for free as a side effect is an unexpected comfortable ride. I can now go on bumps and potholes without bottoming the shocks out, or being thrown off the bike.
Pretty amazing, considering that the shocks are SHORTER than stock ones.
Consequently also braking has improved, since the wheels are firmly on the ground.
I've had a few mods on my bike, but this one is the best I've ever done for sure. The mod I had first (as many others do) was Stage 1. I enjoyed this mod so much because it livened the engine up, but frankly speaking, that was only A FRACTION of the benefits I got with the suspension upgrade. Should I start it over with a new bike: suspension first, by a big margin.

I wanted to take a few pictures (the shocks look great, BTW) but I spent most of the weekend riding.

Stefano - Italy

 

Great ! I just bought some shocks from Howard and can't wait to get them on. He really knows his stuff! I would like to do the forks to, but I'm afraid to get into that project right now. I'm hoping to do them when the bike is in the garage next winter... I'm afraid if I take it apart now, I'll stress out trying to get it back together. I have had 6 back surgeries, the last one a few weeks ago... so I'm looking forward to the upgrade. Ride safe!

 

Here are a few pictures of my ride with shocks installed.

http://img225.imageshack.us/my.php?i...2200781qr2.jpg

http://img512.imageshack.us/my.php?i...2200821dx0.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/my.php?i...2200831zt4.jpg

 

Just a few questions for an inquiring mind:

How did it affect your ride? Did you do anything up front? What brand shocks and how did you find adjusting them. Nice looking Bike!

Best, J

 

jcbpa
the shocks are Penske by Motorcyclemetal. They're 11.5' so 0.5' shorter than stock shocks (the Street Bob has 12' shocks). Howard explained how to set them up. Actually I had only minor tweaking, I just released a bit the sweep control.
How did they affect the ride.... can't explain! I could tell you my bike now handles much much better: no rear wheel wobbling, no bottoming out, very easy in cornering at low and high speed, unexpected riding comfort... This was I had already been told by others who purchased these shocks before. But I hadn't fully realized what they meant until I got the installled.
It's something you can't explain by words, sorry. If you have a set in order, you will discover soon what I mean. You won't be disappointed for sure.

Front fork: I had a Race Tech kit installed at the same time. It consists of springs and gold emulators. The kit did not lower the bike, this is something I'm planning to do right now, I want to lower the front end of the same amount of the rear. I also like the setup of the front end, especially that the fork does not compress too much while braking hard.

Bottom line: now the bike rides much much better than stock, certainly well beyond my expectations, and the nicest thing is that you dramatically improve both performance and comfort in a single shot.

Bye.